way to the
Platz Commandant. He was an old enemy of mine, but I could not help it;
his was the only authority I could appeal to, and he was bound to do me
justice. When I reached the bureau, it was so crowded with soldiers and
townsfolk, some seeking for billets, some insisting on their claim to be
free, that I could not get past the door, and, after an hour's
waiting, I was fain to give up the attempt, and turned back home again,
determined to make my statement in writing, which, after all, might have
been the most fitting.

"I found my doors wide open when I got there, and my shop crowded
with soldiers, who, either seated on the counter or squatting on their
knapsacks, had helped themselves freely to my wine, even to raising the
top of an old cask, and drinking it in large cups from the barrel, which
they handed liberally to their comrades as they passed.

"My heart was too full to care much for the loss, though the insult
pressed me sorely, and, pushing my way through, I gained the inner room
to find it crowded like the shop. All was in disorder and confusion.
The old musket my father had carried for many a year, and which had hung
over the chimney as an heirloom, lay smashed in fragments on the floor;
some wanton fellow had run his bayonet through my 'brevet' as syndic,
and hung it up in derision as a banner; and one--he was a corporal--had
taken down the wreath of white roses that lay on Gretchen's coffin till
it was laid in the earth, and placed it on his head. When I "aw this,
my senses left me; I gave a wild shriek, and dashed both my hands in his
face. I tried to strangle him; I would have torn him with my teeth had
they not dragged me off and dashed me on the ground, where they trampled
on me, and beat me, and then carried me away to prison.

"I was four days in prison before I was brought up to be examined. I did
not know whether it had been four or forty, for my senses had left
me and I was mad; perhaps it was the cold dark cell and the silence
restored me, but I came out calm and collected. I remembered everything
to the smallest incident.

"The soldiers were heard first; they agreed in everything, and their
story had all the air of truth about it They owned they had taken my
wine, but said that the regiment was ready and willing to pay for it so
soon as I came back, and that all the rest they had done were only the
usual follies of troops on a march. I began by claiming my exemption as
a syndic, but wa