This was a profitable business, because thousands of conscripts passed through Phalsburg from week to week, and from month to month. They were measured at once at the mayoralty, clothed, and filed off to Mayence, Strasburg, or wherever it might be.
This lasted a long time; but at length people were tired of war, especially after the Russian campaign and the great recruiting of 1813.
You may well suppose, Fritz, that I did not wait till this time before sending my two boys beyond the reach of the recruiting officers' clutches. They were boys who did not lack sense. At twelve years old their heads were clear enough, and rather than go and fight for the King of Prussia, they would see themselves safe at the ends of the earth.
At evening, when we sat at supper around the lamp with its seven burners, their mother would sometimes cover her face and say:
"My poor children! My poor children! When I think that the time is near when you will go in the midst of musket and bayonet fire—in the midst of thunder and lightning!—oh, how dreadful!"
And I saw them turn pale. I smiled at myself and thought: "You are no fools. You will hold on to your life. That is right!"
If I had had children capable of becoming soldiers, I should have died of grief. I should have said, "These are not of my race!"
But the boys grew stronger and handsomer. When Itzig was fifteen he was doing a good business. He bought cattle in the villages on his own account, and sold them at a profit to butcher Borich at Mittelbronn; and Frômel was not behind him, for he made the best bargains of the old merchandise, which we had heaped in three barracks under the market.
I should have liked well to keep the boys with me. It was my delight to see them with my little Sâfel—the curly head and eyes bright as a squirrel's—yes, it was my joy! Often I clasped them in my arms without a word, and even they wondered at it; I frightened them; but dreadful thoughts passed through my mind after 1812. I knew that whenever the Emperor had returned to Paris, he had demanded four hundred millions of francs and two or three hundred thousand men, and I said to myself:
"This time, everybody must go, even children of seventeen and eighteen!"