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Updated: June 3, 2025
The sky was without a cloud, and all the country and even the forest, which lay three-quarters of a league before us, shone in the moonlight like silver. I thought involuntarily of the wood at Leipzig, where I had slipped into a clay-pit with two Prussian hussars, when poor Klipfel was cut into a thousand pieces at a little distance from me. All this made me very watchful.
I did not care to become acquainted with them, and my only consolation was in thinking of Catharine, and sometimes of my old comrades Klipfel and Zébédé, of whom I received no tidings. It was a sad enough life; the people looked upon us with an evil eye; they dared say nothing, knowing that the French army was only four days' march away, and Blücher and Schwartzenberg much farther.
We must wear our own mourning! And his little brother said: 'No, no, Jacob, I do not want it! and wept! but Klipfel put on the black ribbon notwithstanding; he saw the hussars in his dreams."
"Yes," said I, "that is all very well, but the English and Prussians, you do not think of that." "I despise them," said he, "my sabre cuts like a butcher's knife, and my bayonet is sharp as a needle. It is they who should be afraid to encounter me." We were the best friends in the world, and I liked him almost as well as my old comrades Klipfel, Furst, and Zébédé. And he liked me too.
I wanted to let you have one night more of quiet sleep; but you must know now, my child, that yesterday evening the brigadier of the gendarmes brought me your marching orders. You go with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five or six young men of the city young Klipfel, young Loerig, Jean Léger, and Gaspard Zébédé. You go to Mayence."
His seconds lifted him in their arms, while Zébédé pale as a corpse, gazed at his bloody sabre, and Klipfel handed him his cloak. Almost immediately the reveille was sounded, and we went off to morning call. These events happened on the eighteenth of February.
One may imagine the reflections of a thoughtful man under such circumstances, among such hare-brained fellows as Furst, Zébédé, and Klipfel, who seemed to rejoice at the prospect, as if it could bring them aught else than bullet-wounds or sabre-cuts. All night long I thought of Catharine, and prayed God to preserve my life and my hands, which are so needful for poor people to gain their bread.
In front of us, the Italians talked and laughed among themselves; their three weeks of service had accustomed them to this life. Once on the way to Metting, more than a league from the city, as we began to descend, Klipfel touched me on the shoulder, and whispered: "Look yonder."
But this did not last long; for suddenly Klipfel exclaimed, "Touched!" Then I made my way I know not how to a window, and, looking over the heads of the others, saw the old hussar leaning against the wall, and Zébédé rising, his sabre all dripping with blood.
Klipfel was sabred by the hussars." "Did you see him?" I cried. "Yes; he received over twenty wounds, and kept calling to me for aid." Then, after a moment's pause, he added, "O Joseph! it is terrible to hear the companion of your childhood calling for help, and not be able to give it! But they were too many. They surrounded him on all sides." The thoughts of home rushed upon both our minds.
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