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see the battle. I was much frightened, it is true, but curiosity prevailed.

While thus looking and trembling, the Croats were in the square. At the same moment I heard the Commandant cry, "Fire!" then a clap of thunder, then nothing but buzzing in my ears. All that side of the square turned toward the street had fired at once; the glass from our windows fell like hail, the smoke came into the room, with bits of cartridges, and the smell of powder filled the air.

My hair stood on end; I looked and saw the Croats upon their great horses, in the grey smoke, leap, fall back, and leap again, as if to climb over the square, and those behind coming, incessantly coming, howling with wild voices, "Forwertz! Forwertz!" "Fire! the second rank," cried the Commandant, in the midst of perpetual snortings and cries.

He spoke as he might have done in our parlour, so calm was his voice. A fresh clap of thunder followed, and while the plastering was falling, while the tiles were rolling from the roofs as if heaven and earth were coming together, Lisbeth, in the kitchen, uttered such piercing cries that even through this tumult they could be heard like the hissing of a whistle.

After the firing by platoons, began the firing by files. Nothing was to be seen but the guns of the second rank, lowered, fired, and raised again, while the first rank, kneeling, crossed their bayonets, and the third loaded the guns and passed them to the second.

The Croats whirled around the square, striking at a distance with their great spears; from time to time a hat fell, sometimes a man. One of these Croats, reining his horse back on his haunches, sprung so far that he leaped over the three ranks and fell within the square; but then the Republican Commandant threw himself upon him and with one furious thrust nailed him, so to speak, upon the croup of his horse. I saw the Republican draw out his sabre red even to the hilt; that sight made me shiver; I was just going to fly, but I was scarcely on my feet when the Croats turned face about and fled away, leaving a great many men and horses in the square.

suffered, entreated as a favour to be killed. The greater part remained motionless.

For the first time I had a full comprehension of death; those men whom I had seen two minutes before, full of life and strength, charging their enemies with fury, and bounding like wolves, there they were lying pell-mell, insensible as the stones of the road.

In the ranks of the Republicans also there were vacant places, bodies lying on their faces, and some wounded men, their cheeks and foreheads covered with blood, were bandaging their heads, their guns at their feet, without leaving the ranks, while their comrades assisted them to tie their handkerchiefs and to put their hats on over them.

The Commandant, on horseback, near the fountain, one corner of his great plumed hat hanging down his back, and his sabre in his hand, closed up the ranks; near him the drummers formed a line, and at a little distance, close to the trough, was the cantinière with her cart. The trumpets of the Croats were heard sounding the retreat. At the corner of the street they had halted; one of their sentinels waited there behind the corner of the town-house; only the head of his horse could be seen. Some shots were still firing.

"Stop firing!" exclaimed the Commandant.

And all was still; nothing was heard but the trumpet at a distance. The cantinière then went round the ranks on the inside to give some brandy to the men, while seven or eight stout fellows went to draw water from the fountain in bowls for the wounded, who all begged piteously for drink.

I, hanging out of the window, looked down the deserted street, asking myself if those red cloaks would dare to return. The Commandant also looked in the same direction and talked with a captain who was leaning on the saddle of his horse. All at once the captain crossed the square, broke through the ranks, and hurried toward our house crying,

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The master of the house? "He is out."

"Well, you, then, show me the way to your garret, - quick!

I slipped off my wooden shoes and began The horses atttempted to get up, then fell to climb up the stairs at the end of the down again. Five or six horsemen caught entry like a squirrel. The captain followed under their horses made efforts to disen- me. At the top he saw with the first glance gage their legs; others, covered with blood, of his eye the ladder to the pigeon-house, crawled on all fours, raising their hands and went up before me. In the pigeonand crying in a lamentable tone, "Pardone, house, putting both his elbows on the sill Françose!" in fear of being massacred; of the dormer window, which was rather some of them, unable to endure what they low, he leaned out to look. I looked over

his shoulder. The whole of the road till it was lost from sight was full of cavalry, infantry, people, cannon, ammunition wagons, red cloaks, green pelisses, white coats, helmets, cuirasses, files of lances and of bayonets, lines of horses; and all this was advancing toward the village.

"It is an army!" murmured the captain in a low voice.

He turned hastily to go down again, but stopping at a sudden thought he pointed out to me along the village, within two musket-shots, a file of red cloaks which were plunging into a hollow behind the orchards. Do you see those red cloaks ?" said he. "Yes."

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Thousands of short, strange cries, resembling those of a flock of crows, Hurrah! Hurrah!" then filled the street from one end to the other, and almost muffled the heavy sound of the gallop.

I, quite proud of having conducted the captain into the pigeon-house, had the imprudence to go forward to the door. The Houlans, for this time they were Houlans, came like the wind, lances in rest, their sheep-skin capes floating on their shoulders, their ears covered by their large fur caps, their eyes staring, their noses buried as it were in their moustaches, and large pistols with brass blocks in their girdles. It was like a vision. I had only time to throw myself backwards; there was not a drop of blood in my veins, and it was only at the moment when the firing began again that I awoke as from a dream, in the back part of our room opposite to the broken windows.

The air was darkened, the square of soldiers quite white with smoke. The Commandant alone was seen behind, motionless on his horse, near the fountain; he might have been taken for a bronze statue through that bluish cloud from which spirted hundreds of red flames. The Houlans, like monstrous grasshoppers, were bounding all

around, some darting their lances and withdrawing them; others discharged their great pistols into the ranks at four paces distance. It seemed to me that the square was yielding; it was so indeed."

"Close up the ranks! steady!" called the Commandant in his calm voice. "Close up the ranks! close up!" repeated the officers from point to point.

But the square yielded; it bent into a half circle in the middle; the centre almost touched the fountain. At every stroke of the lance there was a gleam of bayonets like lightning, but sometimes a man sank down. The Republicans had no longer time to reload; they fired no more; and the Houlans continued to pour in more numerous, bolder, enveloping the square in their whirlwind, and already uttering shouts of triumph, for they thought themselves conquerors.

I thought the Republicans were lost, when, in the hottest of the action, the Commandant, raising his hat on the point of his sabre, began to sing a song which made one thrill all over, and the whole battalion, like one man, began to sing with him.

In the twinkling of an eye the whole front of the square righted itself, crowding back into the street all that mass of horsemen, pressing them one against another with their great lances, like spikes of grain in the fields. It seemed as if the Republicans were made furious by that song. I never beheld anything more terrible. And I have thought many times since that men maddened in battle are more ferocious than wild beasts.

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But what was still more frightful was that the last ranks of the Austrian column, quite at the end of the street, not seeing what was going on at the entrance to the square, kept advancing all the time, crying,-“ Hurrah! Hurrah! so that those in the front rank, pushed back by the bayonets of the Republicans and being unable to retreat, struggled in inexpressible confusion, and uttered cries of distress, while their great horses, their noses pricked, erected their manes straight, their eyes starting out of their heads, with shrill neighings and frightful kickings. I saw from a distance those unfortunate Houlans, wild with terror, turn round, striking their comrades with the butt of their lances, that they might make room for themselves, and scampering away like hares.

Two minutes afterward the street was empty. About twenty or thirty of these poor devils remained shut in the public square. They had not seen the retreat, and seemed utterly disconcerted, not knowing which way to fly; but this was soon

finished; a new discharge laid them on their backs, with the exception of two or three who plunged into Tanner's lane.

There was now nothing to be seen but heaps of dead horses and men, with blood flowing out from beneath them, and running down our little gutter quite to the culvert.

"Stop firing!" cried the Commandant for the second time. "Load!"

At the same instant nine o'clock sounded from the church. The village at that moment is not to be described; the houses riddled with balls, the shutters hanging by the hinges, the windows broken in, the chimneys shaking, the streets full of broken bricks and tiles, the roofs of the sheds pierced with holes, and that heap of dead, those horses topsy-turvy, struggling and bleeding; one cannot picture it to himself. The Republicans, their numbers diminished by half, their large hats hanging down upon their backs, their look stern and terrible, paused, resting on their arms. Behind, a few steps from our house, the Commandant was consulting with his officers. I overheard him easily.

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their hands black, their cheeks hollow. Two drummers marched behind without drumming; the little one whom I had seen sleeping under our shed was there; he had his drum over his shoulder, and his back bent as he marched. Large tears flowed down his round cheeks, blackened by the smoke of the powder. His comrade said to him,

Come, little Jean, have courage!" But he did not seem to hear him. Horatius Cocles had disappeared and the cantinière also. I followed that group with my eyes to the turning of the street.

For some minutes the alarm-bell of the town house had been ringing; and every where in the distance melancholy voices were heard crying, "Fire! Fire!"

I looked toward the barricade of the Republicans; the fire had caught the houses and mounted up to the sky; on the other side a clattering of arms filled the street, and already long black pikes were put out from the great windows of the neighbouring houses to throw down the blazing barricade.

IV.

AFTER the departure of the Republicans a full quarter of an hour passed before any one showed himself in the street on our side. All the houses seemed to be abandoned. On the other side of the barricade the tumult increased. The cries of the people, "Fire! Fire!" were mournfully pro"longed.

We have an Austrian army in front of us," said he, abruptly; "our business is to get off with whole skins. In an hour we shall have twenty or thirty thousand men upon our heads; they will turn the village with their infantry and all will be lost. I am about to have the retreat sounded. Has any one anything to say? "No, that is well advised," replied the others.

Then they moved off, and two minutes afterward I saw a great number of soldiers go into the houses, throw out chairs, tables, wardrobes, in one heap; some of them from the lofts of the barns threw out hay and straw, and others brought the carts and wagons from the back of the sheds. Not more than ten minutes were needed to have at the entrance of the street a barrier as high as the houses; hay and straw were at the bottom and the top. The rolling of the drum recalled those who had done this work. At once fire began to climb from piece bit to piece bit quite to the top of the barricade, sweeping the roofs on each side with its red flame and spreading its black smoke like an immense vault over the village.

Loud cries were then heard at a distance, gun-shots came from the other side; but nothing could be seen, and the Commandant gave the order to retreat.

I saw those Republicans defile in front of our house with a slow and firm step, their eyes flashing, their bayonets red,

I had gone out under the shed, frightened by the conflagration. Nothing stirred, nothing was heard but the crackling of the fire and the groans of one of the wounded sitting against the wall of our stable; he had a ball in his back, and was supporting himself upon his two hands to keep himself upright. He was a Croat; he looked at me with dreadful and despairing eyes. A little farther off a horse, lying on his side, swung his head at the end of his long neck like a pendulum.

And while I was there, thinking that these Frenchmen must be great brigands to burn us up without any reason, I heard a slight noise behind me. I turned round and saw in the shadow of the shed, under the sprays of straw falling from the beams, the door of our barn half open, and behind it the pale face of our neighbour Spick with his eyes wide open. He put his head forward very gently and listened; then being convinced that the Republicans had sounded the retreat, he sprung out, brandishing his hatchet like a madman, and crying,. Where are those scoundrels? where are they? Let me exterminate them all! "

"Ah," said I, "they have gone, but by | Houlans, dragoons, hussars, the cannon, running you may yet overtake them at the end of the village."

He looked at me with a doubtful glance, and seeing that I meant no harm he ran to the fire.

Other doors opened at the same time; men and women came out, looked, then raised their hands to heaven, crying, "Curses on them! Curses on them!" and each one hurried to get his bucket to extinguish the fire.

The fountain was soon encumbered with people; there was no longer any room around it; they formed a line both sides quite to the entrance of the threatened houses. Some soldiers standing on the roof poured water on the flames, but all that could be done was to preserve the neighbouring houses. Towards eleven o'clock a jet of bluish flame rose up to the sky; among the number of wagons piled up was the cantinière's; her two casks of brandy had just exploded.

carts, gun-carriages, powder wagons; then, about three o'clock, the general in chief, a large old man, in the midst of his officers, with a three-cornered hat and a long white polonaise so covered with fringe and gold embroidery that by his side the Republican Commandant with his worn hat and uniform would have looked only like a simple corporal.

The burgomaster and the counsellors of Anstatt, in drugget coats with large sleeves, and with uncovered heads, waited for him in the square. He stopped there two minutes, looked at the dead bodies heaped around the fountain, and asked—

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"How many were there of the French?" A battalion, your excellency," replied the burgomaster, bent into a semicircle. The general said nothing. He raised his hat and pursued his route.

Then came the second brigade, some Tyrolese chasseurs at the head, with their green coats, their black hats, the brims turned back, and their small Innspruck rifles; then, other infantry in white coats and sky-blue

Uncle Jacob too was in the line on the other side under the guard of two Austrian sentinels; he succeeded, however, in escap-breeches, large gaiters reaching up to their ing by crossing a court, and returned home through the garden.

"Lord God!" exclaimed he, "Fritzel is safe."

I saw from this circumstance that he loved me very much, for he embraced me, asking me, Where were you, my poor child ? " At the window," I said.

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Then he turned quite pale, and called "Lisbeth! Lisbeth!"

But she did not answer and it was quite impossible for us to find her; we went into all the rooms, even looking under the beds; and we thought she had taken refuge with some neighbour.

During this interval the fire had been mastered, and suddenly we heard the Austrians crying outside,

"Make room! make room! back!" At the same instant a regiment of Croats thundered by our house. They pushed forward in pursuit of the Republicans; but we learned the next day that they had arrived too late; the enemy had gained the wood of Rothalps, which extends quite behind Pirmasens. It was thus we understood, at last, why these people had barricaded the street and set the houses on fire: they wished to delay the pursuit of the cavalry; and this plainly shows their great experience in the business of war.

From that moment till five o'clock in the evening, two Austrian brigades defiled through the village under our windows;

knees; then, the heavy cavalry, men six feet tall, enclosed in their cuirasses, and of whom we saw only the chin and the long red moustaches under the visor of the helmet: then, at last, the large ambulances covered with grey cloth stretched over hoops, and behind, the lame, the stragglers, and the poltroons.

The surgeons of the army made the cir cuit of the square. They lifted up the wounded, placed them on their ambulances, and one of their chiefs, a little old man with a white wig, said to the burgomaster, pointing to the dead,

You will have them all buried as soon as possible."

"Your orders shall be executed," replied the burgomaster gravely.

At length the last ambulances had gone. It was about six o'clock in the evening. Night had come. Uncle Jacob was on the threshold of the house with me. Before us, fifty steps off, against the fountain lay all the dead ranged on the steps, their faces turned up, with open eyes. They were white as wax, having lost all their blood. The women and children of the village were walking around.

And as the grave-digger, Jeffers, with his two boys, Karl and Ludwig, came up with their spades over their shoulders, the burgomaster said to them,

Take twelve men with you, and make a large pit in the field of Wolfthal for all these

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Yesterday we were at peace; we asked nothing of any one; we had done no harm; all at once strangers have come to smite, to ruin, and destroy us. Ah! may those who promote such calamities through a spirit of ambition be cursed! may they be the execration of ages!

But Lisbeth was still so troubled that she could scarcely put one foot before the other, and I had to lead her 66 like a up child. Then, seeing the light again in her kitchen, she sat down at the corner of the hearth, and burst into tears, praying and thanking the Lord for having saved her; which proves that old people hold to life as much as the young.

The hours of desolation which followed, and the activity my uncle was obliged to exercise in answering the calls of the unfortunate persons who claimed his care, will remain always present to my memory. Not a moment passed that a woman or a child did not enter our house, calling

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And they went away.

Fritzel, remember, there is nothing upon earth more abominable. Men who do not know each other, who have never seen each other, all at once rush to tear each other to pieces. That alone should make us believe in God, for there must be an avenger of such iniquities."

Thus spoke my uncle, gravely; he was much moved, and I listened with my head bowed down, retaining each of his words and engraving them on my memory.

After we had been sitting thus for half an hour, a sort of dispute arose outside upon the square; we heard a dog growl hoarsely, and the voice of our neighbour Spick say, in an irritated tone,

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Stop, stop, you scamp of a dog, till I give you a blow on the head with my mattock! There! that is just the same sort of animal as his masters; they pay you with assignats and he with bites; but he will come to harm."

The dog growled still louder. And other voices said, in the midst of the stillness of the night,

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But it is odd all the same. See, he will not quit that woman. Perhaps she is not quite dead."

It was not till very late, about ten o'clock, that he at last returned. Lisbeth had rallied a little; she had made up a fire Then my uncle rose quickly and went on the hearth, and prepared the table as out. I followed him. There is nothing usual, but the plaster from the ceiling and more dreadful than to look at the dead unthe splinters of glass and of wood still cov-der the red light of torches. There was no ered the floor. In the midst of all this we wind, but yet the flame wavered, and all seated ourselves at table and ate in silence. those pale creatures, with their eyes open, From time to time my uncle raised his seemed to be moving. head, looking out upon the square, upon the torches which moved about among the dead. The black carts which were stationed in front of the fountain, with their little country ponies, the grave-diggers, the curious; all this in the dim light. He observed

"Not dead!" cried Spick. "Are you mad, Jeffer? Do you think you know more than the army surgeons? No, no, she has gone to her account, and that is all right, for she is the woman who paid for my brandy with paper. Come, get out

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