uired to move them. The arsenals were
really at Dresden and Hamburg and Erfurt; but though we had not
stirred, we were ten leagues from Rhenish Bavaria, and it was upon us
that the first shower of bombs and bullets would fall. So, day after
day, we received orders to restore the earthworks and to clear out the
ditches and to put the old ordnance in good condition. At the
beginning of April a great workshop was established at the arsenal for
repairing the arms, and skilful engineers and artillerists arrived from
Metz to repair the earthworks of the bastions and make terraces around
the embrasures. The activity was very great--greater than in 1805 and
in 1813, and I thought more than once that these extensive frontiers
had their good side, because we might in the interior live in peace,
while they took the blows and bombardments.

But we had great anxiety, for naturally when the palisades were newly
planted on the glacis, and the half-moons filled with fascines, when
cannon were placed in every nook and corner, we knew that there must be
soldiers to guard and serve them.

Often as we heard these decrees read at night, Catherine and I looked
at each other in mute apprehension. I felt beforehand that instead of
remaining quietly at home, cleaning and mending clocks, I would be
obliged to be again on the march, and that always made me sad; and this
melancholy increased from day to day. Sometimes Father Goulden, seeing
this, would say cheerfully:

"Come! Joseph, courage! all will come right at last."

He wished to raise my spirits, but I thought: "Yes, he says that to
encourage me, but any one who is not blind can see what turn affairs
will take."

Events followed each other so rapidly, that the decrees came like hail,
always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them.

And we learned too that the regiments were to take their old numbers,
"illustrious in so many glorious campaigns." Without being very
malicious, we could understand that the old numbers which had no
regiments would soon find them again. And not only that, but we
learned that the skeletons of the third, fourth, and fifth battalions
of infantry, the fourth and fifth squadrons of cavalry, and thirty
battalions of artillery trains were to be filled up, and twenty
regiments of the Young Guard, ten battalions of military equipages, and
twenty regiments of marines were to be formed, ostensibly to give
employment to all the half-pay office