The Conscript: A Story of the French war of 1813

These words of good Monsieur Goulden reassured Aunt Grédel and Catharine, who returned to Quatre-Vents full of hope; but they did not affect me, for from that moment I had not a moment of rest day or night.

The Emperor had a good custom: he did not allow the conscripts to languish at home. Soon as the drawing was complete, the council of revision met, and a few days after came the orders of march. He did not do like those tooth-pullers who first show you their pincers and hooks and gaze for an hour into your mouth, so that you feel half dead before they make up their minds to begin work: he proceeded without loss of time.

A week after the drawing, the council of revision sat at the town-hall, with all the mayors and a few notables of the country to give advice in case of need.

The day before Monsieur Goulden had put on his brown great-coat and his best wig to go to wind up Monsieur the Mayor's clock and that of the Commandant. He returned laughing and said:

"All goes well, Joseph. Monsieur the Mayor and Monsieur the Commandant know that you are lame; that is easy enough to be seen. They replied at once, Eh, Monsieur Goulden, the young man is lame; why speak of him? Do not be uneasy; we do not want the infirm; we want soldiers."

These words poured balm on my wounds, and that night I slept like one of the blessed. But the next day fear again assailed me; I remembered suddenly how many men full of defects had gone all the same, and how many others invented defects to deceive the council; for instance, swallowing injurious substances to make them pale; tying up their legs to give themselves swollen veins; or playing deaf, blind, or foolish. Thinking over all these things, I trembled at not being lame enough, and determined that I would appear sufficiently forlorn. I had heard that vinegar would make one sick, and without telling Monsieur Goulden, in my fear I swallowed all the vinegar in his bottle. Then I dressed myself, thinking that I looked like a dead man, for the vinegar was very strong; but when I entered Monsieur Goulden's room, he cried out:

"Joseph, what is the matter with you? You are as red as a cock's comb."

And, looking at myself in the mirror, I saw that my face was red to my ears, and to the tip of my nose. I was frightened, but instead of growing pale I became redder yet, and I cried out in my distress:

"'Now I am lost indeed! I will seem like a man without a single defect, and full of health. The vinegar is rushing to my head."

"What vinegar?" asked Monsieur Goulden.

"That in your bottle. I drank it to make myself pale, as they say Mademoiselle Sclapp, the organist does. O heavens! what a fool I was."

"That does not prevent your being lame," said Monsieur Goulden; "but you tried to deceive the council, which was dishonest. But it is half-past nine, and Werner is come to tell me you must be there at ten o'clock. So, hurry."

I had to go in that state; the heat of the vinegar seemed bursting from my cheeks, and when I met Catharine and her mother, who were waiting for me at the town-house, they scarcely knew me.

"How happy and satisfied you look!" said Aunt Grédel.

I would have fainted on hearing this if the vinegar had not sustained me in spite of myself. I went upstairs in terrible agony, without being able to move my tongue to reply, so great was the horror I felt at my folly.

Upstairs, more than twenty-five conscripts who pretended to be infirm, had been examined and received, while twenty-five others, on a bench along the wall, sat with drooping heads awaiting their turn.

The old gendarme, Kelz, with his huge cocked hat, was walking about, and as soon as he saw me, exclaimed:

"At last! At last! Here is one, at all events, who will not be sorry to go; the love of glory is shining in his eyes. Very good, Joseph; I predict that at the end of the campaign you will be corporal."

"But I am lame," I cried, angrily.

"Lame!" repeated Kelz, winking and smiling, "lame! No matter. With such health as yours you can always hold your own."

He had scarcely ceased speaking when the door of the hall of the Council of Revision opened, and the other gendarme, Werner, putting out his head, called me by name, "Joseph Bertha."

I entered, limping as much as I could, and Werner shut the door. The mayors of the canton were seated in a semicircle, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect and the Mayor of Phalsbourg in the middle, in arm-chairs, and the Secretary Freylig at his table. A Harberg conscript was dressing himself, the gendarme Descarmes helping him put on his suspenders. This conscript, with a mass of brown hair falling over his eyes, his neck bare, and his mouth open as he caught his breath, seemed like a man going to be hanged. Two surgeons – the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Hospital, with another in uniform – were conversing in the middle of the hall. They turned to me saying, "Undress yourself."

I did so, even to my shirt. The others looked on.

Monsieur the Sub-Prefect observed:

"There is a young man full of health."

These words angered me, but I nevertheless replied respectfully:

"I am lame, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect."

The surgeon examined me, and the one from the hospital, to whom Monsieur the Commandant had doubtless spoken of me, said:

"The left leg is a little short."

"Bah!" said the other; "it is sound."

Then placing his hand upon my chest he said, "The conformation is good. Cough."

I coughed as feebly as I could; but he found me all right, and said again:

"Look at his color. How good his blood must be!"

Then I, seeing that they would pass me if I remained silent, replied:

"I have been drinking vinegar."

"Ah!" said he; "that proves you have a good stomach; you like vinegar."

"But I am lame!" I cried in my distress.

"Bah! don't grieve at that," he answered; "your leg is sound. I'll answer for it."

"But that," said Monsieur the Mayor, "does not prevent his being lame from birth; all Phalsbourg knows that."

"The leg is too short," said the surgeon from the hospital; "it is doubtless a case for exemption."

"Yes," said the Mayor; "I am sure that this young man could not endure a long march; he would drop on the road the second mile."

The first surgeon said nothing more.

I thought myself saved, when Monsieur the Sub-Prefect asked:

"You are really Joseph Bertha?"

"Yes, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect," I answered.

"Well, gentlemen," said he, taking a letter out of his portfolio, "listen."

He began to read the letter, which stated that, six months before, I had bet that I could go to Laverne and back quicker than Pinacle; that we had run the race, and I had won.

It was unhappily too true. The villain Pinacle had always taunted me with being a cripple, and in my anger I laid the wager. Every one knew of it. I could not deny it.

While I stood utterly confounded, the first surgeon said:

"That settles the question. Dress yourself." And turning to the secretary, he cried, "Good for service."

I took up my coat in despair.

Werner called another. I no longer saw anything. Some one helped me to get my arms in my coat-sleeves. Then I found myself upon the stairs, and while Catharine asked me what had poised, I sobbed aloud and would have fallen from top to bottom if Aunt Grédel had not supported me.

We went out by the rear-way and crossed the little court. I wept like a child, and Catharine did too. Out in the hall, in the shadow, we stopped to embrace each other.

Aunt Grédel cried out:

"Oh the robbers! They are taking the lame and the sick. It is all the same to them; next they will take us."

A crowd began collecting, and Sepel the butcher, who was cutting meat in the stall, said:

"Mother Grédel, in the name of Heaven keep quiet. They will put you in prison."

"Well, let them put me there!" she cried, "let them murder me. I say that men are fools to allow such outrages!"

But the sergent-de-ville was coming up, and we went on together weeping. We turned the corner of Café Hemmerle, and went into our own house. People looked at us from the windows and said, "There is another one who is going."

Monsieur Goulden knowing that Aunt Grédel and Catharine would come to dine with us the day of the revision, had had a stuffed goose and two bottles of good Alsace wine sent from the "Golden Sheep." He was sure that I would be exempted at once. What was his surprise, then, to see us enter together in such distress.

"What is the matter?" said he, raising his silk cap over his bald forehead, and staring at us with eyes wide open.

I had not strength enough to answer. I threw myself into the arm-chair and burst into tears. Catharine sat down beside me, and our sobs redoubled.

Aunt Grédel said:

"The robbers have taken him."

"It is not possible!" exclaimed Monsieur Goulden, letting fall his arms by his side.

"It shows their villainy," replied my aunt, and growing more and more excited, she cried, "Will a revolution never come again? Shall those wretches always be our masters?"

"Calm yourself, Mother Grédel," said Monsieur Goulden. "In the name of Heaven don't cry so loud. Joseph, tell me how it happened. They are surely mistaken; it cannot be otherwise. Did Monsieur the Mayor and the hospital surgeon say nothing?"

I told the history of the letter between my sobs, and Aunt Grédel, who until then knew nothing of it, again shrieked with her hands clinched.

"O the scoundrel! God grant that he may cross my threshold again. I will cleave his head with my hatchet."

Monsieur Goulden was astounded.

"And you did not say that it was false. Then the story was true?"'

And as I bowed my head without replying he clasped his hands, saying:

"O youth! youth! it thinks of nothing. What folly! what folly!"

He walked around the room; then sat down to wipe his spectacles, and Aunt Grédel exclaimed:

"Yes, but they shall not have him yet! Their wickedness shall yet go for nothing. This very evening Joseph shall be in the mountains on the way to Switzerland."

Monsieur Goulden hearing this, looked grave; he bent his brows, and replied in a few moments: "It is a misfortune, a great misfortune, for Joseph is really lame. They will yet find it out, for he cannot march two days without falling behind and becoming sick. But you are wrong, Mother Grédel, to speak as you do and give him bad advice."

"Bad advice!" she cried. "Then you are for having people massacred too!"

"No," he answered; "I do not love wars, especially where a hundred thousand men lose their lives for the glory of one. But wars of that kind are ended. It is not now for glory and to win new kingdoms that soldiers are levied, but to defend our country, which had been put in danger by tyranny and ambition. We would gladly have peace now. Unhappily, the Russians are advancing; the Prussians are joining them: and our friends, the Austrians, only await a good opportunity to fall upon our rear. If we do not go to meet them, they will come to our homes; for we are about to have Europe on our hands as we had in '93. It is now a different matter from our wars in Spain, in Russia, and in Germany; and I, old as I am, Mother Grédel, if the danger continues to increase and the veterans of the republic are needed, I would be ashamed to go and make clocks in Switzerland while others were pouring out their blood to defend my country. Besides, remember this well, that deserters are despised everywhere; after having committed such an act, they have no kindred or home anywhere. They have neither father, mother, church nor country. They are incapable of fulfilling the first duty of man – to love and sustain their country, even though she be in the wrong."

He said no more at the moment, but sat gravely down.

"Let us eat," he exclaimed, after some minutes of silence. "It is striking twelve o'clock. Mother Grédel and Catharine, seat yourselves there."

They sat down, and we began dinner. I thought of the words of Monsieur Goulden, which seemed right to me. Aunt Grédel compressed her lips, and from time to time gazed at me as if to read my thoughts. At length she said:

"I despise a country where they take fathers of families after carrying off the sons. If I were in Joseph's place, I would fly at once."

"Listen, Aunt Grédel," I replied; "you know that I love nothing so much as peace and quiet, but I would not, nevertheless, run away like a coward to another country. But, notwithstanding, I will do as Catharine says; if she wishes me to go to Switzerland, I will go."

Then Catharine, lowering her head to hide her tears, said in a low voice:

"I would not have them call you a deserter."

"Well, then, I will do like the others," I cried; "and as those of Phalsbourg and Dagsberg are going to the wars, I will go."

Monsieur Goulden made no remark.

"Every one is free to do as he pleases," said he, after a while; "but I am glad that Joseph thinks as I do."

Then there was silence, and toward two o'clock Aunt Grédel arose and took her basket. She seemed utterly cast down, and said:

"Joseph, you will not listen to me, but no matter. With God's grace, all will yet be well. You will return if He wills it, and Catharine will wait for you."

Catharine wept again, and I more than she; so that Monsieur Goulden himself could not help shedding tears.

At length Catharine and her mother descended the stairs, and Aunt Grédel called out from the bottom:

"Try to come and see us once or twice again, Joseph."

"Yes, yes," I answered, shutting the door.

I could no longer stand. Never had I been so miserable, and even now, when I think of it, my heart chills.

VII

From that day I could think of nothing but my misfortune. I tried to work, but my thoughts were far away, and Monsieur Goulden said:

"Joseph, stop working. Make the most of the little time you can remain among us; go to see Catharine and Mother Grédel. I still think they will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men so much that it may be a long time coming."

I went every morning then to Quatre-Vents, and passed my days with Catharine. We were very sorrowful, but very glad to see each other. We loved one another even more than before, if that were possible. Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the good old times; but suddenly she would burst into tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt Grédel would rail at the wars which brought misery to every one. She said that the Council of Revision deserved to be hung; that they were all robbers, banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was right.

I returned to the city about eight or nine o'clock in the evening, when they closed the gates, and as I passed, I saw the small inns full of conscripts and old returned soldiers drinking together. The conscripts always paid; the others, with dirty police caps cocked over their ears, red noses, and horse-hair stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted their mustaches and related with majestic air their battles, their marches, and their duels. One can imagine nothing viler than those holes, full of smoke, cob-webs hanging on the black beams, those old sworders and young men drinking, shouting, and beating the tables like crazy people; and behind, in the shadow, old Annette Schnaps or Marie Héring – her old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only three teeth remaining, crosswise, in it – gazing on the scene, or emptying a mug to the health of the braves.

It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and laborious fellows, leading such an existence; but no one thought of working, and any one of them would have given his life for two farthings. Worn out with shouting, drinking, and internal grief, they ended by falling asleep over the table, while the old fellows emptied their cups, singing:

"'Tis glory calls us on!"

I saw these things, and I blessed heaven for having given me, in my wretchedness, kind hearts to keep up my courage, and prevent my falling into such hands.

This state of affairs lasted until the twenty-fifth of January. For some days a great number of Italian conscripts – Piedmontese and Genoese – had been arriving in the city; some stout and fat as Savoyards fed upon chestnuts – their cocked hats on their curly heads; their linsey-woolsey pantaloons dyed a dark green, and their short vests also of wool, but brick-red, fastened around their waists by a leather belt. They wore enormous shoes, and ate their cheese seated along the old market-place. Others were dried up, lean, brown, shivering in their long cassocks, seeing nothing but snow upon the roofs and gazing with their large, black, mournful eyes upon the women who passed. They were exercised every day in marching, and were going to fill up the skeleton of the Sixth regiment of the line at Mayence, and were then resting for a while in the infantry barracks.

The captain of the recruits, who was named Vidal, lodged over our room. He was a square-built, solid, very strong-looking man, and was, too, very kind and civil. He came to us to have his watch repaired, and when he learned that I was a conscript and was afraid I should never return, he encouraged me, saying that it was all habit; that at the end of five or six months one fights and marches as he eats his dinner; and that many so accustom themselves to shooting at people that they consider themselves unhappy when they are deprived of that amusement.

But his mode of reasoning was not to my taste; the more so as I saw five or six large grains of powder on one of his cheeks, which had entered deeply, and as he explained to me that they came from a shot which a Russian fired almost under his nose, such a life disgusted me more and more, and as several days had already passed without news, I began to think they had forgotten me, as they did Jacob, of Chèvre Hof, of whose extraordinary luck every one yet talks. Aunt Grédel herself said to me every time I went there, "Well, well! they will let us alone after all!" When, on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January, as I was about starting for Quatre-Vents, Monsieur Goulden, who was working at his bench with a thoughtful air, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said:

"Listen, Joseph! I wanted to let you have one night more of quiet sleep; but you must know now, my child, that yesterday evening the brigadier of the gendarmes brought me your marching orders. You go with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five or six young men of the city – young Klipfel, young Loerig, Jean Léger, and Gaspard Zébédé. You go to Mayence."

I felt my knees give way as he spoke, and I sat down unable to speak. Monsieur Goulden took my marching orders, beautifully written, out of a drawer, and began to read them slowly. All that I remember is that Joseph Bertha, native of Dabo, Canton of Phalsbourg, Arrondissement of Sarrebourg, was incorporated in the Sixth regiment of the line, and that he was to join his corps the twenty-ninth of January at Mayence.

This letter produced as bad an effect on me as if I had known nothing of it before. It seemed something new, and I grew angry.

Monsieur Goulden, after a moment's silence, added:

"The Italians start to-day at eleven."

Then, as if awakening from a horrible dream, I cried:

"But shall I not see Catharine again?"

"Yes, Joseph, yes," said he, in a trembling voice. "I notified Mother Grédel and Catharine, and thus, my boy, they will come, and you can embrace them before leaving."

I saw his grief, and it made me sadder yet, so that I had a hard struggle to keep myself from bursting into tears.

He continued after a pause:

"You need not be anxious about anything, Joseph. I have prepared all beforehand; and when you return, if it please God to keep me so long in this world, you will find me always the same. I am beginning to grow old, and my greatest happiness would be to keep you for a son, for I found you good-hearted and honest. I would have given you what I possess, and we would have been happy together. Catharine and you would have been my children. But since it is otherwise, let us be resigned. It is only for a little while. You will be sent back, I am sure. They will soon see that you cannot make long marches."

While he spoke, I sat silently sobbing, my face buried in my hands.

At last he arose and took from a closet a soldier's knapsack of cowskin, which he placed upon the table. I looked at him, thinking of nothing but the pain of parting.

"Here is your knapsack," he added; "and I have put in it all that you require; two linen shirts, two flannel waistcoats, and all the rest. You will receive at Mayence two soldier's shirts, – all that you will need; but I have made for you some shoes, for nothing is worse than those given the soldiers, which are almost always of horse-hide and chafe the feet fearfully. You are none too strong in your leg, my poor boy. Well, well, that is all."

He placed the knapsack upon the table and sat down.

Without, we heard the Italians making ready to depart. Above us Captain Vidal was giving his orders. He had his horse at the barracks of the gendarmerie, and was telling his orderly to see that he was well rubbed and had received his hay.

All this bustle and movement produced a strange effect upon me, and I could not yet realize that I must quit the city. As I was thus in the greatest distress, the door opened and Catharine entered weeping, while Mother Grédel cried out:

"I told you you should have fled to Switzerland; that these rogues would finish by carrying you off. I told you so, and you would not believe me."

"Mother Grédel," replied Monsieur Goulden, "to go to do his duty is not so great an evil as to be despised by honest people. Instead of all these cries and reproaches, which serve no good purpose, you would do better to comfort and encourage Joseph."

"Ah!" said she; "I do not reproach him, although this is terrible."

Catharine did not leave me; she sat by me and we embraced each other, and she said, pressing my arm:

"You will return?"

"Yes, yes," said I, in a low voice. "And you – you will always think of me; you will not love another?"

She answered, sobbing:

"No, no! I will never love any but you."

This lasted a quarter of an hour, when the door opened and Captain Vidal entered, his cloak rolled like a hunting-horn over his shoulder.

"Well," said he, "well; how goes our young man?"

"Here he is," answered Monsieur Goulden.

"Ah!" remarked the captain; "you are making yourself miserable. It is natural. I remember when I departed for the army. We have all a home."

Then, raising his voice, he said:

"Come, come, young man, courage! We are no longer children."

He looked at Catharine.

"I see all," said he to Monsieur Goulden. "I can understand why he does not want to go."

The drums beat in the street and he added:

"We have yet twenty minutes before starting," and, throwing a glance at me, "Do not fail to be at the first call, young man," said he, pressing Monsieur Goulden's hand.

He went out, and we heard his horse pawing at the door.

The morning was overcast, and grief overwhelmed me. I could not leave Catharine.

Suddenly the roll beat. The drums were all collected in the square. Monsieur Goulden, taking the knapsack by its straps, said in a grave voice:

"Joseph, now the last embrace: it is time to go."

I stood up, pale as ashes. He fastened the knapsack to my shoulders. Catharine sat sobbing, her face covered with her apron. Aunt Grédel looked on with lips compressed.

The roll continued for a time, then suddenly ceased.

"The call is about commencing," said Monsieur Goulden, embracing me. Then the fountains of his heart burst forth; tears sprang to his eyes; and calling me his child, his son, he whispered, "Courage!"

Aunt Grédel seated herself again, and as I bent toward her, taking my head between her hands, she sobbed:

"I always loved you, Joseph; ever since you were a baby. You never gave me cause of grief – and now you must go. O God! O God!"

I wept no longer.

When Aunt Grédel released me, I looked a moment at Catharine, who stood motionless. I rushed to her and threw myself on her neck. She still kept her seat. Then I turned quickly to go, when she cried, in heart-breaking tones:

"O Joseph! Joseph!"

I looked back. We threw ourselves into each other's arms, and for some minutes remained so, sobbing. Her strength seemed to leave her, and I placed her in the arm-chair, and rushed out of the house.