No wonder they wept! Their fathers, sons, and brothers would be in the bloody carnage so soon to follow. Already they had bade to God only knows how many the last farewell.
At length they let go our bridles and we passed on, and, with such scenes every moment in some form occurring, we performed the remainder of our journey to Mülhausen.
We made our way directly to the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Mülhausen, Monsieur August Dolfus.
A dispatch had just been received from the International Committee of the Red Cross at Mülhausen, France, inviting me to come there. Dr. Appia and his noble band of pioneers had evidently passed that way. This would be in a direct line to Strassburg, and the field of Weissenburg, and I decided to leave by the earliest train next morning.
As good fortune would have it, there came to me at this moment a kind-featured, gentle-toned, intelligent Swiss girl, who had left the canter de vaud to go alone to care for the wounded. The society introduced her to me.
Perhaps it would be well to anticipate so far as to speak of this young lady more fully, for all through you will know her as my faithful Antoinette—Antoinette Margot, Swiss by birth, French by cultivation, education, and habit. The two national characteristics met and joined in her. The enthusiasm of the one, the fidelity of the other, were so perfectly blended and balanced in her, that one could never determine which prevailed. No matter, as both were unquenchable, unconquerable. She was raised in the city of Lyons, France, an only daughter, and at that age an artist of great note, even in the schools of artistic France. Fair-haired, playful, bright, and confiding, she spoke English as learned from books, and selected her forms of expression by inference. One day she made the remark that something was “unpretty.” Observing a smile on my face, she asked if that were not correct. I replied that we do not say “unpretty” in English. “No. But you say unwise, unselfish, unkind, and ungrateful—why not unpretty?” “I do not know,” I answered. I didn’t either.
There was something in that face to be drawn to “at sight,” and to her astonishment and delight I told her she might accompany me.
Scarce was this arrangement completed when breathless messengers rushed to tell us that the French still fled before the troops of the Prince Royal, that the Prussians were marching direct upon the Rhine, if indeed it were not already crossed, and that the French had destroyed their railroad to Strassburg, that the rolling-stock of the road had been run off to save it, and that even the station was closed.
This was after dark—the news was not of a nature to favor delay. Instead of five o’clock by train next morning, I would start at daybreak by private carriage.
At length a cochère was found who would undertake the journey—the task of driving to Mülhausen for a consideration which, under the circumstances, it was quite possible for him to obtain. At the appointed hour, with some small satchels, the requisite supply of shawls and waterproofs, with my quiet, sensible young companion, I set off once more, shall I say—for “the front”? That expression was very strange after a lapse of five years, and I had thought never to hear it again in connection with myself.