“How they are fighting, Sorlé, how they are fighting!” I exclaimed, as I pictured to myself the fury of those men murdering each other at the dead of night, not knowing what they were doing. “Listen! Sorlé, listen! If that does not make one shudder!”
“Yes,” said she. “I hope our sergeant will not be wounded; I hope he will come back safe!”
“May the Lord watch over him!” I replied, jumping from my bed, and lighting a candle.
I could not control myself. I dressed myself as quickly as if I were going to run away; and afterward I listened to that terrible rolling, which came nearer or died away with every gust of wind.
When once dressed, I opened a window, to try to see something. The street was still black; but toward the ramparts, above the dark line of the arsenal bastions, was stretched a line of red.
The smoke of powder is red on account of the musket shots which light it up. It looked like a great fire. All the windows in the street were open: nothing could be seen, but I heard our neighbor the armorer say to his wife, “It is growing warm down there! It is the beginning of the dance, Annette; but they have not got the big drum yet; that will come, by and by!”
The woman did not answer, and I thought, “Is it possible to jest about such things! It is against nature.”
The cold was so severe that after five or six minutes I shut the window. Sorlé got up and made a fire in the stove.
The whole city was in commotion; men were shouting and dogs barking. Sâfel, who had been wakened by all these noises, went to dress himself in the warm room. I looked very tenderly on this poor little one, his eyes still heavy with sleep; and as I thought that we were to be fired upon, that we must hide ourselves in cellars, and all of us be in danger of being killed for matters which did not concern us, and about which nobody had asked our opinion, I was full of indignation. But what distressed me most was to hear Zeffen sob and say that it would have been better for her and her children to stay with Baruch at Saverne and all die together.
Then the words of the prophet came to me: “Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
“Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent, or where were the righteous cut off.
“No, they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same.
“By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.
“But thee, his servant, he shall redeem from death.
“Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.”
In this way I strengthened my heart, while I heard the great tumult of the panic-stricken crowd, running and trying to save their property.
About seven o’clock it was announced that the casemates were open, and that everybody might take their mattresses there, and that there must be tubs full of water in every house, and the wells left open in case of fire.
Think, Fritz, what ideas these orders suggested.
Some of our neighbors, Lisbeth Dubourg, Bével Ruppert, Camus’s daughters, and some others, came up to us exclaiming, “We are all lost!”
Their husbands had gone out, right and left, to see what they could see, and these women hung on Zeffen and Sorlé’s necks, repeating again and again, “Oh, dear! oh, dear! what misery!”
I could have wished them all to the devil, for instead of comforting us they only increased our fears; but at such times women will get together and cry out all at once; you can’t talk reason to them; they like these loud cryings and groanings.
Just as the clock struck eight, Bailly the armorer came to find his wife: he had come from the ramparts. “The Russians,” he said, “have come down in a mass from Quatre-Vents to the very gate, filling the whole plain—Cossacks, Baskirs, and rabble! Why don’t they fire down upon them from the ramparts? The governor is betraying us.”
“Where are our soldiers?” I asked.
“Retreating!” exclaimed he. “The wounded came back two hours ago, and our men stay yonder, with folded arms.”
His bony face shook with rage. He led away his wife; then others came crying out, “The enemy has advanced to the lower part of the gardens, upon the glacis.” I was astonished at these things.
The women had gone away to cry somewhere else, and just then a great noise of wheels was heard from the direction of the rampart. I looked out of the window, and saw a wagon from the arsenal, some citizen gunners; old Goulden, Holender, Jacob Cloutier, and Barrier galloped at its sides; Captain Jovis ran in front. They stopped at our door.
“Call the iron-merchant!” cried the captain. “Tell him to come down.”
Baker Chanoine, the brigadier of the second battery, came up. I opened the door.
“What do you want of me?” I asked in the stairway.
“Come down, Moses,” said Chanoine. And I went down.
Captain Jovis, a tall old man, with his face covered with sweat, in spite of the cold, said to me, “You are Moses, the iron-merchant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Open your storehouse. Your iron is required for the defence of the city.”
So I had to lead all these people into my court, under the shed. The captain on looking round, saw some cast-iron bars, which were used at that time for closing up the backs of fireplaces. They weighed from thirty to forty pounds each, and I sold a good many in the vicinity of the city. There was no lack of old nails, rusty bolts, and old iron of all sorts.
“This is what we want,” said he. “Break up these bars, and take away the old iron, quick!”
The others, with the help of our two axes, began at once to break up everything. Some of them filled a basket with the pieces of cast-iron, and ran with it to the wagon.
The captain looked at his watch, and said, “Make haste! We have just ten minutes!”
I thought to myself, “They have no need of credit; they take what they please; it is more convenient.”
All my bars and old iron were broken in pieces—more than fifteen hundred pounds of iron.
As they were starting to run to the ramparts, Chanoine laughed, and said to me, “Capital grape-shot, Moses! Thou canst get ready thy pennies. We’ll come and take them to-morrow.”
The wagon started through the crowd which ran behind it, and I followed too.
As we came nearer the ramparts the firing became more and more frequent. As we turned from the curate’s house two sentinels stopped everybody, but they let me pass on account of my iron, which they were going to fire.
You can never imagine that mass of people, the noise around the bastion, the smoke which covered it, the orders of the infantry officers whom we heard going up the glacis, the gunners, the lighted match, caissons with the piles of bullets behind! No, in all these thirty years I have not forgotten those men with their levers, running back the cannon to load them to their mouths; those firings in file, at the bottom of the ramparts; those volleys of balls hissing in the air; the orders of the gun-captains, “Load! Ram! Prime!”
What crowds upon those gun-carriages, seven feet high, where the gunners were obliged to stand and stretch their arms to fire the cannon! And what a frightful smoke!
Men invent such machines to destroy each other, and they would think that they did a great deal if they sacrificed a quarter as much to assist their fellow-men, to instruct them in infancy, and to give them a little bread in their old age.
Ah! those who make an outcry against war, and demand a different state of things, are not in the wrong.
I was in the corner, at the left of the bastion, where the stairs go down to the postern behind the college, among three or four willow baskets as high as chimneys, and filled with clay. I ought to have stayed there quietly, and made use of the right moment to get away, but the thought seized me that I would go and see what was going on below the ramparts, and while they were loading the cannon, I climbed to the level of the glacis, and lay down flat between two enormous baskets, where there was scarcely a chan
ce that balls could reach me.
If hundreds of others who were killed in the bastions had done as I did, how many of them might be still living, respectable fathers of families in their villages!
Lying in this place, and raising my nose, I could see over the whole plain. I saw the cordon of the rampart below, and the line of our skirmishers behind the palankas, on the other side of the moat; they did nothing but tear off their cartridges, prime, charge, and fire. There one could appreciate the beauty of drilling; there were only two companies of them, and their firing by file kept up an incessant roll.
Farther on, directly to the right, stretched the road to Quatre-Vents. The Ozillo farm, the cemetery, the horse-post-station, and George Mouton’s farm at the right; the inn of La Roulette and the great poplar-walk at the left, all were full of Cossacks, and such-like rascals, who were galloping into the very gardens, to reconnoitre the environs of the place. This is what I suppose, for it is against nature to run without an object, and to risk being struck by a ball.
These people, mounted on small horses, with large gray cloaks, soft boots, fox-skin caps, like those of the Baden peasants, long beards, lances in rest, great pistols in their belts, came whirling on like birds.
They had not been fired upon as yet, because they kept themselves scattered, so that bullets would have no effect; but their trumpets sounded the rally from La Roulette, and they began to collect behind the buildings of the inn.
About thirty of our veterans, who had been kept back in the cemetery lane, were making a slow retreat; they made a few paces, at the same time hastily reloading, then turned, shouldered, fired, and began marching again among the hedges and bushes, which there had not been time to cut down in this locality.
Our sergeant was one of these; I recognized him at once, and trembled for him.
Every time these veterans gave fire, five or six Cossacks came on like the wind, with their lances lowered; but it did not frighten them: they leaned against a tree and levelled their bayonets. Other veterans came up, and then some loaded, while others parried the blows. Scarcely had they torn open their cartridges when the Cossacks fled right and left, their lances in the air. Some of them turned for a moment and fired their large pistols behind like regular bandits. At length our men began to march toward the city.
Those old soldiers, with their great shakos set square on their heads, their large capes hanging to the back of their calves, their sabres and cartridge-boxes on their backs, calm in the midst of these savages, reloading, trimming, and parrying as quietly as if they were smoking their pipes in the guard-house, were something to be admired. At last, after seeing them come out of the whirlwind two or three times, it seemed almost an easy thing to do.
Our sergeant commanded them. I understood then why he was such a favorite with the officers, and why they always took his part against the citizens: there were not many such. I wanted to call out, “Make haste, sergeant; let us make haste!” but neither he nor his men hurried in the least.
As they reached the foot of the glacis, suddenly a large mass of Cossacks, seeing that they were escaping, galloped up in two files, to cut off their retreat. It was a dangerous moment, and they formed in a square instantly.
I felt my back turn cold, as if I had been one of them.
Our sharpshooters behind the ammunition wagons did not fire, doubtless for fear of hitting their comrades; our gunners on the bastion leaned down to see, and the file of Cossacks stretched to the corner near the drawbridge.
There were seven or eight hundred of them. We heard them cry, “Hurra! hurra! hurra!” like crows. Several officers in green cloaks and small caps galloped at the sides of their lines, with raised sabres. I thought our poor sergeant and his thirty men were lost; I thought already, “How sorry little Sâfel and Sorlé will be!”
But then, as the Cossacks formed in a half-circle at the left of the outworks, I heard our gun-captain call out, “Fire!”
I turned my head; old Goulden struck the match, the fusee glittered, and at the same instant the bastion with its great baskets of clay shook to the very rocks of the rampart.
I looked toward the road; nothing was to be seen but men and horses on the ground.
Just then came a second shot, and I can truly say that I saw the grape-shot pass like the stroke of a scythe into that mass of cavalry; it all tumbled and fell; those who a second before were living beings were now nothing. We saw some try to raise themselves, the rest made their escape.
The firing by file began again, and our gunners, without waiting for the smoke to clear away, reloaded so quickly that the two discharges seemed to come at once.
This mass of old nails, bolts, broken bits of cast-iron, flying three hundred metres, almost to the little bridge, made such slaughter that, some days after, the Russians asked for an armistice in order to bury their dead.
Four hundred were found scattered in the ditches of the road.
This I saw myself.
And if you want to see the place where those savages were buried, you have only to go up the cemetery lane.
On the other side, at the right, in M. Adam Ottendorf’s orchard, you will see a stone cross in the middle of the fence; they were all buried there, with their horses, in one great trench.
You can imagine the delight of our gunners at seeing this massacre. They lifted up their sponges and shouted, “Vive l’Empereur!”
The soldiers shouted back from the covered ways, and the air was filled with their cries.
Our sergeant, with his thirty men, their guns on their shoulders, quietly reached the glacis. The barrier was quickly opened for them, but the two companies descended together to the moat and came up again by the postern.
I was waiting for them above.
When our sergeant came up I took him by the arm, “Ah, sergeant!” said I, “how glad I am to see you out of danger!”
I wanted to embrace him. He laughed and squeezed my hand.
“Then you saw the engagement, Father Moses!” said he, with a mischievous wink. “We have shown them what stuff the Fifth is made of!”
“Oh, yes! yes! you have made me tremble.”
“Bah!” said he, “you will see a good deal more of it; it is a small affair.”
The two companies re-formed against the wall of the chemin de ronde, and the whole city shouted, “Vive l’Empereur!”
They went down the rampart street in the midst of the crowd. I kept near our sergeant.
As the detachment was turning our corner, Sorlé, Zeffen, and Sâfel called out from the windows, “Hurrah for the veterans! Hurrah for the Fifth!”
The sergeant saw them and made a little sign to them with his head. As I was going in I said to him, “Sergeant, don’t forget your glass of cherry-brandy.”
“Don’t worry, Father Moses,” said he.
The detachment went on to break ranks at the Place d’Armes as usual, and I went up home at a quarter to four. I was scarcely in the room before Zeffen, Sorlé, and Sâfel threw their arms round me as if I had come back from the war; little David clung to my knee, and they all wanted to know the news.
I had to tell them about the attack, the grape-shot, the routing of the Cossacks. But the table was ready. I had not had my breakfast, and I said, “Let us sit down. You shall hear the rest by and by. Let me take breath.”
Just then the sergeant entered in fine spirits, and set the butt-end of his musket on the floor. We were going to meet him when we saw a tuft of red hair on the point of his bayonet, that made us tremble.
“Mercy, what is that?” said Zeffen, covering her face.
He knew nothing about it, and looked to see, much surprised.
“That?” said he, “oh! it is the beard of a Cossack that I touched as I passed him—it is not much of anything.”
He took the musket at once to his own room; but we were all horror-struck, and Zeffen could not recover herself. When the sergeant came back she was still sitting in the arm-chair, with both hands before her face.
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br /> “Ah, Madame Zeffen,” said he sadly, “now you are going to detest me!”
I thought, too, that Zeffen would be afraid of him, but women always like these men who risk their lives at random. I have seen it a hundred times. And Zeffen smiled as she answered: “No, sergeant, no; these Cossacks ought to stay at home and not come and trouble us! You protect us—we love you very much!”
I persuaded him to breakfast with us, and it ended by his opening a window, and calling out to some soldiers passing by to give notice at the cantine that Sergeant Trubert was not coming to breakfast.
So we were all calmed down, and seated ourselves at the table. Sorlé went down to get a bottle of good wine, and we began to eat our breakfast.
We had coffee, too, and Zeffen wanted to pour it out herself for the sergeant. He was delighted.
“Madame Zeffen,” said he, “you load me with kindness!”
She laughed. We had never been happier.
While he was taking his cherry-brandy, the sergeant told us all about the attack in the night; the way in which the Wurtemberg troops had stationed themselves at La Roulette, how it had been necessary to dislodge them as they were forcing open the two large gates, the arrival of the Cossacks at daybreak, and the sending out two companies to fire at them.
He told all this so well that we could almost think we saw it. But about eleven o’clock, as I took up the bottle to pour out another glassful, he wiped his mustache, and said, as he rose: “No, Father Moses, we have something to do besides taking our ease and enjoying ourselves; to-morrow, or next day, the shells will be coming; it is time to go and screen the garret.”
We all became sober at these words.
“Let us see!” said he; “I have seen in your court some long logs of wood which have not been sawed, and there are three or four large beams against the wall. Are we two strong enough to carry them up? Let us try!”
He was going to take off his cape at once; but, as the beams were very heavy, I told him to wait and I would run for the two Carabins, Nicolas, who was called the Greyhound, and Mathis, the wood-sawyer. They came at once, and, being used to heavy work, they carried up the timber. They had brought their saws and axes with them; the sergeant made them saw the beams, so as to cross them above in the form of a sentry-box. He worked himself like a regular carpenter, and Sorlé, Zeffen, and I looked on. As it took some time, my wife and daughter went down to prepare supper, and I went down with them, to get a lantern for the workmen.
The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories Page 82