That this was their intention the Governor, who was well served by his spies, had also learned. The opportunity was too good to be lost. Over 50 waggons had been requisitioned, and each would be attended by at least two peasants. The entering of so many waggons into the town would necessarily cause some distraction, and if it were possible, under the cover of darkness, to follow close on them, the Germans and Swiss, might hope to pour in after them without let or hindrance of any kind, as discipline had become very much relaxed.
When the day came, fortune proved even kinder than the Governor of Freiburg had hoped. A thick, dark fog was over the river, and hung like a pall over the two Brissachs, so that those in the new town, on the French bank of the Rhine, could not see their neighbours on the German bank, nor could their neighbours see them. And it was through this fog, that what might be called the advance guard of the waggons made their way into the town.
It was then eight o’clock in the morning. The reveille had sounded long before. The garrison were preparing for breakfast, and the labourers had gone to work in the fortifications. There were, however, owing to the thick fog, but few people about the streets, and the sentries at the gate were watching, with no very keen interest, the lumbering hay waggons passing in.
Several of the peasants who had followed them, other than the drivers, stood inside the gates in an aimless fashion as if their task had been completed.
Attracted by the rumble of the carts, the Overseer of the workmen on the fortifications, a tall, brawny looking fellow, came towards the gate, and seeing the group of idle peasants mistook them for some of his labourers, and asked them why they were not at work. He received no answer. He then addressed himself particularly to one who was a little in advance of the others, and who had a keen eye and appeared to be a man of intelligence.
“Why are you not at work?”
The man accosted, did not at once answer, and the Overseer had to step back and make way for an incoming waggon.
“Why are you not at work, I say?” he repeated angrily.