Hullin drew near, glad that something had happened to distract Catherine's thoughts, and Brainstein, the postman, his heavy shoes covered with snow and his hands resting upon his staff, stood with a weary and careworn air at the door.
Catherine put on her spectacles, opened the letter slowly, notwithstanding the impatient glances of Jean-Claude and Louise, and read aloud:
"This, my dear mother, is to inform you that all goes well, and I arrived Tuesday evening at Phalsbourg, just as they were closing the gates. The Cossacks were already on the Saverne side, and skirmishing was kept up all night with their advance. The next day a flag of truce summoned us to surrender the place. The commandant Meunier told the bearer to go and hang himself, and, three days after, a storm of shell and canister began to hail upon the city. The Russians have three batteries; but the hot shot do the most harm. They set fire to the houses and when the flames appear, showers of canister prevent our putting them out. The women and children keep within the blockhouse; the citizens fight with us on the ramparts. They are brave men, and among them are some veterans of the Sambre-and-Meuse, of Italy and Egypt, who have not forgotten how to work the guns. It makes me sad to see their grey moustaches falling on the cannon as they aim. I will answer for it, they waste no powder; but it is hard to see men, who have made the world tremble, forced in their old age to defend their own homes and hearths."
"Hard indeed," said Catherine, drying her eyes. "It makes my heart bleed to think of it."
She continued:
"The day before yesterday the governor decided to attack the tile-kiln. You must know that these Russians break the ice to bathe in platoons of twenty or thirty, and afterward dry themselves there at the fire. About four in the afternoon, as evening was coming on, we made a sally through the arsenal postern, passing through the covered ways and filing along the path leading to the kiln. Ten minutes after, we began a rolling fire on it, and the Russians had scarcely time to seize their muskets and cartridge-boxes, and, half-dressed, to form ranks upon the snow. Nevertheless, they were ten times more numerous than we, and began a movement to the right, on the little chapel of Saint John, so as to surround us, when the guns of the arsenal opened a fire upon them, the like of which I never saw before, sweeping them down in long lanes. In less than a quarter of an hour they were in full flight to Quatre-Vents, without waiting to pick up their coats, their officers at their head, and round-shot from the town acting as file-closers. Father Jean-Claude would have laughed at their predicament. At night-fall we returned to the city, after destroying the kiln, and throwing two eight-pounders we captured into its well. So ended our first sortie. I write you from Bois-de-Chênes, which we have reached on a foraging expedition. The siege may last months.
"I should have told you that the Allies are passing through the valley of Dosenheim to Weschem, and flooding the roads to Paris by thousands. Ah! if God would only give the emperor the victory in Lorraine or Champagne, not one of them would return. But the trumpets are sounding the recall, and we have gathered a goodly number of oxen and cows and goats. We may have to fight our way back. Farewell, my dear mother, and Louise, and Father Jean-Claude. You are ever in my thoughts and my heart."
Catherine's eyes grew moist as she finished.
"What a brave fellow he is!" she murmured; "he knows only his duty. Well! well! Do you hear, Louise, how he remembers you?"