And, in spite of the pain of seeing our old fortress in the enemy's hands, I determined to go to Phalsbourg in search of a physician. That day the country was nothing but mud and clouds. I went straight forward, with drooping head, walking on the slope at the edge of the road, my mind a blank, from having thought for so many months of our abasement, and so downcast that I would have given my life for nothing.
On the plateau of Bugelberg, just outside of the forest, seeing before me about three leagues distant the little city looking as if crushed under the gloomy sky, its burned houses, its ruined church, its ramparts levelled with the ground, I stopped for a moment, leaning on my stick and recalling bygone days.
How many times during the past twenty-five years I had gone there on Sundays and holidays with my poor wife, Catherine, and my daughter, either to go to mass, or to see the booths of the fair, or to shake hands with some old comrades, laughing, happy, thinking that everything would continue that way till the end of our days! And all the vanished joys, the old friends, who, in their little gardens at the foot of the glacis, called to us to come to pick currants or to gather a bunch of flowers, seemed to return. How many recollections returned to me! I could not remember them all, and I cried to myself:
"Oh! how distant those things are! Oh! who would ever have believed that this misfortune would come upon us, that we, Frenchmen and Alsatians, should be obliged to bow our necks to the Prussian yoke!"
My sight grew dim, and I set out again on my journey, murmuring in my soul the consolation of all the wretched:
"Bah! life is short. Soon, Frederick, all will be forgotten. So take courage, you have not much longer to suffer."
I seemed also to hear the trumpet of our joyous soldiers; but at the gate, a squad of Germans, in big boots, and their sentinel, with bow-legs, his gun on his shoulder, his helmet on the back of his neck, and, walking to and fro in front of the guard-house, recalled to me our position. My old comrade, Thomé, city overseer and collector of the city duties, beckoned to me to come in. We talked over our misfortunes; and, seeing that I was looking at a company of Prussians crossing the bridge, who, holding themselves erect, were keeping step, he said:
"Do not look at them, Frederick, they are proud when one looks at them; they think that we are admiring them."
Then I turned away my eyes, and having rested for a few minutes I entered the city.
XXIX