PRUSSIA
René was here seized with a fit of coughing.
He looked toward the windows; they were closed; at the fireplace; the coke burned brightly. Putting down the manuscript, he soliloquized:
"I ought to examine the documents in the box and find out whether Naundorff is a martyr or a visionary."
But the narrative fascinated him and he resumed:
The aggregate terms of my prison life amount to seventeen years.
I said to Montmorin, as we slackened our speed, in order to find a path which led to an obscure hut wherein we were to pass the night:
"O that I might live among men, daring to breathe! That I might no longer be hunted down as a criminal. Let me cast away the fatal name and obliterate the race forever. Montmorin, renounce political schemes and help me only in this,—to forget the dungeons that have been my dwelling places."
My friend put his arms around me and said: "I promise."
We slept soundly and started the next morning for Prussia, which we safely entered, under passports held by Montmorin. We put up at a small inn, exhausted from our rapid traveling. Just as we were dropping off to sleep, an officer entered, roughly ordering us from bed. He brought orders to arrest us as spies. He delivered us to a detachment of troops pertaining to the division under the command of the Duke of Brunswick.
When we had journeyed a short distance, we were surrounded by a body of French, treble our number, and I viewed a battle, for the first time in my life; by the irony of fate, I stood in ranks opposing my countrymen. Montmorin and I were ordered to fight and we had no choice but that of obeying. Our detachment was overpowered. The enemy cried, "No quarter!" Montmorin's horse was better than mine.
"Change with me!" he cried. I could not reply, for we all fell back together. My noble friend placed himself before me and sought to ward off the sabre-strokes. My horse fell pierced by a bullet and I could not extricate myself. Montmorin stooped to disentangle my foot and a French soldier with a tremendous blow cut his head in twain. Another sabre descended on my neck and I lost consciousness.
I awoke in a hospital, amid the fearful groans of the other wounded. Thérèse, does not my narrative seem destitute of those shades of gay and grave intermingled which constitute the charm of a personal history? Do you not long for a comic foil to this interminable tragedy? I shall abridge and hurry on.
I was carried in a straw-loaded wagon to the fortress Wessel and there placed with other prisoners destined to imprisonment in Toulon. I protested unavailingly, declaring that I was a Frenchman. I marched with bleeding feet into France. But falling on the ground in my inability to continue, I was abandoned by the guard and should have died but for the care of a peasant woman who carried me to a hospital. In a fellow patient, I recognized a former companion in arms, by name Fritz. Later on, we made our way back into Germany. To sustain life during our journey, we became common thieves and stole fruit, bread, chickens,—anything we could lay our hands on. Do you hear, Thérèse? Your brother has been a common thief. Fritz remarked: "We do on a small scale what kings do on a great one." One day, leaving me his coat as hostage, he started off on a foraging expedition. He was captured by the German league known as the Strickreiter. An old peasant with whom we had become associated, advised that I should go to Saxony where the Strickreiter were not powerful. He gave me what food and money he could spare, and, carrying Fritz's coat, in which I found six hundred francs, I resolved to join the Prussian army, it seeming my only choice. I started for Berlin. On the journey a fellow traveller evinced great cordiality, to the extent of lending me his passport, bearing the name "William Naundorff." He declared he did not require it, being well known. I looked at this new friend intently. I had seen his face before.