The Plébiscite; or, A Miller's Story of the War

It was a great help to us to have such grand notions about ourselves! It made us feel enormously strong!

But hypocrites can always get out of their scrapes: they vanish in the distance with well-lined pockets, and their victims are left behind sticking in the mud up to the chin!

Since our reverend fathers the Jesuits have so many spies posted about in the world, they should have told us how strong the heretics were, and not suffered us to believe until the last that we were the only masters of the earth. But they considered: "These French fools will allow themselves to be hacked down to the very last man for our honor; they will drive back the Lutherans; and then we shall make a great figure: the Holy Father will be infallible, and we shall rule under his name."

These things are so evident now, that one is almost ashamed to mention them.

As soon as the cavalry were posted on the heights of the place, at the rear of the hills, the infantry regiments, standing with ordered arms, began to march off.

I could hear from my door the loud voices of the officers, the neighing of the horses, and the departure of the battalions, which filed off, keeping step in admirable order. Ah! if our officers had been as highly trained, and our soldiers as firmly disciplined as the Germans, Alsace and Lorraine would still have been French.

I may be told that a good patriot ought to refrain from saying such things; but what is the use of hiding facts? Would hiding them prevent them from being true? I say these things on purpose to open people's eyes. If we want to recover what we have lost, everything must be changed; our officers must be educated, our soldiers disciplined, our contractors must supply stores, clothing, and provisions without blunders and deficiencies, or if they fail they must be shot; the life of a brave and generous nation is better worth than that of a knave, whose ignorance, laziness, or cupidity may cause the loss of provinces.

We must have a large, national army, like that of the Germans, and, to possess this army, every man must serve; the cripples and deformed in offices; every man besides, in the ranks. Full permission must be given to wear spectacles, which do not hinder a man from fighting; and citizens, as well as workmen and peasants, must come under fire. Unless we do this, we shall be beaten – beaten again, and utterly ruined!

And above all, as Cousin George said, we must place at the head of affairs a man with a cool head, a warm heart, and great experience; in whose eyes the honor of the nation shall be above his own interest, and on whose word all men may rely, because he has already proved that his confidence in himself will not desert him, even in the most perilous times.

But we are yet very far from this; and one would really believe, in looking at the conceited countenances of the fugitives who are returning from England, Belgium, Switzerland, and farther yet, that they have won important victories, and that the country does them injustice in not hailing them as deliverers.

And now I will quietly pursue this history of our village; whoever wants to come round me again with hypocritical pretences of honesty, will have to get up very early in the morning indeed.

After the Germans had posted their infantry within the squares formed by the cavalry, they dragged guns and ammunition up the height of Wéchem, in the rear of our hills. Then the thoughts of Jacob, and all our poor lads, whom they were going to shell, came upon us, and mother began to cry bitterly. Grédel, too, thinking of her Jean Baptiste, had become furious; if, by misfortune, we had had a gun in the house, she would have been quite capable of firing upon the Prussians, and so getting us all exterminated; she ran upstairs and downstairs, put her head out at the window, and a German having raised his head, saying, "Oh! what a pretty girl!" she shouted, "Be sure always to come out ten against one, or it will be all up with you!"

I was downstairs, and you may imagine my alarm. I went up to beg her to be quiet, if she did not want the whole village to be destroyed; but she answered rudely, "I don't care – let them burn us all out! I wish I was in the town, and not with all these thieves."

I went down quickly, not to hear more.

The rain had begun to fall again, and these Prussians kept pouring in, by regiments, by squadrons: more than forty thousand men covered the plain; some formed in the fields, in the meadows, trampling down the second crop of grass and the potatoes – all our hopes were there under their feet! others went on their way; their wheels sunk into the clay, but they had such excellent horses that all went on under the lashes of their long whips, as the Germans use them. They climbed up all the slopes; the hedges and young trees were bent and broken everywhere.

When might is right, and you feel yourself the weakest, silence is wisdom.

The report ran that they were going to attack Phalsbourg in the afternoon; and our poor Mobiles, and our sixty artillery recruits pressed to serve the guns, were about to have a dreadful storm falling upon them, as a beginning to their experience. Those heaps of shells they were hurrying up to Wéchem forced from us all cries of "Poor town! poor townspeople! poor women! poor children!"

The rain increased, and the river overflowed its banks down all the valley from Graufthal to Metting. A few officers were walking down the street to look for shelter; I saw a good number go into Cousin George's, principally hussars, and at the same moment a gentleman in a round hat, black cloak and trousers, stepped before the mill and asked me: "Monsieur le Maire?"

"I am the mayor."

"Very good. I am the army chaplain, and I am come to lodge with you."

I thought that better than having ten or fifteen scoundrels in my house; but he had scarcely closed his lips when another came, an officer of light horse, who cried: "His highness has chosen this house to lodge in."

Very good – what could I reply?

A brigadier, who was following this officer, springs off his horse, goes under the shed, and peeps into the stable. "Turn out all that," said he.

"Turn out my horses, my cattle?" I exclaimed.

"Yes – and quickly too. His highness has twelve horses: he must have room."

I was going to answer, but the officer began to swear and storm so loudly, without listening to anything I could plead, shouting at me that every one of my beasts would be driven to be slaughtered immediately if I made any difficulty, that without saying another word, I drove them all out, my heart swelling, and my head bowed with despair. Grédel, watching from her window, saw this, and coming down, red with anger, said to the officer: "You must be a great coward to behave so roughly to an old man who cannot defend himself."

My hair stood on end with horror; but the officer vouchsafed not a word, and went off instantly.

Then the chaplain whispered in my ear: "You are going to have the honor of entertaining Monseigneur, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and you must call him 'Your highness.'"

I thought with myself: "You, and your highness, and all the highnesses in the world, I wish you were all of you five hundred thousand feet in the bowels of the earth. You are a bad lot. You came into the world for the misery of mankind. Thieves! rogues!"

I only thought these things: I would not have said them for the world. Several persons had been shot in our mountains the last two days – fathers of families – and the remembrance of these things makes one prudent.

As I was reflecting upon our misfortunes, his highness arrived, with his aides-de-camp and his servants. They alighted, entered the house, hung up their wet clothes against the wall, and filled the kitchen. My wife ran upstairs, I stood in a corner behind the stove: we had nothing left to call our own.

This Duke of Saxe was so tall that he could scarcely walk upright under my roof. He was a handsome man, covered with gold-lace ornaments; and so were the two great villains who followed him – Colonel Egloffstein and Major Baron d'Engel. Yes, I could find no fault with them on account of their height or their appetites; nor did they seem to mind us in the least. They laughed, they chatted, they swung themselves round in my room, jingling their swords on the stone floor, on the stairs, everywhere, without paying the smallest attention to me – I seemed to be in their house.

From their arrival until their departure, the fire never once went out in my kitchen; my wood blazed; my pans and kettles, my roasting-jack, went on with their business; they twisted the necks of my fowls, my ducks, my geese, plucked them, and roasted them: they fetched splendid pieces of beef, which they minced to make rissoles, and sliced to make what they called "biftecks"; then they opened my drawers and cupboards, spread my tablecloths on my table, rinsed out my glasses and my bottles, and fetched my wine out of my cellar.

They waited upon his highness and his officers; the doors and windows stood open, the rain poured in; orderlies came on horseback to receive orders, and darted away; and about five o'clock the guns began to thunder and roar at Quatre Vents. The bombardment was beginning in that direction; the two bastions of the arsenal and the bakery answered.

That was the bombardment of the 11th, in which Thibaut's house was delivered to the flames. It would be long before we should see the last of it; but as we had never before heard the like, and these rolling thunders filled our valley between the woods and the rocks of Biechelberg, we trembled.

Grédel, every time that our heavy guns replied, said: "Those are ours; we are not all dead yet! Do you hear that?"

I pushed her out, and his highness asked, "What is that?"

"Nothing," said I; "it is only my daughter: she is crazy."

About a quarter to seven the firing ceased.

The Baron d'Engel, who had gone out a few minutes before, came back to say that a flag of truce had gone to summon the place to surrender; and that on its refusal the bombardment would re-open at once.

There was a short silence. His highness was eating.

Suddenly entered a colonel of hussars – a hideous being, with a retreating forehead, a squint in his eye, and red hair – decorated all over with ribbons and crosses, like a North American Indian. He walks in. Salutations, hand-shaking all round, and a good deal of laughing. They seat themselves again, they devour – they swallow everything! And that hussar begins telling that he has taken MacMahon's tent – a magnificent tent, with mirrors, china, ladies' hats and crinolines. He laughed, grinning up to his ears; and his highness was highly delighted, saying that MacMahon would have given a representation of his victory to the great ladies of Paris.

Of course this was an abominable lie; but the Prussians are not afraid of lying.

That hussar – whose name I cannot remember, although I have often heard it from others – said besides, that, after having ridden a couple of hours through the forest of Elsashausen, he had fallen upon the village of Gundershoffen, where a few companies of French infantry had established themselves, and that he had surprised and massacred them all to the last man, without the loss of a single horseman!

Then he began to laugh again, saying that in war you often might have an agreeable time of it, and that this would be among his most cheerful reminiscences.

Hearing him from my seat behind the stove, I said: "And are these men called Christians? Why, they are worse than wolves! They would drink human blood out of skulls, and boast of it!"

They went on talking in this fashion, when a very young officer came to say that the defenders of Phalsbourg refused to surrender, and that they were going to shell the town, to set fire to it.

I could listen no longer. Grédel and my wife went to shut themselves in upstairs, and I went out to breathe a different air from these wild monsters.

It was raining still. I wanted fresh air – I should have liked to throw myself into the river with all my clothes on.

Fresh regiments were passing. Now it was white cuirassiers; they extended along the meadows below Metting; other regiments in dense masses advanced on Sarrebourg. Down there the bayonets and the helmets sparkled and glistened in the setting sun, in spite of the torrents of rain. It was easy to see that our unfortunate army of two hundred thousand men could not resist such a deluge.

But the three hundred thousand other soldiers that we should have had, and which we had been paying for the last eighteen years, where then were they? They were in the reports presented by the Ministers of War to the Legislative Assembly; and the money which should have paid for their complete equipment and their armament, that was in London, put down to his Majesty's account: the honest man, he had laid up savings.

All these Germans, encamped as far as the eye could see under the rain, were beginning to cut down our fruit-trees to warm themselves; in all directions our beautiful apple-trees, our pear-trees, still laden with fruit, came to the ground; then they were stripped bare, chopped to pieces, and burnt with the sap in them: the falling rain did not prevent the wood from lighting, on account of the quantity underneath which the fire dried at last.

The whole plain and the table-land above were in a blaze with these fires.

What a loss for the country!

It had taken fifty-six years, since 1814, to grow these trees; they were in full bearing; for fifty years our children and grand-children will not see their equals around our village; the whole are destroyed! With this spectacle before my eyes, indignation stifled my voice; I turned my eyes away, and went to Cousin George's, hoping to hear there a few words of encouragement.

I was right; the house was full; Cousin Marie Anne, a bold and unceremonious woman, was busy cooking for all her lodgers. Amongst the number were two of her old customers at the Rue Mouffetard; a Jew, who had come to Paris to learn gardening at the Jardin des Plantes, and a saddler, both seated near the hearth with an appearance of shame and melancholy in their countenances. The soldiers, who were crowding even the passage, smoked, and examined now and then to see if the meat and potatoes looked promising in the big copper in the washhouse: there was no other in the house large enough to boil such a large quantity of provisions.

Every soldier had an enormous slice of beef, a loaf, a portion of wine, and even some ground coffee; some had under their arms a rope of onions, turnips, a head of cabbage, stolen right and left. These were the hussars.

In the large parlor were the officers, who had just returned in succession from their reconnaissances; as they went up into the room, you could hear the clanking of their swords and their huge boots making the staircase shake.

As I was coming in by the back door, not having been able to make way through the passage, George was coming out of the room; he saw me above the helmets of all these people, and cried to me: "Christian! stay outside; I am stifled here! I am coming!"

Room was made for him, and we went down together into the garden, under the shelter of his stack of wood. Then he lighted a pipe, and asked me: "Well, how are you going on down there?"

I told him all.

"I," said he, "have already had to receive the colonel of the hussars last night. An hour after the visit of the Uhlans, there is a tap on the shutters; I open. Two squadrons of hussars were standing there, round the house; there was no way of escape."

"'Open!'

"I obey. The colonel, a sort of a wolf, whom I saw just now going to your house, enters the first, pistol in hand; he examines all round: 'You are alone?'

"'Yes; with my wife.'

"'Very well!'

"Then he went into the passage, and called an aide-de-camp. Three or four soldiers came in; they carry chairs and a table into the kitchen. The colonel unfolds a large map upon the floor; he takes off his boots, and lays himself upon it. Then he calls: 'Such a one, are you here?'

"'Present, colonel.'

"Then six or seven captains and lieutenants enter.

"'Such an one, do you see the road to Metting!'

"They had all taken small maps out of their pockets.

"'Yes, colonel.'

"'And from Metting to Sarrebourg?'

"'Yes, colonel.'

"'Tell me the names.'

"And the officer named the villages, the farms, the streams, the rivers, the clumps of wood, the curves in the road, and even the intersection of footpaths.

"The colonel followed with his nail.

"'That will do! Now go and take twenty men and push on as far as St. Jean, by such a road. You will see! In case of resistance, you will inform me. Come, sharp!'

"And the officer goes off.

"The colonel, still lying upon his map, calls another.

"'Present, colonel.'

"'You see Lixheim?'

"'Yes, colonel.'

"And so on.

"In half an hour's time, he had sent off a whole squadron on reconnaissances to Sarrebourg, Lixheim, Diemeringen, Lützelbourg, Fénétrange, everywhere in that direction. And when they had all started, except twenty or thirty horses left behind, he got up from the floor, and said to me: 'You will give me a good bed, and you will prepare breakfast for to-morrow at seven o'clock; all those officers will breakfast with me: they will have good appetites. You have poultry and bacon. Your wife is a good cook, I know; and you have good wine. I require that everything shall be good. You hear me!'

"I made no answer, and I went out to tell my wife, who had just dressed and was coming downstairs. She had heard what was said, and answered, 'Yes, we will obey, since the robbers have the power on their side.'

"That knave of a colonel could hear perfectly well; but it was no matter to him: his business was to get what he wanted.

"My wife took him upstairs and showed him his bed. He looked underneath it, into all the cupboards, the closet; then he opened the two windows in the corner to see his men below at their posts; and then he lay down.

"Until morning all was quiet.

"Then the others came back. The colonel listened to them; he immediately sent some of the men who had stayed behind to Dosenheim, in the direction of Saverne; and about a couple of hours after these same hussars returned with the advanced guard of the army corps. The colonel had ascertained that all the mountain passes were abandoned, and that Lorraine might be entered without danger; that MacMahon and De Failly had arrived in the open plain, and that there would be no battle in our neighborhood."

This is all that Cousin George told me, smoking his pipe.

They had just thrown open the door which opens into the garden, to let air into the kitchen, and we looked from our retreat upon all those Germans with their helmets, their wet clothes, their strings of vegetables, and their joints of meat under their arms. As fast as it was cooked Marie Anne served out the broth, the meat, and the vegetables to those who presented themselves with their basins; when they went out, others came. Never could fresher meat be seen, and in such quantities: one of their pieces would have sufficed four or five Frenchmen.

How sad to think that our own men had suffered hunger in our own country, both before and after the battle! How it makes the heart sink!

Without having said a word, George and I had thought the same thing, for all at once he said: "Yes, those people have managed matters better than we have. That meat is not from this country, since they have not yet requisitioned the cattle. It has come by rail; I saw that this morning on the arrival of the gun-carriages. They have also received for the officers large puddings, bullocks' paunches stuffed with minced meats, and other eatables that I am not acquainted with; only their bread is black, but they seem to enjoy it. Their contractors don't come from the clouds, like ours; they may not set rows of figures quite so straight even as ours; but their soldiers get meat, bread, wine, and coffee, whilst ours are starving, as we ourselves have seen. If they had received half the rations of these men, the peasants of Mederbronn would never have complained of them: they could still have fed the unfortunate men upon their retreat."

About eleven at night I returned to the mill a little calmer. The sentinels knew me already. His highness was asleep; so were also his two aides-de-camp and the chaplain: they had taken possession of our beds without ceremony. The servants had gone to sleep in the barn upon my straw; and as for me, I did not know where to go. Still, I was a little more composed in thinking upon what my cousin had told me. If these Germans received their provisions by railway, all might be well; I hoped we might yet keep our cattle, and that then these people would proceed farther. With this hope I lay on the flour-sacks in the mill and fell fast asleep.

But next day I saw how completely mistaken George was in the matter of provisions. I am not speaking only of all that was stolen in our village; every moment people came to me with complaints, as if I was responsible for everything.

"Monsieur le Maire, they have taken the bacon out of my chimney."

"Monsieur le Maire, they have stolen the boots from under my bed."

"Monsieur le Maire, they have given my hay to their horses. What must I do to feed my cow?"

And so on.

The Prussians are the worst thieves in the world; they have no shame; they would take the bread out of your very mouth to swallow it.

These complaints made me so angry that I took courage to speak to his highness, who listened very kindly, and said it was very unfortunate, but that I should remember the French proverb, "À la guerre, comme à la guerre;" and that this proverb applied to peasants as well as to soldiers.

I could have borne all this if the requisitions had not begun; but now the quartermasters were making their appearance, to settle with me, as they said.

It was of no use to urge that we were poor people, already three-fourths ruined; they answered: "Settle your own business. We must have so many tons of hay; so many bushels of oats, barley, flour; so much of meat, both beef and mutton, of good quality; or else, Monsieur le Maire, we will burn down your village."

His highness the Duke of Saxe and his officers had just gone to inspect the camp around the place; I was left alone. I wanted to ring the church bells to assemble the municipal council, but all bell-ringing was forbidden. Then I sent round the rural policeman to summon each councillor, one after the other; but the councillors did not stir: they thought that by remaining at home they would prevent the Prussians from doing anything.

In this extremity I made Martin Kopp publish by beat of drum the list of all that the village had to supply in provisions and articles of every kind, before eleven in the morning; entreating all honest people to make haste, if they did not want to see their houses in flames from one end of the village to the other.

Scarcely had this notice been given out, when everybody made haste to bring all they could.

The quartermasters made out an inventory; they carried away my best cow, and gave me a receipt for everything in the name of his Majesty the King of Prussia.

The general indignation was terrible.

Such was the robbery and violence, in those earlier days, that not so much as a pound of salt meat could have been bought by us in the whole country; and as for fresh meat, it was no use thinking of it. Well, when the Prussians resorted to requisition, everything was obtained, by means of that threat of fire! It was known what they had done in Alsace, and, of course, they were supposed easily capable of beginning again.

After these requisitions, which might be regarded as a little bouquet for his highness, the Prussians raised their camp, announcing to us the arrival of new-comers. I also heard M. le Baron d'Engel command one of his orderlies to order at Sarrebourg six thousand rations of bread and of coffee. Then I saw clearly that it was intended we should feed all these fellows till the end of the campaign, and my sad reflections may easily be imagined. The German commissariat no longer seemed to me so admirable. I could see that it was simply organized robbery and pillage.

The Duke and his followers had scarcely departed, when a captain of blue hussars, Monsieur Collomb, came to take his place, with six horses, and his adjutant, the Count Bernhardy, with three more horses. They came from Saverne wet through, having spent the night in the open air, and this gave them a terrible appetite.