"This carnage," she continued, "has lasted long enough. Our two poor cousins, Kasper and Yokel, are already going to lose their lives in Spain for this emperor, and now he comes to ask us for the younger ones. He is not satisfied to have slain three hundred thousand in Russia. Instead of thinking of peace, like a man of sense, he thinks only of massacring the few who remain. We will see! We will see!"
"In the name of Heaven! Aunt Grédel, be quiet; speak lower," said I, looking at the window. "If they hear you, we are lost."
"I speak for them to hear me," she replied. "Your Napoleon does not frighten me. He commenced by closing our mouths, so that he might do as he pleased; but the end approaches. Four young women are losing their husbands in our village alone, and ten poor young men are forced to abandon everything, despite father, mother, religion, justice, God! Is not this horrible?"
Then Aunt Grédel became silent. Instead of giving us an ordinary dinner, she gave us a better one than on Catharine's fête day, and said, with the air of one who has taken a resolution:
"Eat, my children, and fear not; there will soon be a change!"
I returned about four in the evening to Phalsbourg, somewhat more calm than when I set out. But as I went up the Rue de la Munitionnaire, I heard at the corner of the college the drum of the sergent-de-ville, Harmautier, and I saw a throng gathered around him. I ran to hear what was going on, and I arrived just as he began reading a proclamation.
Harmautier read that, by the senatus-consultus of the 3d, the drawing for the conscription would take place on the 15th.
It was already the 8th, and only seven days remained. This upset me completely.
The crowd dispersed in the deepest silence. I went home sad enough, and said to Monsieur Goulden: