At last I took courage and called softly:
"Catharine!" And she, turning her head, cried:
She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the cannon thundered.
"The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged."
"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!"
I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone for nothing--ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the thought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since 1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of ten years of glory!
But let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle, with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of France!
But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one in the sad _cortége_ escaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and Catharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them for their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap of other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes--dying of hunger.
She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried, "Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"
They took me home. Why should I describe my long illness, my shrieks for water, my almost miraculous escape from what seemed certain death? Let it suffice the kind reader to know that, six months after, Catharine and I were married; that Monsieur Goulden gave me half his business, and that we lived together as happy as birds.
The wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by their misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of vengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813--that my story may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor--then I will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of Waterloo!