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I only hope the Lord will save us from it for ages to come! At last, on the 16th July, 1815, about eleven o'clock in the morning, we reached Mittelbronn, the last village on that side, before reaching Pfalzbourg. The siege was raised after the armistice, and the whole country was full of Cossacks, Landwehr, and Kaiserlichs.
The thought of Catherine, and Mr. Goulden, and Pfalzbourg, did not enter my mind. What astonishes me to-day is, that we were not massacred a hundred times on the road, where files of English and Prussians were passing. But perhaps they mistook us for Germans, or they were running after the Emperor, for they were all hoping to see him.
Under the Empire I see too at nightfall, Father Coiffé, Nicholas Rolfo, and five or six other veterans, loading their cannon for the evening salute of twenty-one guns, while half of Pfalzbourg stand on the opposite bastion looking at the red light, and smoke, and watching the wads as they fall into the moat; then the illuminations at night and the crackers and rockets, I hear the children cry Vive l'Empereur, and then some days after, the death notices and the conscription.
"I do not deny it, but all that will not prevent Joseph from being compelled to go away." I turned quite pale, for I saw that she was right. "Yes," said Mr. Goulden, "I knew that some days ago, and this is what I have done. You have heard, no doubt, Mother Grédel, that great workshops have been built for repairing arms. There is an arsenal at Pfalzbourg, but they are in want of skilful workmen.
I could not shake off my sadness for a long time, when a voice near me said: "Good-morning, Joseph." I was awakened, and looking at the man who spoke to me, I recognized the son of Martin the tanner, our neighbor at Pfalzbourg; he was corporal of the Sixth, and the file-closer, marching with arms at will. We shook hands. It was a real consolation for me to see some one from our own place.
When the commandant, Mr. Montravel, came to see us, he praised me. "Excellent!" said he, "that is good! I am pleased with you, Bertha." These words filled me with satisfaction, and I did not fail to report them to Catherine, in order to raise her spirits. We were almost certain that Mr. Montravel would keep me at Pfalzbourg.
Buche kept saying: "Well! a dozen big potatoes roasted in the ashes as we do at Harberg would rejoice my eyes. We don't eat meat every day at home, but we always have potatoes." I thought of our warm little room at Pfalzbourg, the table with its white cloth, Father Goulden with his plate before him, while Catherine served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron.
The Emperor is the strongest, and he has called us, and we must come in spite of everything, from Pfalzbourg, from Saverne, or other cities, and take our places in the ranks and march. The one who would show the least sign of resistance ought to be shot at once.
All I can say is, and there is not an old man in Pfalzbourg who will assert the contrary, that Catherine was not the least beautiful girl in the country, and that Joseph Bertha was not to be pitied. She had passed, and the procession halted on the "Place d'armes," before the high altar at the right of the church. The priest officiated, and silence spread all over the city.
He recovered himself at last and said slowly: "You are wrong, Madame Grédel, to reproach me, for if I had wished to change I should have begun sooner. Instead of being a clock-maker in Pfalzbourg I should have been a colonel or a general, like the others, but I always have been, I am now, and shall remain till I die, for the Republic and the Rights of Man."
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