This is very difficult to learn; but there is one thing that assists you immensely, and that is a sort of placard hung up in every room in the barracks, and which is from time to time read to you. This placard presupposes everything that a soldier might wish to do, as, for instance, to return home, to refuse to serve, to resist his officer, and always ends by speaking of death or at least five years with a ball and chain.
The day after our arrival at Frankfort I wrote to Monsieur Goulden, to Catharine, and to Aunt Grédel. I told them that I was in good health, for which I thanked God, and that I was even stronger than before I left home, and sent them a thousand remembrances. Our Phalsbourg conscripts, who saw me writing, made me add a few words for each of their families. I wrote also to Mayence, to the good couple of the Capougner-Strasse, who had been so kind to me, telling them how I was forced to march without being able to thank them, and asking their forgiveness for so doing.
That day, in the afternoon, we received our uniforms. Dozens of Jews made their appearance and bought our old clothes. The Italians had great difficulty in making these respectable merchants comprehend their wishes, but the Genoese were as cunning as the Jews, and their bargainings lasted until night. Our corporals received more than one glass of wine; it was policy to make friends of them, for morning and evening they taught us the drill in the snow-covered yard. The cantinière Christine was always at her post with a warming-pan under her feet. She took young men of good family into special favor, and the young men of good family were all those who spent their money freely. Poor fools! How many of them parted with their last sou in return for her miserable flattery! When that was gone, they were mere beggars; but vanity rules all, from conscripts to generals.
All this time recruits were constantly arriving from France, and ambulances full of wounded from Poland. Klipfel, Zébédé, Furst, and I often went to see these poor wretches, and never did we see men so miserably clad. Some wore jackets which once belonged to Cossacks, crushed shakos, women's dresses, and many had only handkerchiefs wound around their feet in lieu of shoes and stockings. They gave us a history of the retreat from Moscow, and then we knew that the twenty-ninth bulletin told only truth.
These stories enraged our men against the Russians, and we longed for the war to begin again. I was at times almost overcome with wrath after hearing some tale of horror; and even the thought that these Russians were defending their families, their homes, all that man holds most dear, could scarcely recall me to a right frame of mind. We hated them for defending themselves; we would have despised them had they not done so. But about this time an extraordinary event occurred.
You must know that my comrade, Zébédé', was the son of the gravedigger of Phalsbourg, and sometimes between ourselves we called him "Gravedigger." This he took in good part from us; but one evening after drill, as he was crossing the yard, a hussar cried out:
"Halloo, Gravedigger! help me to drag in these bundles of straw."
Zébédé, turning about, replied:
"My name is not Gravedigger, and you can drag in your own straw. Do you take me for a fool?"