Every morning, while my daughter arranged the rooms, and the grandmother told her beads, I went down stairs to smoke my pipe in the large room with Father Ykel. Koffel, Starck, and others would come dropping in, to take a glass of brandy; they told of domiciliary visits, of orders not to ring the bells, of the arrival of German schoolmasters to replace our own, of the requisitions of all kinds that increased every day, of the unhappy peasants who were compelled to work to feed the Prussians, and of a thousand other atrocities that infuriated one against those stupid Badeners, Bavarians, and Würtembergers, who were allowing themselves to be killed for the sake of King William, and warring against their own interests. Big Starck, who was very pious, and always went to mass every Sunday, said that they would all be damned, without hope of redemption, and that their souls would be burned to all eternity.
That helped to make the time pass agreeably. One day Hulot brought us his grandson, Jean Baptiste, a big boy of sixteen, in his vest and pantaloons of coarse linen, his feet bare, winter as well as summer, in his large shoes, his hair hanging in long, yellow locks over his face, and a satchel hanging over his thin back. This boy, sitting in front of the fire, told us that at Sarrebruck and Landau the landwehr were furious; that they were declaiming in all the taverns against the crazy republicans, the cause of all the battles since Sedan, and of the continuation of the war; that it had been reported that a battle had been fought at Coulmiers, near Orleans; that the Germans were retreating in disorder, and that the army of Frederick Charles was going to their rescue; but that our young men were also learning to join the army of the republic; and that the hauptmänner had laid a fine of fifty francs a day upon the parents of those who had left the country, which had not prevented him, Jean Baptiste, from going to the rescue of his country like his comrades.
Scarcely had he ceased to speak when I ran up the stairs, four steps at a time, to tell Marie-Rose the good news. I found her on the landing. She went down to the laundry, and did not appear in the least astonished.
"Yes, yes, father," she said, "I thought it would end that way; every one must lend a hand—all the men must go. Those Germans are thieves; they will return routed and defeated."
Her tranquility astonished me, for the idea must have occurred to her, too, that Jean, an able-bodied man, would not stay at home at such a time, and that he might all at once go off yonder in spite of his promises of marriage. So I went to my room to think it over, while she went down, and two minutes afterward I heard Jean Merlin's step upon the stairs.
He came in quietly, his large felt hat on the back of his head, and he said good-humouredly:
"Good morning, Father Frederick; you are alone?"
"Yes, Jean; Marie-Rose has just gone to the laundry, and the grandmother is still in bed."
"Ah! very good," said he, putting his stick behind the door.
I suspected something was coming, from his look. He walked up and down, with bent head, and, stopping suddenly, he said to me: