The Conscript: A Story of the French war of 1813

I remember no more, but I have the faint impression of hearing the sound of heavy guns and rattle of musketry, mingled with shouts and commands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass between me and the sky through the night; but all this might have been a dream. But that day, behind Solmunster, in the woods of Hanau, we had a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them.

XXII

On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after the battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a little, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head, then at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver sheen, I exclaimed: "It is winter!" At the same time I heard the crash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over on my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young woman, with her arms folded, and I recognized – Catharine! I recognized, too, the room where I had spent so many happy Sundays before going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who seemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, "Where is Aunt Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a dream!"

At last I took courage and called softly:

"Catharine!" And she, turning her head cried:

"Joseph! Do you know me?"

"Yes," I replied, holding out my hand.

She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the cannon thundered.

"What are those shots I hear?" I cried.

"The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged."

"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!"

I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone for nothing, ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing else; and now, old and gray-haired as I am, the thought fills me with bitterness. Yes, we old men have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since 1804, but even those of the Republic. These were the fruits of ten years of glory!

But let us not speak of these things, the future will pass upon them. They will tell us that after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle, with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the Emperor refused to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of France!

But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg.

They stretched in one long line through all Alsace to Lorraine.

Not one in the sad cortége escaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and Catharine. What their thoughts were, I need not say. More than twelve hundred wagons had passed; – I was in none of them. Thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them for their children. How many returned without them!

The third day Catharine found me among a heap of other wretches, in basket wagons from Mayence, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes – dying of hunger. She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried:

"Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"

She took me home, and watched over me night and day. I wanted only water, for which I constantly shrieked. No one in the village believed that I would ever recover, but the happiness of breathing my native air and of once more seeing those I loved, saved me.

It was about six months after, on the 15th of July, 1814, that Catharine and I were married; Monsieur Goulden, who loved us as his own children, gave me half his business, and we lived together as happy as birds.

Then the wars were ended; the allies gradually returned to their homes; the Emperor went to Elba, and King Louis XVIII. gave us a reasonable amount of liberty. Once more the sweet days of youth returned – the days of love, of labor, and of peace. The future was once more full of hope – of hope that every one, by good conduct and economy, would at some time attain a position in the world, win the esteem of good men, and raise his family without fear of being carried off by the conscription seven or eight years after.

Monsieur Goulden, who was not too well satisfied at seeing the old kings and nobility return, thought, notwithstanding, that they had suffered enough in foreign lands to understand that they were not the only people in the world, and to respect our rights; he thought, too, that the Emperor Napoleon would have the good sense to remain quiet – but he was mistaken. The Bourbons returned with their old notions, and the Emperor only awaited the moment of vengeance.

All this was to bring more miseries upon us, which I would willingly relate, if this story did not seem already long enough. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813 – that my story may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor – then I will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of Waterloo!

notes

1

League of virtue.

2

A game at cards, played among soldiers, in which the loser wears a forked stick on his nose till he wins again.

3

On the English map the river is the Rotha, not the Partha (or Parde), and at the point here alluded to it joins the Elster, not the Pleisse, as stated previously. —Translator's Note.