A number of superior officers, generals, colonels, commanders of hussars, of dragoons and of chasseurs, in plumed hats, in helmets, in red shakos, their chins in their huge cravats, their swords dragging, were walking silently back and forth, or talking with each other, while they waited to be called to table.
It was difficult to pass through the crowd, but Zimmer kept hold of my arm, and led me to the end of the room, to a little lighted door.
We entered a high room, with two windows opening upon the gardens.
The marshal was there, standing, his head uncovered; his back was toward us, and he was dictating orders which two staff-officers were writing.
This was all which I noticed at the moment, in my confusion.
Just after we entered, the marshal turned; I saw that he had the good face of an old Lorraine peasant. He was a tall, powerful man, with a grayish head; he was about fifty years old, and very heavy for his age.
"Marshal, here's our man!" said Zimmer. "He is one of my old school-mates, Samuel Moses, a first-rate fellow, who has been traversing the country these thirty years, and knows every village in Alsace and Lorraine."
The marshal looked at me a few steps off. I held my hat in my hand in great fear. After looking at me a couple of seconds, he took the paper which one of the secretaries handed him, read and signed it, then turned back to me:
"Well, my good man," said he, "what do they say about the last campaign? What do the people in your village think about it?"
On hearing him call me "my good man," I took courage, and answered "that the typhus had made bad work, but the people were not disheartened, because they knew that the Emperor with his army was at hand."