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

"You are not well, Moses," said Burguet. "What is the matter?"

"I am thinking of all the evils which are coming to the city."

"Bah! don't be afraid," he replied. "We shall be strongly defended! And then, God help us! what can't be cured must be endured! Come! cheer up; this old wine will keep up our spirits."

We resumed our places. I opened the bottle, and it was as Burguet said. The old Rousillon did us good, and we began to laugh.

Burguet called out:

"To the health of the little Esdras! May the Lord cover him with his right hand!"

And the glasses clinked. Some one exclaimed: "May he long rejoice the hearts of his grandfather Moses and his grandmother Sorlé! To their health!"

We ended by looking at everything in rose-color, and glorifying the Emperor, who was hastening to defend us, and was soon going to crush all the beggars beyond the Rhine.

But it is equally true that, when we separated about five o'clock, everybody had become serious, and Burguet himself, when he shook hands with me at the foot of the stairs, looked anxious.

"We shall have to send home our pupils," said he, "and we must sit with our arms folded."

The Saverne people, with Zeffen, Baruch, and the children, got into their carriage, and started silently for home.

IV

FATHER MOSES COMPELLED TO BEAR ARMS

All this, Fritz, was but the beginning of troubles.

You should have seen the city the next morning, at about eleven o'clock, when the engineering officers had finished inspecting the ramparts, and the tidings suddenly spread that there were needed seventy-two platforms inside the bastions, three bomb-proof block-houses, for thirty men each, at the right and left of the German gate, ten palankas with battlements forming stronghold intrenchments for forty men, and four blindages upon the great square of the mayoralty to shelter each a hundred and ten men; and when it was known that the citizens would be obliged to work at all these, to provide themselves with shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows, and the peasants to bring trees with their own horses!

As for Sorlé, Sâfel, and myself, we did not even know what blindages and palankas were; we asked our neighbor Bailly, an old armorer, what they were for, and he answered with a smile:

"You will find out, neighbor, when you hear the balls roar and the shells hiss. It would take too long to explain. You will see, by and by; never too late to learn."

Imagine how the people looked! I remember that everybody ran to the square, where our mayor, Baron Parmentier, made a speech. We ran there with all the rest.

Sorlé held me by the arm, and Sâfel by the skirt of my coat.

There, in front of the mayoralty, the whole city, men, women, and children, formed in a semicircle, and listened in the deepest silence, now and then crying all together, "Vive l'Empereur!"

Parmentier, a tall, thin man, in a sky-blue dress-coat, a white cravat, and the tri-colored sash around his waist, stood on the top of the steps of the guard-house, with the members of the municipal council behind him, under the arch, and shouted out:

"Phalsburgians! The time has come in which to show your devotion to the Empire. A year ago all Europe was with us, now all Europe is against us. We should have everything to fear without the energy and power of the people. He who will not do his duty now will be a traitor to his country! Inhabitants of Phalsburg, show what you are! Remember that your children have perished through the treachery of the allies. Avenge them! Let every one be obedient to the military authority, for the sake of the safety of France," etc.

Only to hear him made one's flesh creep, and I said to myself:

"Now there will not be time for the spirits of wine to get here – that is plain! The allies are on their way!"

Elias the butcher, and Kalmes Levy the ribbon-merchant, were standing near us. Instead of crying "Vive l'Empereur!" with the rest, they said to each other:

"Good! we are not barons, you and I! Barons, counts, and dukes have but to defend themselves. Are we to think only of their interests?"

But all the old soldiers, and especially those of the Republic, old Goulden, the clockmaker, Desmarels, the Egyptian – creatures with not a hair left on their heads, nor as much as four teeth to hold their pipes – these creatures fell in with the mayor, and cried out:

"Vive la France! We must defend ourselves to the death!"

I saw several looking askance at Kalmes Levy, and I whispered to him:

"Keep still, Kalmes! For heaven's sake, keep still! They will tear you in pieces!"

It was true. The old men gave him terrible looks; they grew pale, and their cheeks shook.

Then Kalmes stopped talking, and even left the crowd to return home. But Elias stayed till the end of the speech, and, as the whole mass of people were going down the main street, shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" he could not help saying to the old clockmaker:

"What! you, Mr. Goulden, a reasonable man, who have never wanted anything of the Emperor, you are now going to take his part, and cry out that we must defend ourselves till death! Is it our business to be soldiers? Have not we furnished enough soldiers to the Empire these last ten years? Have not enough men been killed? Must we give, besides, our own blood to support barons, counts, and dukes?"

But old Goulden did not let him finish, and replied, as if indignant: "Listen, Elias! try to keep still! The thing now to be done is not to know what is right or wrong – it is to save France. I warn you, that if you try to discourage others, it will be bad for you. Believe me – go!"

Already a number of superannuated soldiers were gathered round us, and Elias had only time to retreat by the opposite lane.

From this time public notices, requisitions, forced labors, domiciliary visits for tools and wheelbarrows, came one after another, incessantly. A man was nothing in his own house; the officers of the place assumed authority over everything: only to be sure, they gave receipts.

All the tools from my storehouse of iron were in use on the ramparts. Fortunately I had sold a good many beforehand, for these tickets in place of my wares would have ruined me.

From time to time the mayor made a speech, and the governor, a fat man, covered with pimples, expressed his satisfaction to the citizens; that made up for their money!

When my time came to take the pickaxe and draw the wheelbarrow, I arranged with Carabin, the wood-sawyer, to take my place for thirty sous. Ah, what misery! Such a time will never come again.

While the governor commanded us within the city, the soldiers were always outside to superintend the peasants. The road to Lutzelburg was but one line of carts, laden with old oaks for building blockhouses. These are large sentry-boxes, or turrets, built up of solid trunks of trees, laid crosswise one upon another, and then covered with earth. These are more solid than an arch. Shells and bombs might rain upon them without disturbing anything within, as I found afterward.

These trees were also used to make lines of enormous palisades, pointed and pierced with holes for firing; these are what they call palankas.

I seem still to hear the shouts of the peasants, the neighing of the horses, the strokes of the whips, and all the other noises, which never stopped, day or night.

My only consolation was in thinking, "If the spirits of wine comes now, it will be well defended; the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians will not drink it here!"

Every morning Sorlé expected to receive the invoice.

One Sabbath day we had the curiosity to go and see the works of the bastions. Everybody was talking about it, and Sâfel kept coming to me, saying: "The work is going on; they are filling the shells in front of the arsenal; they are taking out the cannon; they are mounting them on the ramparts!"

We could not keep the child away. He had nothing to sell now under the market, and it would be too tedious for him to stay at home. He scoured the city, and brought us back the news.

On this day, then, having heard that forty-two pieces were ranged in battery, and that they were continuing the work upon the bastion of the infantry-barracks, I told Sorlé to bring her shawl, and we would go and see.

We first went down to the French gate. Hundreds of wheelbarrows were going up the ramparts of the bastion, from which could be seen the road to Metz on the right and the road to Paris on the left.

There, above, crowds of laborers, soldiers and citizens, were heaping up a mass of earth in the form of a triangle, at least twenty-five feet in height, and two hundred in length and breadth.

An engineering officer had discovered with his spy-glass that this bastion was commanded by the hill opposite, and so everybody was set to work to place two pieces on a level with the hill.