grew fainter in the distance, and the chanting and prayers and the sound of the bells as well. All the doors and windows were closed, everybody had followed the procession. I stopped in the silent street to take breath, a slight breeze came from the fields beyond the ramparts, and I listened to the tumult in the distance and wiped the sweat from my face and thought, "how am I to find Catherine?"
I was climbing the steps at the postern gate when I heard some one say: "Mark the points, Margarot."
I then saw that Father Colin's windows on the first floor were open, and that some men in their shirt-sleeves were playing billiards. They were old soldiers with short hair, and mustaches like a brush. They went back and forth, without troubling themselves about the mayor, or the commandant, or Louis XVI., or the bourgeoisie. One of them, short, thick, with his whiskers cut as was the fashion of the hussars in those days, and his cravat untied, leaned out of the window, resting his cue on the sill, and, looking toward the square, said:
"We will put the game at fifty."
I thought at once that they were half-pay officers, who were spending their last sous, and who would soon be troubled to live. I continued on my way, and hurried along under the vault of the powder magazine behind the college, thinking of all these things, but when I reached the German gate I forgot everything. The procession was just turning the corner at Bockholtz, the chants broke forth opposite the altar like trumpets, and the young priests from Nancy were running among the crowd with their crucifixes raised to keep order, and the Swiss Sirou carried himself majestically under his banner; at the head of the procession were the priests and the choir singing, while the prayers rose to heaven, and behind, the crowd responded: and all this took form, in a low fearful murmur.
I stood on my tiptoes, half hidden by the shed, trying to discover Catherine in all that multitude and thinking only of her, but what a crowd of hats and bonnets and flags I saw defiling down the rue Ulrich. You would never have imagined that there were so many people in the country; there could not have been a soul left in the villages, except a few little children and old people who stayed to take care of them.
I waited about twenty minutes, and gave up hoping to find Catherine, when suddenly I saw her with Aunt Grédel. Aunt was praying in such a loud clear voice, that you could hear her above all the others. Catherine said nothing, but walked slowly along with her eyes cast down. If I could only have called to her she might perhaps have heard me, but it was bad enough not to join the procession without causing further scandal. All I can say is, – and there is not an old man in Pfalzbourg who will assert the contrary, – that Catherine was not the least beautiful girl in the country, and that Joseph Bertha was not to be pitied.
She had passed, and the procession halted on the "Place d'armes," before the high altar at the right of the church. The priest officiated, and silence spread all over the city. In the little streets at the right and the left, it was as quiet as if they could have seen the priest at the altar, great numbers kneeled, and others sat down on the steps of the houses, for the heat was excessive, and many of them had come to town before daylight. This grand sight impressed me very much, and I prayed for my country and for peace, for I felt it all in my heart, and I remember that just then I heard under the shed at the German gate, voices which said very good-humoredly, "Come, come, give us a little room, my friends."
The procession blocked the way, everybody was stopped, and these voices disturbed the kneeling multitude. Several persons near the door made way. The Swiss and the beadle looked on from a distance, and my curiosity induced me to get a little nearer the steps, when I saw five or six old soldiers white with dust, bent down and apparently exhausted with fatigue, making their way along the slope in order to gain the little rue d'Arsenal, through which they no doubt thought to find the way clear, it seems as if I could see them now, with their worn-out shoes and their white gaiters, and their old patched uniforms and shakos battered by the sun and rain and the hardships of the campaign. They advanced in file, a little on the grass of the slope in order to disturb the people who were below as little as possible. One old fellow with three chevrons, who marched ahead and resembled poor Sergeant Pinto who was killed near the Hinterthor at Leipzig, made me feel very sad. He had the same long, gray mustaches, the same wrinkled cheeks, and the same contented air in spite of all his misfortunes and sufferings. He had his little bundle on the end of his stick, and smiling and speaking quite low he said, "Excuse us, gentlemen and ladies, excuse us," while the others followed step by step.
They were the first prisoners released by the convention of the 23d of April, and we saw these men pass afterward every day until July. They had no doubt avoided the magazines, in order the sooner to reach France.
On reaching the little street they found the crowd extended beyond the arsenal; and then in order not to disturb the people, they went under the postern and sat down on the damp steps, with their little bundles on the ground beside them, and waited for the procession to pass. They had come from a great distance, and hardly knew what was going on with us.
Unhappily the wretches from Bois-de-Chênes, the big Horni, Zaphéri Roller, Nicholas Cochart, the carder, Pinacle, whom they had made mayor to pay him for having shown the way to Falberg and Graufthal to the allies during the siege, all these rascals and others who were with them, who wanted the fleur-de-lis – as if the fleur-de-lis could make them any better – unhappily, I say, all that bad set who lived by stealing fagots from the forest, had discovered the old tri-colored cockade in the tops of their shakos, and "now," they thought, "is the time to prove ourselves the real supporters of the throne and the altar."
They came on disturbing everybody, Pinacle had a big black cravat on his neck and a crape, an ell wide, on his hat, with his shirt collar above his ears, and as grave as a bandit who wants to make himself look like an honest man; he came up the first one. The old soldier with the three chevrons had discovered that these men were threatening them at a distance and had risen to see what it meant.
"Come, come! don't crowd so!" said he. "We are not much in the habit of running, what do you want?"
But Pinacle, who was afraid of losing so good an occasion to show his zeal for Louis XVIII., instead of replying to him, smashed his shako at a blow, shouting, "Down with the cockade!"
Naturally the old veteran was indignant and was about to defend himself, when these wretches, both men and women, fell upon the soldiers, knocking them down, pulling off their cockades and epaulets, and trampling them under foot without shame or pity.
The poor old fellow got up several times, exclaiming, in a voice which went to one's heart, "Pack of cowards, are you Frenchmen, assassins, etc., etc."
Every time he rose they beat him down again, and at last left him with his clothes torn, and covered with blood in a corner, and the commandant, de la Faisanderie, having arrived, ordered them to be escorted to the "Violin." If I had been able to get down, I should have run to the rescue, without thinking of Catherine or Aunt Grédel or Mr. Goulden, and they might have killed me too. When I think of it now even, I tremble, but fortunately the wall of the postern was twenty feet thick, and when I saw them carried away covered with blood, and comprehended the whole horrible affair, I ran home by way of the arsenal, where I arrived so pale that Father Goulden exclaimed:
"Why, Joseph! have you been hurt?"
"No, no," I replied, "but I have seen a frightful thing." And I commenced to cry as I told him of the affair. He walked up and down with his hands behind his back, stopping from time to time to listen to me, while his lips contracted and his eyes sparkled.
"Joseph," said he, "these men provoked them?"
"No, Mr. Goulden."
"It is impossible, they must have invited it. The devil! we are not savages! The rascals must have had some other reason than the cockades for attacking them!"
He could not believe me, and it was
