WATERLOO:
A SEQUEL TO
THE CONSCRIPT OF 1813
I
The joy of the people on the return of Louis XVIII., in 1814, was unbounded. It was in the spring, and the hedges, gardens, and orchards were in full bloom. The people had for years suffered so much misery, and had so many times feared being carried off by the conscription never to return, they were so weary of battles, of the captured cannon, of all the glory and the Te Deums, that they wished for nothing but to live in peace and quiet and to rear their families by honest labor.
Indeed, everybody was content except the old soldiers and the fencing-masters.
I well remember how, when on the 3d of May the order came to raise the white flag on the church, the whole town trembled for fear of the soldiers of the garrison, and Nicholas Passauf, the slater, demanded six louis for the bold feat. He was plainly to be seen from every street with the white silk flag with its "fleur-de-lis," and the soldiers were shooting at him from every window of the two barracks, but Passauf raised his flag in spite of them and came down and hid himself in the barn of the "Trois Maisons," while the marines were searching the town for him to kill him.
That was their feeling, but the laborers and the peasants and the tradespeople with one voice hailed the return of peace and cried, "Down with the conscription and the right of union." Everybody was tired of living like a bird on branch and of risking their lives for matters which did not concern them.
In the midst of all this joy nobody was so happy as I; the others had not had the good luck to escape unharmed from the terrible battles of Weissenfels and Lutzen and Leipzig, and from the horrible typhus. I had made the acquaintance of glory and that gave me a still greater love for peace and horror of conscription.