But, when he saw them shaking hands right and left in the street with those who recognized them, his tone changed; he wiped his eyes with his great spotted handkerchief, and murmured:
"How pleased poor old Annette will be! Good! good! He is not proud; he is a man. God preserve him from cannon-balls!"
Others passed as if ashamed to recognize their birthplace; others went gayly to see their sisters or cousins, and everybody spoke of them. One would imagine that all Phalsbourg wore their crosses and their epaulettes; while the arrogant were despised even more than when they swept the roads.
Nearly every month Te Deums were chanted, and the cannon at the arsenal fired their salutes of twenty-one rounds for some new victory. During the week following every family was uneasy; poor mothers especially waited for letters, and the first that came all the city knew of; the rumor spread like wildfire that such an one had received a letter from Jacques or Claude, and all ran to see if it spoke of their Joseph or their Jean-Baptiste. I do not speak of promotions or the official reports of deaths; as for the first, every one knew that the killed must be replaced; and as for the reports of deaths, parents awaited them weeping, for they did not come immediately; sometimes they never came, and the poor father and mother hoped on, saying, "Perhaps our boy is a prisoner. When they make peace, he will return. How many have returned whom we thought dead!"
But they never made peace. When one war was finished, another was begun. We always needed something, either from Russia or from Spain, or some other country. The emperor was never satisfied.
Often when regiments passed through the city, with their great-coats pulled back, their knapsacks on their backs, their great gaiters reaching to the knee, and muskets carried at will; often when they passed covered with mud or white with dust, would Father Melchior, after gazing upon them, ask me dreamily:
"How many, Joseph, think you we have seen pass since 1804?"
"I cannot say, Monsieur Goulden," I would reply', "at least four or five hundred thousand."
"Yes, at least!" he said, "and how many have returned?"