always kept thinking that he would change his mind, and the next evening as we were finishing our supper I was happy enough to hear him say good-humoredly:
"Joseph, are you not curious to hear these preachers? They tell so many fine things of them, that I want to hear how it is for myself."
"Oh! Mr. Goulden, I should like nothing better! but we must lose no time, for the church is always full by the second stroke of the bell."
"Very well! let us go," said he, rising and taking down his hat. "I am curious to see how it is. Those people astonish me. Come!"
We went out; the moon was shining so brightly that we could recognize people as easily as in broad daylight. At the corner of the rue Fouquet we saw that even the steps of the church were already covered with people. Two or three old women, Annette Petit, Mother Balaie, and Jeannette Baltzer, with their big shawls wrapped closely round them, and the long fringes of their bonnets over their eyes, hurried past us, when Father Goulden exclaimed, "Here are the old women! Ha! ha! ha! always the same!"
He laughed, and as he went on said, that since Father Colin's time there had never been so many people seen at the evening service. I could not believe that he was speaking of the old landlord of the "Three Roses," opposite the infantry barracks, so I said:
"He was a priest, Mr. Goulden?"
"No, no," he answered smiling, "I mean old Colin. In 1792, when we had a club in the church, everybody could preach; but Colin spoke best of all. He had a magnificent voice, and said many forcible and true things, and the people came from far and near, from Saverne and Saarburg, and even still farther away to hear him; women and girls, 'citoyennes' as they called them then, filled the choir galleries and the pews. They wore little cockades in their bonnets, and sang the 'Marseillaise' to arouse the young men. You never saw anything like it! Annette Petit, Mother Baltzer, and all those whom you see running before us, with their prayer-books under their arms, were among the foremost. But they had white teeth and beautiful hair then, and loved 'Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.' Ha! ha! poor Bevel! poor Annette! Now they are going to repent, though they were good patriots then; I believe God will pardon them." He laughed as he recalled these old stories, but when we had reached the steps of the church he grew sober, and said:
"Yes – yes – everything changes, everything! I remember the day in '93, when old Colin spoke of the country being in danger, when three hundred young men left the country to join the army of Hoche; Colin followed them, and became their commander. He was a terrible fellow among his grenadiers. He would not sign the proposition to make Napoleon emperor, – now he sells over the counter by the glass!"
Then looking at me as if he were astonished at his own thoughts, he said, "Let us go in, Joseph."
We entered under the great pillars of the organ; the crowd was very great, and he did not say a word more. There were lights burning in the choir over the heads of the people. The only sound which broke the silence was the opening and shutting of the doors of the pews. At last we heard Sirou's halberd on the floor, and Mr. Goulden said, "There he is!"
A light near the vessel for the holy water enabled us to see a little. A shadow mounted to the pulpit at the left, while Koekli lighted two or three candles with his stick. The preacher might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, he had a pleasant, rosy face and heavy blonde hair below his tonsure, that fell in curls over his neck. They commenced by singing a psalm, the young girls of the village sang in the choir "What joy to be a Christian." After that the preacher from the desk said, that he had come to defend the faith, the law, and the "right divine" of Louis XVIII., and demanded if any one had the audacity to take the other side. As nobody wished to be stoned, there was a dead silence. Then a brown, thin man, six feet high with a black cloak on, rose in one of the pews opposite, and exclaimed:
"I have! I maintain that faith, religion, and the right of kings, and all the rest, are nothing but superstitions. I maintain that the republic is just, and that the worship of reason is worth them all!" and so on.
The people were indignant. There never was anything like it! When he had finished speaking, I looked at Mr. Goulden, who laughed softly, and said: "Listen! listen!"
Of course I listened; the young preacher prayed to God for this infidel, and then he spoke so beautifully that the crowd was entranced. The big thin man replied, saying, "They had done right to guillotine Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and all the family." The indignation increased, and the men from Bois-de-Chênes, and especially their wives, wanted to get into the pew to knock him down, but just then Sirou came up, crying "Room! room!" and old Koekli in his red gown threw himself before the man, who escaped into the sacristy, raising his hands to heaven and declaring that he was converted, and that he renounced the devil and all his works. Then the preacher made a prayer for the soul of the sinner. It was a real triumph for religion.
Everybody left about eleven o'clock, and it was announced that there would be a procession the next day, which was Sunday.
In consequence of the great crowd, which had pushed us into the corner, Mr. Goulden and I were among the last to get out, and by the time we reached the street, the people from Quatre Vents and the other villages were already beyond the German gate, and nothing was heard in the streets but the closing of the shutters by the townspeople, and a few old women talking about the wonderful things they had heard, as they went home by the rue de l'Arsenal.
Father Goulden and I walked along in the silence, he with his head bent down and smiling, though without speaking a word. When we reached home I lighted the candle, and while he was undressing asked:
"Well! Father Goulden, did they preach well?"
"Yes," he replied smiling, "yes, for young men who have seen nothing, it was not bad." Then he laughed aloud and said, "But if old Colin had been in the Jacobin's place, he would have puzzled the young man terribly." I was greatly surprised at that, and as I still waited to hear what more he had to say, he slowly pulled his black silk cap over his ears and added thoughtfully, "but it's all the same; all the same. These people go too fast, much too fast. They will never make me believe that Louis XVIII. knows about all this. No, he has seen too much in his life not to know men better than that. But, good-night, Joseph, good-night. Let us hope that an order will soon arrive from Paris sending these young men back to their seminary."
I went to bed and dreamed of Catherine, the Jacobin, and of the procession we were going to see.
IV
Next morning the bells began to ring as soon as it was light. I rose and opened my shutters and saw the red sun rising from behind the Magazine, and over the forest of Bonne-Fontaine. It might have been five o'clock, and you could feel beforehand how hot it was going to be, and the air was laden with the odor of the oak and beech and holly leaves which were strewn in the streets. The peasants began to arrive in companies, talking in the still morning. You could recognize the villagers from Wechem, from Metting, from the Graufthal and Dasenheim, by their three-cornered hats turned down in front and their square coats, and the women with their long black dresses and big bonnets quilted like a mattress hanging on their necks; and those from Dagsberg, Hildehouse, Harberg, and Houpe with their large round felt hats, and the women without bonnets and with short skirts, small, brown, dry, and quick as powder, with the children behind with their shoes in their hands, but when they reached Luterspech they sat down in a row and put them on to be ready for the procession.
Some priests from the different villages, also came by twos and threes, laughing and talking among themselves in the best of humor.
And I thought, as I rested my elbows on the window-sill, that these people must have risen before midnight to reach here so early in the morning, and that they must have come over the mountains walking for hours under the trees, crossing the little bridges in the
