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Updated: June 17, 2025
That night we reached the village of Beauregard, the next night we were at Vitry, near Thionville, where we were stationed till the 8th of June. Buche and I were lodged with a fat landlord named Pochon. He was a very good man and gave us excellent white wine to drink, and liked to talk politics like Mr. Goulden.
Goulden smiled as he sat at his workbench Jean stood up near the door and said: "Now I am going, Joseph, to Harberg. Father and grandmother are waiting for me." "Stay, Jean, you will dine with us." Mr. Goulden and Catherine urged him also, but he would not wait. I embraced him on the stairs and felt that I loved him like a brother.
Then we set about our work again; but the reflections of Monsieur Goulden gave me some terrible subjects for thought. It was true that I was a little lame in the left leg; but how many others with defects of body had received their orders to march notwithstanding! These ideas kept running through my head, and when I thought long over them, I grew very melancholy.
He laughed, but we were quite touched by his generosity. "Ah! Mr. Goulden, how good and kind you are," said Catherine, "they who do not love you, must have very bad hearts." "Ha!" he exclaimed, "is not what I have done quite natural? must we let a few words separate us?
Father Goulden smiled, and said, "If everybody had the courage to follow his own conscience, and if so many persons who joined the processions had not done so from vanity or to show their fine clothes, and if others had not joined from interest, from the hope of getting a good office, or to obtain permits, then Madame Grédel you would be right, and we should not have needed Bonaparte to overturn all that, and you would have seen that three-quarters of the people had common-sense, and perhaps even the Comte d'Artois himself would have cried, Hold!
But as we were taking coffee our sadness returned, and without knowing why, we were all very grave. Nobody wished to speak of politics, when suddenly Aunt Grédel herself asked if there was anything new. Mr. Goulden then said that the Emperor desired peace, and that he wished to put himself in a condition of defence, in order to warn our enemies that we were not afraid.
Catherine stopped her sweeping and said: "It is Mr. Goulden." I also recognized his step, and was surprised, as he seldom came into our chamber. He opened the door and said in a low voice: "My children, the Emperor landed on the 1st of March at Cannes, near Toulon, and is marching upon Paris." He said no more, but sat down to take breath.
Goulden leaned out of the window and said: "Look! all the shops except the inns and the beer-houses are closed!" He laughed, and I asked, "Shall we open our shutters, Mr. Goulden?" He turned round as if surprised: "Look here, Joseph, I never knew a better boy than you, but you lack sense. Why should we close our shutters? Because God created the world in six days and rested the seventh?
"Ah!" he exclaimed; "good! good! I understand now; to-morrow is Catharine's birthday. Now I know why you worked day and night. Hold! take back this money; I do not want it." I was all confusion. "Monsieur Goulden, I thank you," I replied; "but this watch is for Catharine, and I wish to have earned it. You will pain me if you refuse the money; I would as lief not take the watch."
Goulden, if I do not sit every day at your table it is not my fault." She laughed, and as she took up her bundle she said: "Well, good-by, and for the kindness you have shown me I will pray the blessed Saint Quirin to send you a fine fat boy as fresh and rosy as a lady-apple. That is the best thing, Madame Bertha, that an old woman like me can do for you."
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