The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

"Yes," I replied, "all right, excellent; your plan was a good one; and now, if the spirits of wine only come, we shall be happy."

VIII

FATHER MOSES'S FIRST ENCOUNTER

From that time the sergeant lived with us without troubling anybody. Every morning, before he went to his duties, he came and sat a few minutes in my room, and talked with me while he took his glass. He liked to laugh with Sâfel, and we called him "our sergeant," as if he were one of the family. He seemed to like to be with us; he was a careful man; he would not allow our schabisboïé to black his shoes; he cleaned his own buff-skins, and would not let any one touch his arms.

One morning, when I was going to answer to the call, he met me in the alley, and, seeing a little rust on my musket, he began to swear like the devil.

"Ah! Father Moses, if I had you in my company, it would go hard with you!"

"Yes," thought I; "but, thank God, I'm not."

Sorlé, leaning over the balustrades above, laughed heartily.

From that time the sergeant regularly inspected my equipments; I must clean my gun over and over, take it to pieces, clean the barrel and furbish the bayonet, as if I expected to go and fight. And even when he knew how Monborne treated me, he also wanted to teach me the exercises. All my remonstrances were of no avail, he would frown, and say:

"Father Moses, I can't stand it, that an honest man like you should know less than the rabble. Go along!"

And then we would up to the loft. It was very cold, but the sergeant was so provoked at my want of briskness in performing the movements, that he always put me in a great perspiration before we finished.

"Attention to the word of command, and no laziness!" he would exclaim.

I used to hear Sorlé, Sâfel, and the servant laughing in the stairway, as they peeped through the laths, and I did not dare to turn my head. In fine, it was entirely owing to this good Trubert that I learned to charge well, and became one of the best vaulters in the company.

Ah! Fritz, it would all have been very well if the spirits of wine had come; but instead of my dozen pipes, there came half a company of marine artillery, and four hundred recruits for the sixth light infantry.

About this time the governor ordered that a space six hundred metres wide should be cleared all round the city.

You should have seen the havoc that was made in the place; the fences, palisades, and trees hewn down, the houses demolished, from which everybody carried away a beam or some timbers. You should have looked down from the ramparts and seen the little gardens, the line of poplars, the old trees in the orchards felled to the ground and dragged away by swarms of workmen. You should have seen all this to know what war is!

Father Frise, the two Camus boys, the Sades, the Bosserts, and all the families of the gardeners and small farmers who lived at Phalsburg, suffered the most. I can almost hear old Fritz exclaim:

"Ah! my poor apple-trees! Ah! my poor pear-trees; I planted you myself, forty years ago. How beautiful you were, always covered with fine fruit! Oh, misery! misery!"

And the soldiers still chopped away. Toward the end, old Fritz went away, his cap drawn over his eyes, and weeping bitterly.

The rumor spread also that they were going to burn the Maisons Rouges at the foot of the Mittelbronn hill, the tile-kiln at Pernette, and the little inns of l'Arbre Vert and Panier Fleuri, but it seemed that the governor found it was not necessary as these houses were out of range; or rather, that they would reserve that till later; and, that the allies were coming sooner than they were expected.

Of what happened before the blockade, I remember, too, that on the twenty-second of December, about eleven o'clock in the morning, the call was beat. Everybody supposed that it was for the drill, and I set out quietly, with my musket on my shoulder, as usual; but, as I reached the corner of the mayoralty, I saw the troops of the garrison formed under the trees of the square.

They placed us with them in two ranks; and then Governor Moulin, Commandants Thomas and Pettigenet, and the mayor, with his tri-colored sash, arrived.

They beat the march, and then the drum-major raised his baton, and the drums stopped. The governor began to speak, everybody listened, and the words heard from a distance were repeated from one to another.

"Officers, non-commissioned, National Guards, and Soldiers!

"The enemy is concentrated upon the Rhine, only three days' march from us. The city is declared to be in a state of siege; the civil authorities give place to martial law. A permanent court-martial replaces ordinary tribunals.

"Inhabitants of Phalsburg! we expect from you courage, devotion, obedience! Vive l'Empereur!"

And a thousand cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" filled the air.

I trembled to the ends of my hair; my spirits of wine were still on the road; I considered myself a ruined man.

The immediate distribution of cartridges, and the order to the battalion to go and forage for provisions, and bring in cattle from the surrounding villages for the supply of the city, prevented me from thinking of my misfortune.

I had also to think of my own life, for, in receiving such an order, we supposed of course that the peasants would resist, and it is abominable to have to fight the people you are robbing.

I was very pale as I thought of all this.

But when Commandant Thomas cried out, "Charge!" and I tore off my first cartridge, and put it in the barrel, and, instead of hearing the ramrod I felt a ball at the bottom! – when they ordered us: "By file – left! left! forward! quick step! march!" and we set out for the barracks of the Bois-de-Chênes, while the first battalion went on to Quatre-Vents and Bichelberg, the second to Wechern and Metting; when I thought that we were going to seize and carry away everything, and that the court-martial was at the mayoralty to pass sentence upon those who did not do their duty; – all these new and terrible things completely upset me. I was troubled as I saw the village in the distance, and pictured to myself beforehand the cries of the women and children.

You see, Fritz, to take from the poor peasant all his living at the beginning of winter; to take from him his cow, his goats, his pigs, everything in short, it is dreadful! and my own misfortune made me feel more for that of others.

And then, as we marched, I thought of my daughter Zeffen, and Baruch, and their children, and I exclaimed to myself:

"Mercy on us! if the enemy comes, what will they do in an exposed town like Saverne? They will lose everything. We may be beggared any day."

These thoughts took away my breath, and in the midst of them I saw some peasants, who, from their little windows, watched our approach over the fields and along their street, without stirring. They did not know what we were coming for.

Six mounted soldiers preceded us; Commandant Thomas ordered them to pass to the right and left of the barracks, to prevent the peasants from driving their cattle into the woods, when they had found out that we had come to rob them.

They set off on a gallop.

We came to the first house, where there is the stone crucifix. We heard the order:

"Halt!"

Then thirty men were detached to act as sentinels in the little streets, and I was among the number, which I liked, for I preferred being on duty to going into their stables and barns.

As we filed through the principal street the peasants asked us:

"What is going on? Have they been cutting wood? Have they been making arrests?" and such like questions. But we did not answer them, and hastened on.

Monborne placed me in the third street to the right, near the large house of Father Franz, who raised bees on the slope of the valley behind his house. We heard the sheep bleating and the cattle lowing; that wretch of a Monborne said, winking at me:

"It will be jolly! We will make the Baraquois open their eyes."

He had no mercy in him. He said to me:

"Moses, thou must stay there. If any one tries to pass, cross your bayonet. If any one resists, prick him well and then fire. The law must be supported by force."

I don't know where the cobbler picked up that expression; but he left me in the street, between two fences white with frost, and went on his way with the rest of the guard.

I waited there nearly twenty minutes, considering what I should do if the peasants tried to save their property, and thinking it would be much better to fire upon the cattle than upon their owners.

I was much perplexed and was very cold, when I heard a great shouting; at the same time the drum began to beat. Some men went into the stables and drove the cattle. The Baraquins swore and wept; some tried to defend themselves. Commandant Thomas cried out: