He was the last French soldier that I saw after the battle of Reichshoffen.
At night we were told that the peasants of Graufthal had found a gun stuck fast in the valley; and two hours later, whilst we were supping, our neighbor Katel came in pale as death, crying, "The Prussians are at your door!"
Then I went out. Ten or fifteen Uhlans were standing there smoking their short wooden pipes, and watering their horses at the mill-stream.
Imagine my surprise, especially when one of these Uhlans began to greet me in bad Prussian-German: "Oho! good-evening, Monsieur le Maire! I hope you have been pretty well, Monsieur le Maire, since I last had not the pleasure of seeing you?"
He was the officer of the troop. My wife, and Grédel, too, were looking from the door. As I made no answer, he said, "And Mademoiselle Grédel! here you are, as fresh and as happy as ever. I suppose you still sing morning and evening, while you are washing up?"
Then Grédel, who has good eyes, cried, "It is that great knave who came to take views in our country last year with his little box on four long legs!"
And, even in the dusk, I could recognize one of those German photographers who had been travelling about the mountains a few months before, taking the likenesses of all our village folks. This man's name was Otto Krell; he was tall, pale, and thin, his nose was like a razor back, and he had a way of winking with his left eye while paying you compliments. Ah! the scoundrel! it was he, indeed, and now he was an Uhlan officer: when Grédel had spoken, I recognized him perfectly.
"Exactly so, Mademoiselle Grédel," said he, from his tall horse. "It is I myself. You would have made a good gendarme; you would have known a rogue from an honest man in a moment."
He burst out laughing, and Grédel said, "Speak in a language I can understand; I cannot make out your patois."
"But you understand very well the patois of Monsieur Jean Baptiste Werner," answered this gallows-bird, making a grimace. "How is good Monsieur Jean Baptiste? Is he in as good spirits as ever? Have you still got your little likeness of him, you know, close to your heart—that young gentleman, I mean, that I had to take three times, because he never came out handsome enough?"