The Plébiscite; or, A Miller's Story of the War

It had taken fifty-six years, since 1814, to grow these trees; they were in full bearing; for fifty years our children and grand-children will not see their equals around our village; the whole are destroyed! With this spectacle before my eyes, indignation stifled my voice; I turned my eyes away, and went to Cousin George's, hoping to hear there a few words of encouragement.

I was right; the house was full; Cousin Marie Anne, a bold and unceremonious woman, was busy cooking for all her lodgers. Amongst the number were two of her old customers at the Rue Mouffetard; a Jew, who had come to Paris to learn gardening at the Jardin des Plantes, and a saddler, both seated near the hearth with an appearance of shame and melancholy in their countenances. The soldiers, who were crowding even the passage, smoked, and examined now and then to see if the meat and potatoes looked promising in the big copper in the washhouse: there was no other in the house large enough to boil such a large quantity of provisions.

Every soldier had an enormous slice of beef, a loaf, a portion of wine, and even some ground coffee; some had under their arms a rope of onions, turnips, a head of cabbage, stolen right and left. These were the hussars.

In the large parlor were the officers, who had just returned in succession from their reconnaissances; as they went up into the room, you could hear the clanking of their swords and their huge boots making the staircase shake.

As I was coming in by the back door, not having been able to make way through the passage, George was coming out of the room; he saw me above the helmets of all these people, and cried to me: "Christian! stay outside; I am stifled here! I am coming!"

Room was made for him, and we went down together into the garden, under the shelter of his stack of wood. Then he lighted a pipe, and asked me: "Well, how are you going on down there?"

I told him all.

"I," said he, "have already had to receive the colonel of the hussars last night. An hour after the visit of the Uhlans, there is a tap on the shutters; I open. Two squadrons of hussars were standing there, round the house; there was no way of escape."

"'Open!'

"I obey. The colonel, a sort of a wolf, whom I saw just now going to your house, enters the first, pistol in hand; he examines all round: 'You are alone?'

"'Yes; with my wife.'

"'Very well!'

"Then he went into the passage, and called an aide-de-camp. Three or four soldiers came in; they carry chairs and a table into the kitchen. The colonel unfolds a large map upon the floor; he takes off his boots, and lays himself upon it. Then he calls: 'Such a one, are you here?'

"'Present, colonel.'

"Then six or seven captains and lieutenants enter.

"'Such an one, do you see the road to Metting!'

"They had all taken small maps out of their pockets.

"'Yes, colonel.'

"'And from Metting to Sarrebourg?'

"'Yes, colonel.'

"'Tell me the names.'

"And the officer named the villages, the farms, the streams, the rivers, the clumps of wood, the curves in the road, and even the intersection of footpaths.

"The colonel followed with his nail.

"'That will do! Now go and take twenty men and push on as far as St. Jean, by such a road. You will see! In case of resistance, you will inform me. Come, sharp!'

"And the officer goes off.

"The colonel, still lying upon his map, calls another.

"'Present, colonel.'

"'You see Lixheim?'

"'Yes, colonel.'

"And so on.

"In half an hour's time, he had sent off a whole squadron on reconnaissances to Sarrebourg, Lixheim, Diemeringen, Lützelbourg, Fénétrange, everywhere in that direction. And when they had all started, except twenty or thirty horses left behind, he got up from the floor, and said to me: 'You will give me a good bed, and you will prepare breakfast for to-morrow at seven o'clock; all those officers will breakfast with me: they will have good appetites. You have poultry and bacon. Your wife is a good cook, I know; and you have good wine. I require that everything shall be good. You hear me!'

"I made no answer, and I went out to tell my wife, who had just dressed and was coming downstairs. She had heard what was said, and answered, 'Yes, we will obey, since the robbers have the power on their side.'

"That knave of a colonel could hear perfectly well; but it was no matter to him: his business was to get what he wanted.

"My wife took him upstairs and showed him his bed. He looked underneath it, into all the cupboards, the closet; then he opened the two windows in the corner to see his men below at their posts; and then he lay down.

"Until morning all was quiet.

"Then the others came back. The colonel listened to them; he immediately sent some of the men who had stayed behind to Dosenheim, in the direction of Saverne; and about a couple of hours after these same hussars returned with the advanced guard of the army corps. The colonel had ascertained that all the mountain passes were abandoned, and that Lorraine might be entered without danger; that MacMahon and De Failly had arrived in the open plain, and that there would be no battle in our neighborhood."

This is all that Cousin George told me, smoking his pipe.

They had just thrown open the door which opens into the garden, to let air into the kitchen, and we looked from our retreat upon all those Germans with their helmets, their wet clothes, their strings of vegetables, and their joints of meat under their arms. As fast as it was cooked Marie Anne served out the broth, the meat, and the vegetables to those who presented themselves with their basins; when they went out, others came. Never could fresher meat be seen, and in such quantities: one of their pieces would have sufficed four or five Frenchmen.

How sad to think that our own men had suffered hunger in our own country, both before and after the battle! How it makes the heart sink!

Without having said a word, George and I had thought the same thing, for all at once he said: "Yes, those people have managed matters better than we have. That meat is not from this country, since they have not yet requisitioned the cattle. It has come by rail; I saw that this morning on the arrival of the gun-carriages. They have also received for the officers large puddings, bullocks' paunches stuffed with minced meats, and other eatables that I am not acquainted with; only their bread is black, but they seem to enjoy it. Their contractors don't come from the clouds, like ours; they may not set rows of figures quite so straight even as ours; but their soldiers get meat, bread, wine, and coffee, whilst ours are starving, as we ourselves have seen. If they had received half the rations of these men, the peasants of Mederbronn would never have complained of them: they could still have fed the unfortunate men upon their retreat."

About eleven at night I returned to the mill a little calmer. The sentinels knew me already. His highness was asleep; so were also his two aides-de-camp and the chaplain: they had taken possession of our beds without ceremony. The servants had gone to sleep in the barn upon my straw; and as for me, I did not know where to go. Still, I was a little more composed in thinking upon what my cousin had told me. If these Germans received their provisions by railway, all might be well; I hoped we might yet keep our cattle, and that then these people would proceed farther. With this hope I lay on the flour-sacks in the mill and fell fast asleep.

But next day I saw how completely mistaken George was in the matter of provisions. I am not speaking only of all that was stolen in our village; every moment people came to me with complaints, as if I was responsible for everything.

"Monsieur le Maire, they have taken the bacon out of my chimney."

"Monsieur le Maire, they have stolen the boots from under my bed."

"Monsieur le Maire, they have given my hay to their horses. What must I do to feed my cow?"

And so on.

The Prussians are the worst thieves in the world; they have no shame; they would take the bread out of your very mouth to swallow it.

These complaints made me so angry that I took courage to speak to his highness, who listened very kindly, and said it was very unfortunate, but that I should remember the French proverb, "À la guerre, comme à la guerre;" and that this proverb applied to peasants as well as to soldiers.

I could have borne all this if the requisitions had not begun; but now the quartermasters were making their appearance, to settle with me, as they said.

It was of no use to urge that we were poor people, already three-fourths ruined; they answered: "Settle your own business. We must have so many tons of hay; so many bushels of oats, barley, flour; so much of meat, both beef and mutton, of good quality; or else, Monsieur le Maire, we will burn down your village."