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

The stamping outside continued, and when I went out there was a great whistling in the balcony, the arch, and everywhere, and shouts of "Moses! hey, Moses! this way!"

But I did not turn my head, and went home very sad.

Sorlé handed me a summons to appear as a witness before the court-martial, which a gendarme had just brought; and till nine o'clock I sat meditating behind the stove, trying to think of some way of escape for the prisoner.

Sâfel was playing with the children; Zeffen and Sorlé had gone down to continue our sales.

A few minutes before nine I started for the townhouse, which was already so crowded that, had it not been for the guard at the door, and the gendarmes scattered within the building, the witnesses could hardly have got in.

Just as I got there, Captain Monbrun was beginning to read his report. Burguet sat opposite, with his head leaning on his hand.

They showed me into a little room, where were Winter, Chevreux, Dubourg, and the gendarme Fiegel; so that we didn't hear anything before being called.

On the wall at the right it was written in large letters that any witness who did not tell the truth, should be delivered to the council, and suffer the same penalty as the accused. This made one consider, and I resolved at once to conceal nothing, as was right and sensible. The gendarme also informed us that we were forbidden to speak to each other.

After a quarter of an hour Winter was summoned, and then, at intervals of ten minutes, Chevreux, Dubourg, and myself.

When I went into the court-room, the judges were all in their places; the major had laid his hat on the desk before him; the recorder was mending his pen. Burguet looked at me calmly. Without they were stamping, and the major said to the brigadier:

"Inform the public that if this noise continues, I shall have the mayoralty cleared."

The brigadier went out at once, and the major said to me:

"National guard Moses, make your deposition. What do you know?"

I told it all simply. The deserter at the left, between two gendarmes, seemed more dead than alive. I would gladly have acquitted him of everything; but when a man fears for himself, when old officers in full dress are scowling at you as if they could see through you, the simplest and best way is not to lie. A father's first thought should be for his children! In short, I told everything that I had seen, nothing more or less, and at last the major said to me:

"That is enough; you may go."

But seeing that the others, Winter, Chevreux, Dubourg, remained sitting on a bench at the left, I did the same.

Almost immediately five or six good-for-nothings began to stamp and murmur, "Shoot him! shoot him!" The president ordered the brigadier to arrest them, and in spite of their resistance they were all led to prison. Silence was then established in the court-room, but the stampings without continued.

"Judge-advocate, it is your turn to speak," said the major.

This judge-advocate, who seems now before my eyes, and whom I can almost hear speak, was a man of fifty, short and thick, with a short neck, long, thick, straight nose, very wide forehead, shining black hair, thin mustaches, and bright eyes. While he was listening, his head turned right and left as if on a pivot; you could see his long nose and the corner of his eye, but his elbows did not stir from the table. He looked like one of those large crows which seem to be sleeping in the fields at the close of autumn, and yet see everything that is going on around them.

Now and then he raised his arm as if to draw back his sleeve, as advocates have a way of doing. He was in full dress, and spoke terribly well, in a clear and strong voice, stopping and looking at the people to see if they agreed with him; and if he saw even a slight grimace, he began again at once in some other way, and, as it were, obliged you to understand in spite of yourself.

As he went on very slowly, without hurrying or forgetting anything, to show that the deserter was on the road when we arrested him, that he not only had the intention of escaping, but was already outside of the city, quite as guilty as if he had been found in the ranks of the enemy – as he clearly showed all this, I was angry because he was right, and I thought to myself, "Now, what was there to be said in reply."

And then, when he said that the greatest of crimes was to abandon one's flag, because one betrays at once his country, his family, all that has a right to his life, and makes himself unworthy to live; when he said that the court would follow the conscience of all who had a heart, of all who held to the honor of France; that he would give a new example of his zeal for the safety of the country and the glory of the Emperor; that he would show the new recruits that they could only succeed by doing their duty and by obeying orders; when he said all this with terrible power and clearness, and I heard from time to time, a murmur of assent and admiration, then, Fritz, I thought that the Lord alone was able to save that man!

The deserter sat motionless, his arms folded on the dock, and his face upon them. He felt, doubtless, as I did, and every one in the room, and the court itself. Those old men seemed pleased as they heard the judge-advocate express so well what had all along been their own opinion. Their faces showed their satisfaction.

This lasted for more than an hour. The captain sometimes stopped a moment to give his audience time to reflect on what he had said. I have always thought that he must have been attorney-general, or something more dangerous still to deserters.

I remember that he said, in closing, "You will make an example! You will be of one mind. You will not forget that, at this time, firmness in the court is more necessary than ever to the safety of the country."

When he sat down, such a murmur of approbation arose in the room that it reached the stairway at once, and we heard the shouts outside, "Vive l'Empereur!"

The major and the other members of the council looked smilingly at each other, as if to say, "It is all settled. What remains is a mere formality!"

The shouts without increased. This lasted more than ten minutes. At last the major said:

"Brigadier, if the tumult continues, clear the town-house! Begin with the court-room!"

There was silence at once, for every one was curious to know what Burguet would say in reply. I would not have given two farthings for the life of the deserter.

"Counsel for the prisoner, you have the floor!" said the major, and Burguet rose.

Now, Fritz, if I had an idea that I could repeat to you what Burguet said, for a whole hour, to save the life of a poor conscript; if I should try to depict his face, the sweetness of his voice, and then his heart-rending cries, and then his silent pauses and his appeals – if I had such an idea, I should consider myself a being full of pride and vanity!

No; nothing finer was ever heard. It was not a man speaking; it was a mother, trying to snatch her babe from death! Ah! what a great thing it is to have this power of moving to tears those who hear us! But we ought not to call it talent, it is heart.

"Who is there without faults? Who does not need pity?"

This is what he said, as he asked the council if they could find a perfectly blameless man; if evil thoughts never came to the bravest; if they had never, for even a day or a moment, had the thought of running away to their native village, when they were young, when they were eighteen, when father and mother and the friends of their childhood were living, and they had not another in the world. A poor child without instruction, without knowledge of the world, brought up at hap-hazard, thrown into the army – what could you expect of him? What fault of his could not be pardoned? What does he know of country, the honor of his flag, the glory of his Majesty? Is it not later in life that these great ideas come to him?

And then he asked those old men if they had not a son, if they were sure that, even at that moment, that son were not committing an offence which was liable to the punishment of death. He said to them:

"Plead for him! What would you say? You would say, 'I am an old soldier. For thirty years I have shed my blood for France. I have grown gray upon the battle-fields, I am riddled with wounds, I have gained every rank at the point of the sword. Ah, well! take my epaulettes, take my decorations, take everything; but save my child! Let my blood be the ransom for his offence! He does not know the greatness of his crime; he is too young; he is a conscript; he loved us; he longed to embrace us, and then go back again – he loved a maiden. Ah! you, too, have been young! Pardon him. Do not disgrace an old soldier in his son.'

"Perhaps you could say, too, 'I had other sons. They died for their country. Let their blood answer for his, and give me back this one – the last that I have left!'

"This is what you would say, and far better than I, because you would be the father, the old soldier speaking of his own services! Well, the father of this youth could speak like you! He is an old soldier of the Republic! He went with you, perhaps, when the Prussians entered Champagne! He was wounded at Fleurus! He is an old comrade in arms! His oldest son was left behind in Russia!"

And Burguet turned pale as he spoke. It seemed as if grief had robbed him of his strength, and he were about to fall. The silence was so great that we heard the breathing throughout the court-room. The deserter sobbed. Everybody thought, "It is done! Burguet need say no more! It must be that he has gained his cause!"

But all at once he began again in another and more tender manner. Speaking slowly, he described the life of a poor peasant and his wife, who had but one comfort, one solitary hope on earth – their child! As we listened we saw these poor people, we heard them talk together, we saw over the door the old chapeau of the time of the Republic. And when we were thinking only of this, suddenly Burguet showed us the old man and his wife learning that their son had been killed, not by Russians or Germans, but by Frenchmen. We heard the old man's cry!

But it was terrible, Fritz! I wanted to run away. The officers of the council, several of whom were married men, looked before them with fixed eyes, and clinched hands; their gray mustaches shook. The major had raised his hand two or three times, as if to signify that it was enough, but Burguet had always something still more powerful, more just, more grand to add. His plea lasted till nearly eleven, when he sat down. There was not a murmur to be heard in the three rooms nor outside. And the judge-advocate on the other side began again, saying that all that signified nothing, that it was unfortunate for the father that his son was unworthy, that every man clung to his children, that soldiers must be taught not to desert in face of the enemy; that, if the court yielded to such arguments, nobody would ever be shot, discipline would be utterly destroyed, the army could not exist, and that the army was the strength and glory of the country.

Burguet replied almost immediately. I cannot recall what he said; my head could not hold so many things at once: but I shall never forget this, that about one o'clock, the council having sent us away that they might deliberate – the prisoner meanwhile having been taken back to his cell – after a few minutes we were allowed to return, and the major, standing on the platform where conscriptions were drawn, declared that the accused Jean Balin was acquitted, and gave the order for his immediate release.

It was the first acquittal since the departure of the Spanish prisoners before the blockade; the rowdies, who had come in crowds to see a man condemned and shot, could not believe it; several of them exclaimed: "We are cheated!"

But the major ordered Brigadier Descarmes to take the names of these brawlers, so that they should be seen to; then the whole mass trampled down the stairs in five minutes, and we, in our turn, were able to descend.

I had taken Burguet by the arm, my eyes full of tears.

"Are you satisfied, Moses?" said he, already quite his own joyous self again.

"Burguet!" said I, "Aaron himself, the own brother of Moses, and the greatest orator of Israel, could not have spoken better than you did; it was admirable! I owe my peace of mind to you! Whatever you may ask for so great a service I am ready to give to the extent of my means."

We went down the stairs; the members of the council following us thoughtfully, one by one. Burguet smiled.

"Do you mean it, Moses?" said he, stopping under the arch.