The Conscript: A Story of the French war of 1813

I told her that I was billeted at her house. She came downstairs, and, looking at my billet, told me in German to follow her.

I ascended the stairs. Passing an open door, I saw two men naked to the waist at work before an oven. I was, then, at a baker's, and her having so much work accounted for the old woman being up so late. She wore a cap with black ribbons, a large blue apron, and her arms were bare to the elbows; she, too, had been working, and seemed very sorrowful. She led me into a good-sized room with a porcelain stove and a bed at the farther end.

"You come late," she said.

"We were marching all day," I replied, "and I am fainting with hunger and weariness."

She looked at me and I heard her say:

"Poor child! poor child! Well, take off your shoes and put on these sabots."

Then she made me sit before the stove, and asked:

"Are your feet sore?"

"Yes, they have been so for three days."

She put the candle upon the table and went out. I took off my coat and shoes. My feet were blistered and bleeding, and pained me horribly, and I felt for the moment as if it would almost be better to die at once than continue in such suffering.

This thought had more than once arisen to my mind in the march, but now, before that good fire, I felt so worn, so miserable, that I would gladly have lain myself down to sleep forever, notwithstanding Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and all who loved me. Truly, I needed God's assistance.

While these thoughts were running through my head, the door opened, and a tall, stout man, gray-haired, but yet strong and healthy, entered. He was one of those I had seen at work below, and held in his hands a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Good-evening!" said he, gravely and kindly.

I looked up. The old woman was behind him. She was carrying a little wooden tub, which she placed on the floor near my chair.

"Take a foot-bath," said she; "it will do you good."

This kindness on the part of a stranger affected me more than I cared to show, and I thought: "There are kind people in the world." I took off my stockings; my feet were bleeding, and the good old dame repeated, as she gazed at them:

"Poor child! poor child!"

The man asked me whence I came. I told him from Phalsbourg in Lorraine. Then he told his wife to bring some bread, adding that, after we had taken a glass of wine together, he would leave me to the repose I needed so much.

He pushed the table before me, as I sat with my feet in the bath, and we each drained a glass of good white wine. The old woman returned with some hot bread, over which she had spread fresh, half-melted butter. Then I knew how hungry I was. I was almost ill. The good people saw my eagerness for food; for the woman said:

"Before eating, my child, you must take your feet out of the bath."

She knelt down and dried my feet with her apron before I knew what she was about to do. I cried:

"Good Heavens! madame; you treat me as if I were your son."

She replied, after a moment's mournful silence:

"We have a son in the army."

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and my heart bled within me. I thought of Catharine and Aunt Grédel, and could not speak again. I ate and drank with a pleasure I never before felt in doing so. The two old people sat gazing kindly on me, and, when I had finished, the man said:

"Yes, we have a son in the army; he went to Russia last year, and we have not since heard from him. These wars are terrible!"

He spoke dreamily, as if to himself, all the while walking up and down the room, his hands crossed behind his back. My eyes began to close when he said suddenly:

"Come, wife. Good-night, conscript."

They went out together, she carrying the tub.

"God reward you," I cried, "and bring your son safe home!"

In a minute I was undressed, and, sinking on the bed, I was almost immediately buried in a deep sleep.

IX

The next morning I awoke at about seven o'clock. A trumpet was sounding the recall at the corner of the street; horses, wagons, and men and women on foot were hurrying past the house. My feet were yet somewhat sore, but nothing to what they had been; and when I had dressed, I felt like a new man, and thought to myself:

"Joseph, if this continues, you will soon be a soldier. It is only the first step that costs."

I dressed in this cheerful mood. The baker's wife had put my shoes to dry before the fire, after filling them with hot ashes to keep them from growing hard. They were well greased and shining.

Then I buckled on my knapsack, and hurried out, without having time to thank those good people – a duty I intended to fulfil after roll-call. At the end of the street – on the square – many of our Italians were already waiting, shivering around the fountain. Furst, Klipfel, and Zébédé arrived a moment after.

Cannon and their caissons covered one entire side of the square. Horses were being brought to water, led by hussars and dragoons. Opposite us were cavalry barracks, high as the church at Phalsbourg, while around the other three sides rose old houses with sculptured gables, like those at Saverne, but much larger. I had never seen anything like all this, and while I stood gazing around, the drums began to beat, and each man took his place in the ranks, and we were informed, first in Italian and then in French, that we were about to receive our arms, and each one was ordered to stand forth as his name was called.

The wagons containing the arms now came up, and the call began. Each received a cartouche-box, a sabre, a bayonet, and a musket. We put them on as well as we could, over our blouses, coats or great-coats, and we looked, with our hats, our caps, and our arms, like a veritable band of banditti. My musket was so long and heavy that I could scarcely carry it; and the Sergeant Pinto showed me how to buckle on the cartouche-box. He was a fine fellow, Pinto.

So many belts crossing my chest made me feel as if I could scarcely breathe, and I saw at once that my miseries had not yet ended.

After the arms, an ammunition-wagon advanced, and they distributed fifty rounds of cartridges to each man. This was no pleasant augury. Then, instead of ordering us to break ranks and return to our lodgings, Captain Vidal drew his sabre and shouted:

"By file right – march!"

The drums began to beat. I was grieved at not being able to thank my hosts for their kindness, and thought that they would consider me ungrateful. But that did not prevent my following the line of march.

We passed through a long winding street, and soon found ourselves without the glacis, and near the frozen Rhine. Across the river high hills appeared, and on the hills, old, gray, ruined castles, like those of Haut-Bas and Géroldseck in the Vosges.

The battalion descended to the river-bank, and crossed upon the ice. The scene was magnificent – dazzling. We were not alone on the ice; five or six hundred paces before us there was a train of powder wagons guarded by artillerymen on the way to Frankfort. Crossing the river we continued our march for five hours through the mountains. Sometimes we discovered villages in the defiles; and Zébédé, who was next to me, said:

"As we had to leave home, I would rather go as a soldier than otherwise. At least we shall see something new every day, and, if we are lucky enough ever to return, how much we will have to talk of!"

"Yes," said I; "but I would like better to have less to talk about, and to live quietly, toiling on my own account and not on account of others, who remain safe at home while we climb about here on the ice."

"You do not care for glory," said he; "and yet glory is something."

And I answered him:

"Glory is not for such as we, Zébédé; it is for others who live well, eat well, and sleep well. They have dancings and rejoicings, as we see by the gazettes, and glory too in the bargain, when we have won it by dint of sweat, fasting and broken bones. But poor wretches like us, forced away from home, when at last they return, after losing their habits of labor and industry, and, mayhap a limb, get but little of your glory. Many a one, among their old friends – no better men than they – who were not, perhaps so good workmen, have made money during the conscript's seven years of war, have opened a shop, married their sweethearts, had pretty children, are men of position – city councillors – notables. And when the others, who have returned from seeking glory by killing their fellow-men, pass by with their chevrons on their arms, those old friends turn a cold shoulder upon them, and if the soldier has a red nose through drinking brandy which was necessary to keep his blood warm in the rain, the snow, the forced march, while they were drinking good wine, they say – 'There goes a drunkard!' and the poor conscript, who only asked to be let stay at home and work, becomes a sort of beggar. This is what I think about the matter, Zébédé; I cannot see the justice of all this, and I would rather have these friends of glory go fight themselves, and leave us to remain in peace at home."

"Well," he replied, "I think much as you do, but, as we are forced to fight, it is as well to say that we are fighting for glory. If we go about looking miserable, people will laugh at us."