Therefore our cattle returned from the Biechelberg in obedience to my orders; and my two best cows waited in the stable, eating a few handfuls of hay, until the first requisition of the Prussians should arrive.
The village people who saw this highly approved of my conduct, never imagining that their turn would come so soon.
Time passed away, and it was supposed that this quiet might last a good while, when a squadron of Prussian lancers, and, a little farther on, a squadron of hussars, appeared at the bottom of our valley.
For an advanced guard they had a few Uhlans—an order which we have since noticed they observed constantly; three hundred paces to the front rode two horsemen, each with a pistol in his hand resting on the thigh, and who halted from time to time to question people, threatening to kill them if they did not give plain answers to their questions; and behind them came the main body, always at the same distance.
We, standing under our projecting eaves, or leaning out of our windows, men, women, and children, gazed upon the men who were coming to devour us, to ruin us, and strip the very flesh off our bones. It was, as it were, the Plébiscite advancing upon us under our own eyes, armed with pistol and sword, the guns and the bayonets behind.
First, the cavalry extended from the hill at Berlingen to the Graufthal, to Wéchem, to Mittelbronn, and farther still; then marched up several regiments of infantry, their black and white standards flying.
We were watching all this without stirring. The officers, in spiked helmets, were galloping to and fro, carrying orders; the curé Daniel, in his presbytery, had lifted his little white blinds, and our neighbor Katel exclaimed, "Dear, dear, one would never have thought there could be so many heretics in the world."
This is exactly the state of ignorance that had been kept up amongst us from generation to generation: making people believe that there was nobody in the universe besides themselves; that we were a thousand to one, and that our religion was universal. Pure and simple folly, upheld by lies!
It was a great help to us to have such grand notions about ourselves! It made us feel enormously strong!
But hypocrites can always get out of their scrapes: they vanish in the distance with well-lined pockets, and their victims are left behind sticking in the mud up to the chin!