Our four companies, seeing that the Baden soldiers did not mean to attack them, returned quietly, the trumpeter leading.
Long before this, I had gone down to the square, near the German gate, to meet our troops as they came back. It was one of the sights which I shall never forget; the post under arms, the veterans hanging by the chains of the lowered drawbridge; the men, women, and children pushing in the street; and outside, on the ramparts, the trumpets sounding, and answered from the distance by the echoes of the bastions and half-moon; the wounded, who, pale, tattered, covered with blood, came in first, supported on the shoulders of their comrades; Lieutenant Schnindret, in one of the tile-kiln armchairs, his face covered with sweat, with a bullet in his abdomen, shouting with thick voice and extended hand, "Vive l'Empereur!"; the soldiers who threw the Wurtemburg commander from his litter to put one of our own in it; the drums under the gate beating the march, while the troops, with arms at will, and bread and all kinds of provisions stuck on their bayonets, entered proudly in the midst of the shouts: "Hurra for the Sixth Light Infantry!" These are things which only old people can boast of having seen!
Ah, Fritz, men are not what they once were! In my time, foreigners paid the cost of war. The Emperor Napoleon had that virtue; he ruined not France, but his enemies. Nowadays we pay for our own glory.
And, in those times, the soldiers brought back booty, sacks, epaulettes, cloaks, officers' sashes, watches, etc., etc.! They remembered that General Bonaparte had said to them in 1796: "You need clothes and shoes; the Republic owes you much, she can give you nothing. I am going to lead you into the richest country in the world; there you will find honors, glory, riches!" In fine, I saw at once that we were going to sell glasses of wine at a great rate.
As the sergeant passed I called to him from the distance, "Sergeant!"
He saw me in the crowd, and we shook hands joyfully. "All right, Father Moses! All right!" he said.
Everybody laughed.
Then, without waiting for the end of the procession, I ran to the market to open my shop.
Little Sâfel had also understood that we were going to have a profitable day, for, in the midst of the crowd, he had come and pulled my coat-tails, and said, "I have the key of the market; I have it; let us make haste! Let us try to get there before Frichard!"
Whatever natural wit a child may have, it shows itself at once; it is truly a gift of God.