a pouring rain like
regular gypsies, shivering with cold and bent on destroying our
fellows, and happy in having a turnip or a radish to keep up our
strength and tell me if that is the kind of life for honest people. Is
it for that, that God has created us and put us in the world? Is it
not abominable that a king or an emperor, instead of watching over the
affairs of the state, encouraging commerce, and instructing the people
in the principles of liberty and giving good examples, should reduce us
to such a condition as that by hundreds of thousands. I know very well
that this is called glory, but the people are very stupid to glorify
such men as those. Yes, indeed, they must have first lost all sense of
right, all heart, and all religion!

But all this did not prevent my teeth from chattering, or from seeing
the English in our front warming and enjoying themselves around their
good fires, after receiving their rations of beef, brandy, and tobacco.
And I thought, "It is we poor devils, drenched to our very marrow, who
are to be compelled to attack these fellows who are full of confidence,
and want neither cannon nor supplies, who sleep with their feet to the
fire, with their stomachs well lined, while we must lie here in the
mud." I was indignant the whole night. Buche would say:

"I do not care for the rain, I have been through many a worse one when
on the watch; but then I had at least a crust of bread and some onions
and salt."

I was quite absorbed with my own troubles and said nothing, but he was
angry.

The rain ceased between two and three in the morning. Buche and I were
lying back to back in a furrow, in order to keep warm, and at last
overcome by fatigue I fell asleep.

When I woke about five in the morning, the church bells were ringing
matins over all that vast plain.

I shall never forget the scene; and as I looked at the gray sky, the
trampled grain, and my sleeping comrades on the right and left, my
heart sunk under the sense of desolation. The sound of the bells as
they responded to each other from Planchenois to Genappe, from
Frichemont to Waterloo, reminded me of Pfalzbourg, and I thought:

"To-day is Sunday, the day of rest and peace. Mr. Goulden has hung his
best coat, with a white shirt, on the back of his chair. He is getting
up now and he is thinking of me; Catherine has risen too and is sitting
crying on the bed, and Aunt Gredel at Quatre Vents is pushing open the
shutters and