Next day I had to celebrate the marriage of Chrétien Richi with his first cousin Lisbette; notice had been given for a week, and when invitations are sent out such things cannot be postponed. I should have liked to be carrying my hay and straw into the wood, for cattle cannot live upon air; and as I was pressed, for time, I sent for Placiard to take my place. But he could nowhere be found; he had gone into hiding like all the functionaries of the Empire, who are always ready to receive their salaries and to denounce people in quiet times, and very sharp in taking themselves off the moment they ought to be at their posts.
At ten o'clock, then, I was obliged to put on my sash and go; the wedding party were waiting, and I went up into the hall with them. I sat in the armchair, telling the bridegroom and bride to draw near, which of course they did.
I was beginning to read the chapter on the duties of husband and wife, when in a moment a great shouting arose outside: "The Prussians! the Prussians!" One of the groomsmen, with his bunch of roses, left; Chrétien Richi turned round, the bride and the rest looked at the door; and I stood there, all alone, stuck fast with the clerk, Adam Fix. In a moment the groomsman returned, crying out that the people of Phalsbourg were making a sortie into the wood to lift our cattle; and that they were coming too to search our houses. Then I could have sent all the wedding-party to Patagonia, when I fancied the position of my wife and Grédel in such a predicament; but a mayor is obliged to keep his dignity, and I cried out: "Do you want to be married? Yes or no?"
They returned in a moment, and answered "Yes!"
"Well, you are married!"
And I went out while the witnesses signed, and ran to the mill.
Happily this report of a sortie from Phalsbourg was false. A gendarme had just passed through the village, bearing orders from MacMahon, and hence came all this alarm.
Nothing new happened until seven in the evening. A few fugitives were still gaining the town; but at nightfall began the passage of the 5th army corps, commanded by General de Failly.
So, then, these thirty thousand men, instead of descending into Alsace by Niederbronn, were now coming behind us by the road to Metz, on this side of the mountains. They were not even thinking of defending our passes, but were taking flight into Lorraine!
Half our village had turned out, astonished to see this army moving in a compact mass, upon Sarrebourg and Fénétrange. Until then it had been thought that a second battle would be fought at Saverne. People had been speaking of defending the Falberg, the Vachberg, and all the narrow, rock-strewn passes; the roads through which might have been broken up and defended with abatis, from which a few good shots might have kept whole regiments in check; but the sight of these thousands of men who were forsaking us without having fought—their guns, their mitrailleuses, and the cavalry galloping and rolling in a cloud along the highway, to get farther out of the enemy's reach—made our hearts bleed. Nobody could understand it.