In Seventy, therefore, I fought in the field and scouted with the Uhlans. Ah, I could tell the stories! Those were the days. It is a mistake to think that the country-people hated us, or tried to kill us. On the contrary, if I might tell it, many of the young maids--
Ach, bitte, Herr--of a surety I will proceed and tell of Paris. I am aware that it is not to be expected that the English should care to hear of the doings of the Reiters of the black-and-white pennon in the matter of the maids.
But in Seventy-one, during the siege and the terrible days of the Commune, I was in Paris, what you call a spy. It was the order of the Chancellor--our man of blood-and-iron. Therefore it was right and not ignoble that I should be a spy.
For I have served my country in more terrible places than the field of Weissenburg or the hill of Spichern.
Ja wohl! there were few Prussians who could be taken for Frenchmen, in Paris during those months when suspicion was everywhere. Yet in Paris I was, all through the days of the investiture. More, I was chief of domestic service at the Hôtel de Ville, and my letters went through the balloon-post to England, and thence back to Versailles, where my brothers were and the Kaiser whom in three wars I have served. For I am Prussian in heart and by begetting, though born in Elsass.
So daily I waited on Trochu, as I had also waited on Jules Favre when he dined, and all the while the mob shouted for the blood of spies without. But I was Jules Lemaire from the Midi, a stupid provincial with the rolling accent, come to Paris to earn money and see the life. Not for nothing had I gone to school at Clermont-Ferrand.
But once I was nearly discovered and torn to pieces. The sweat breaks cold even now to think upon it. It was a March morning very early, soon after the light came stealing up the river from behind Notre-Dame. A bitter wind was sweeping the bare, barked, hacked trees on the Champs Élysées. It happened that I went every morning to the Halles to make the market for the day--such as was to be had. And, of course, we at the Hôtel de Ville had our pick of the best before any other was permitted to buy. So I went daily as Monsieur Jules Lemaire from the Hôtel de Ville. And please to take off your _képis, canaille_ of the markets.