"That beggar of a minister, has he not written yet? Will he never write, I wonder? Does he take us for brutes? It is very disagreeable always to be ordered about. Thou art no longer a soldier, since they left thee for dead. We saved thy life, and thou art nothing to them now."
"Certainly, you are right, Aunt Grédel," I would say; "but for all that we cannot be married without going to the mayor—without a permit—and if we do not go to the mayor, the priest will not dare to marry us at the church."
Then aunt would be very grave, and always ended by saying: "You see, Joseph, that all those people from first to last have fixed everything to suit themselves. Who pays the guards, and the judges, and the priests, and who is it that pays everybody? It is we! and yet they dare not marry us. It is shameful; and if it goes on, we will go to Switzerland and be married." This would calm us, and we would spend the rest of the day in singing and laughing.
II
In spite of my great impatience every day brought something new, and it comes back to me now like the comedies that are played at the fairs. The mayors and their assistants, the municipal counsellors, the grain and wood merchants, the foresters and field-guards, and all those people who had been for ten years regarded as the best friends of the Emperor, and had been very severe if any one said a word against his majesty, turned round and denounced him as a tyrant and usurper, and called him "the ogre of Corsica." You would have thought that Napoleon had done them some great injury, when the fact was that they and their families had always had the best offices.
I have often thought since, that this is the way the good places are obtained under all governments, and still I should be ashamed to abuse those who could not defend themselves, and whom I had a thousand times flattered. I should prefer to remain poor and work for a living rather than to gain riches and consideration by such means. But such are men! And I ought to remember too, that our old mayor and three or four of the counsellors did not follow this example, and Mr. Goulden said that at least they respected themselves, and that the brawlers had no honor.
I remember how, one day, the Mayor of Hacmatt had come to have his watch put in order at our shop, when he commenced to talk against the Emperor in such a way that Father Goulden, rising suddenly, said to him:
"Here, take your watch, Mr. Michael, I will not work for you. What! only last year you called him constantly 'the great man.' And you never could call him Emperor simply, but must add, Emperor and King, protector of the Helvetic Confederation, etc., while your mouth was full of beef; now you say he is an ogre, and you call Louis XVIII., 'Louis the well-beloved!' You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Do you take people for brutes? and do you think they have no memories?"
Then the mayor replied, "It is plain to be seen that you are an old Jacobin."