In his excitement everything looked bright to him. And all that he said seemed to me so natural, that I was sure that the Emperor would direct matters as we had supposed. Catherine believed it too. We thanked God for what had come, and about eleven o'clock, after having laughed and drank and shouted, we went to bed with the brightest hopes. All the city was illuminated, and we had put lamps in our windows also. Every moment we heard the crackers in the street and the children were shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" and the soldiers were coming out of the inns, singing, "Down with the émigrés." This lasted till very late, and it was one o'clock before we slept.
XIII
This general satisfaction continued for five or six days. The old mayors and their assistants were replaced as well as the field-guards, and all those who had been displaced a few months before. The whole city, even the women, wore little tri-colored cockades, and all the seamstresses were busily at work making them, of red, white, and blue ribbon; and those who railed so bitterly against the "ogre of Corsica," never spoke of Louis XVIII. except as the "Panada King." On the 25th of March a Te Deum was sung, the garrison and all the civil authorities joining in the service with great ceremony. After the Te Deum, the authorities gave a grand dinner to the officers of the garrison at the "Ville de Metz." The weather was fine and the windows were open, and the hall was lighted by clusters of lamps hanging from the ceiling. Catherine and I went out in the evening to enjoy the spectacle. We could see the uniforms and the black coats sitting side by side around the long tables, and first the mayor would rise, and then his assistants, or the new commandant of the post, Mr. Brandon, to drink to the health of the Emperor or of his ministers, of France, to peace or to victory, etc., etc., and this they kept up till midnight.
Inside the glasses jingled, and outside the children fired crackers. They had erected a climbing pole before the church, and wooden horses and organ-grinders had come from Saverne, and there was a holiday at the college. In Klein's Court, at the "Ox," there was a fight between dogs and donkeys; in short, it was just as it was in 1830 and in 1848, and afterward. The people never invent anything new to glorify those who rise, or to express their contempt for those who fall.
But they soon found out that the Emperor had no time to lose in rejoicings. The gazette said that "his Majesty wished for peace, that he made no demands, that he was on good terms with his father-in-law the Emperor Francis, that Marie Louise and the King of Rome were to return, they were daily expected," etc.
But meanwhile the order arrived to arm the place. Two years before Pfalzbourg was a hundred leagues from the frontier. The ramparts were in ruins, the ditches filled up, and there was nothing in the arsenal but miserable old muskets of the time of Louis XIV., which were discharged with matches; and the guns were so unwieldy on their heavy carriages, that horses were required to move them. The arsenals were really at Dresden and Hamburg and Erfurt; but though we had not stirred, we were ten leagues from Rhenish Bavaria, and it was upon us that the first shower of bombs and bullets would fall. So, day after day, we received orders to restore the earthworks and to clear out the ditches and to put the old ordnance in good condition. At the beginning of April a great workshop was established at the arsenal for repairing the arms, and skilful engineers and artillerists arrived from Metz to repair the earthworks of the bastions and make terraces around the embrasures. The activity was very great—greater than in 1805 and in 1813, and I thought more than once that these extensive frontiers had their good side, because we might in the interior live in peace, while they took the blows and bombardments.
But we had great anxiety, for naturally when the palisades were newly planted on the glacis, and the half-moons filled with fascines, when cannon were placed in every nook and corner, we knew that there must be soldiers to guard and serve them.
Often as we heard these decrees read at night, Catherine and I looked at each other in mute apprehension. I felt beforehand that instead of remaining quietly at home, cleaning and mending clocks, I would be obliged to be again on the march, and that always made me sad; and this melancholy increased from day to day. Sometimes Father Goulden, seeing this, would say cheerfully:
"Come! Joseph, courage! all will come right at last."