Nobody could pacify us, we had fallen below contempt, we were a conquered people.
For thousands of years it would be said, that Paris had been taken by the Prussians and the English. It was an everlasting disgrace, but the shame did not rest on us.
The battalion left Vaugirard at five o'clock in the afternoon to go to Montrouge. When we saw that the movement toward the Loire had commenced, each one said, "What are we then? Are we subjects to the Prussians? because they want to see us on the other side of the Loire, are we forced to gratify them? No, no! that cannot be. Since they have betrayed us, let us go! All this is none of our concern any longer. We have done our duty, but we will not obey Blücher!"
The desertion commenced that very night; all the soldiers went, some to the right and some to the left; men in blouses and poor old women tried to take us with them through the wilderness of streets, and endeavored to console us, but we did not need consolation. I said to Buche: "Let us leave the whole thing, and return to Pfalzbourg and Harberg, let us go back to our trades and live like honest people. If the Austrians and Russians come there, the mountaineers and villagers will know how to defend themselves. We shall need no great battles to destroy thousands of them, let us go!"
There were fifteen of us from Lorraine in the battalion, and we all left Montrouge, where the headquarters were, together; we passed through Ivry and Bercy, both places of great beauty, but our trouble prevented us from seeing a quarter of what we should have done. Some kept their uniforms, while others had only their cloaks, and the rest had bought blouses.
We found the road to Strasbourg at last, in the rear of St. Mandé, near a wood to the left of which we could see some high towers, which they told us was the fortress of Vincennes.
From this place, we regularly made our twelve leagues a day.
On the 8th of July we learned that Louis XVIII. was to be restored, and that Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois would secure his salvation. All the wagons and boats and diligences already carried the white flag, and they were singing "Te Deums" in all the villages through which we passed; the mayors and their assistants and the councillors all praised and glorified God for the return of "Louis the well-beloved."
The scoundrels called us "Bonapartists," as they saw us pass, and even set their dogs on us.
But I do not like to speak of them; such people are the disgrace of the human race.