all her
children for her defence, and this time it is not a question of
acquiring from others, but of saving our own country. Remember that it
is yourself and your wife and all that is dearest to you in the world
that is at stake." We went down to the street in silence, embraced
each other, and then I went to the barracks. Zebede took me to the
mess-room and I put on my uniform. All that I remember after so many
years is, that Zebede's father, who was there, took my clothes and made
them into a bundle and said he would take them home after our
departure; and the battalion filed out by the little rue de Lanche
through the French gate. A few children ran after us, and the soldiers
on guard presented arms; we were _en route_ for _Waterloo_.

XV

At Sarrebourg we received tickets for lodgings. Mine was for the old
printer Jarcisse, who knew Mr. Goulden and Aunt Gredel, and who made me
dine at his table with my new comrade and bedfellow, Jean Buche, the
son of a wood-cutter of Harberg, who had never eaten anything but
potatoes before he was conscripted. He devoured everything, even to
the bones that they set before us. But I was so melancholy, that to
hear him crunch the bones made me nervous. Father Jarcisse tried to
console me, but every word he said only increased my pain. We passed
the remainder of that day and the following night at Sarrebourg. The
next day we kept on our route to the village of Mezieres, the next to
the Vic, and on to Soigne, till on the fifth day we came to Metz. I do
not need to tell you of our march, of the soldiers white with dust, how
we passed one magazine after another, with our knapsacks on our backs,
and our guns carried at will, talking, laughing, looking at the young
girls as we passed through the villages, at the carts, the manure
heaps, the sheds, the hills, and the valleys, without troubling
ourselves about anything. And when one is sad and has left his wife at
home, and dear friends too, whom he may never see again, all these pass
before his eyes like shadows, and a hundred steps more and they too are
unthought of. But yet the view of Metz, with its tall cathedral and
its ancient dwellings, and its frowning ramparts awakened me. Two
hours before we arrived, we kept thinking we should soon reach the
earthworks, and hastened our steps in order the sooner to get into the
shade. I thought of Colonel Desmichels, and had a little--very little,
hope. "If fate wills!" I