The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

"Bichelberg, Feb. 25, 1814.

"Dear Aurelia: Thy good letter of January 29th reached Coblentz too late; the regiment was on its way to Alsace.

"We have had a great many discomforts, from rain and snow. The regiment came first to Bitche, one of the most terrible forts possible, built upon rocks up in the sky. We were to take part in blockading it, but a new order sent us on farther to the fort of Lutzelstein, on the mountain, where we remained two days at the village of Pétersbach, to summon that little place to surrender. The veterans who held it having replied by cannon, our colonel did not judge it necessary to storm it, and, thank God! we received orders to go and blockade another fortress surrounded by good villages which furnish us provisions in abundance; this is Phalsburg, a couple of leagues from Saverne. We relieve, here, the Austrian regiment of Vogelgesang, which has left for Lorraine.

"Thy good letter has followed me everywhere, and it fills me now with joy. Embrace little Sabrina and our dear little Henry for me a hundred times, and receive my embraces yourself, too, thou dear, adored wife!

"Ah! when shall we be together again in our little pharmacy? When shall I see again my vials nicely labelled upon their shelves, with the heads of Æsculapius and Hippocrates above the door? When shall I take my pestle, and mix my drugs again after the prescribed formulas? When shall I have the joy of sitting again in my comfortable arm-chair, in front of a good fire, in our back shop, and hear Henry's little wooden horse roll upon the floor, – Henry whom I so long for? And thou, dear, adored wife, when wilt thou exclaim: 'It is my Henry!' as thou seest me return crowned with palms of victory."

"These Germans," interrupted the sergeant, "are blockheads as well as asses! They are to have 'palms of victory!' What a silly letter!"

But Sorlé and Zeffen listened as I read, with tears in their eyes. They held our little ones in their arms, and I, too, thinking that Baruch might have been in the same condition as this poor man, was greatly moved.

Now, Fritz, hear the end:

"We are here in an old tile-kiln, within range of the cannon of the fort. A few shells are fired upon the city every evening, by order of the Russian general, Berdiaiw, with the hope of making the inhabitants decide to open the gates. That must be before long; they are short of provisions! Then we shall be comfortably lodged in the citizens' houses, till the end of this glorious campaign; and that will be soon, for the regular armies have all passed without resistance, and we hear daily of great victories in Champagne. Bonaparte is in full retreat; field-marshals Blücher and Schwartzenberg have united their forces, and are only five or six days' march from Paris – "

"What? What? What is that? What does he say?" stammered out the sergeant, leaning over toward the letter. "Read that again!"

I looked at him; he was very pale, and his cheeks shook with anger.

"He says that generals Blücher and Schwartzenberg are near Paris."

"Near Paris! They! The rascals!" he faltered out.

Suddenly, with a bad look on his face, he gave a low laugh and said:

"Ah! thou meanest to take Phalsburg, dost thou? Thou meanest to return to thy land of sauerkraut with palms of victory? He! he! he! I have given thee thy palms of victory!"

He made the motions of pricking with his bayonet as he spoke, "One —two– hop!"

It made us all tremble only to look at him.

"Yes, Father Moses, so it is," said he, emptying his glass by little sips. "I have nailed this sort of an apothecary to the door of the tile-kiln. He made up a funny face – his eyes starting from his head. His Aurelia will have to expect him a good while! But never mind! Only, Madame Sorlé, I assure you that it is a lie. You must not believe a word he says. The Emperor will give it to them! Don't be troubled."

I did not wish to go on. I felt myself grow cold, and I finished the letter quickly, passing over three-quarters of it which contained no information, only compliments for friends and acquaintances.

The sergeant himself had had enough of it, and went out soon afterward, saying, "Good-night! Throw that in the fire!"

Then I put the letter aside, and we all sat looking at each other for some minutes. I opened the door. The sergeant was in his room at the end of the passage, and I said, in a low voice:

"What a horrible thing! Not only to kill the father of a family like a fly, but to laugh about it afterward!"

"Yes," replied Sorlé. "And the worst of it is that he is not a bad man. He loves the Emperor too well, that is all!"

The information contained in the letter caused us much serious reflection, and that night, notwithstanding our stroke of good fortune in our sales, I woke more than once, and thought of this terrible war, and wondered what would become of the country if Napoleon were no longer its master. But these questions were above my comprehension, and I did not know how to answer them.

XVII

FAMINE AND FEVER

After this story of the landwehr, we were afraid of the sergeant, though he did not know it, and came regularly to take his glass of cherry-brandy. Sometimes in the evening he would hold the bottle before our lamp, and exclaim:

"It is getting low, Father Moses, it is getting low! We shall soon be put upon half-rations, and then quarter, and so on. It is all the same; if a drop is left, anything more than the smell, in six months, Trubert will be very glad."

He laughed, and I thought with indignation:

"You will be satisfied with a drop! What are you in want of? The city storehouses are bomb-proof, the fires at the guard-house are burning every day, the market furnishes every soldier with his ration of fresh meat, while respectable citizens are glad if they can get potatoes and salt meat!"

This is the way I felt in my ill-humor, while I treated him pleasantly, all the same, on account of his terrible wickedness.

And it was the truth, Fritz, even our children had nothing more nourishing to eat than soup made of potatoes and salt beef, which cause many dangerous maladies.

The garrison had no lack of anything; but, notwithstanding, the governor was all the time proclaiming that the visits were to be recommenced, and that those who should be found delinquent should be punished with the rigor of military law. Those people wanted to have everything for themselves; but nobody minded them, everybody hid what he could.

Fortunate in those times was he who kept a cow in his cellar, with some hay and straw for fodder; milk and butter were beyond all price. Fortunate was he who owned a few hens; a fresh egg, at the end of February, was valued at fifteen sous, and they were not to be had even at that price. The price of fresh meat went up, so to speak, from hour to hour, and we did not ask if it was beef or horse-flesh.

The council of defence had sent away the paupers of the city before the blockade, but a large number of poor people remained. A good many slipped out at night into the trenches by one of the posterns; they would go and dig up roots from under the snow, and cut the nettles in the bastions to boil for spinach. The sentries fired from above, but what will not a man risk for food? It is better to feel a ball than to suffer with hunger.

We needed only to meet these emaciated creatures, these women dragging themselves along the walls, these pitiful children, to feel that famine had come, and we often said to ourselves:

"If the Emperor does not come and help us, in a month we shall be like these wretched creatures! What good will our money do us, when a radish will cost a hundred francs?"

Then, Fritz, we smiled no more as we saw the little ones eating around the table; we looked at each other, and this glance was enough to make us understand each other.

The good sense and good feeling of a brave woman are seen at times like this. Sorlé had never spoken to me about our provisions; I knew how prudent she was, and supposed that we must have provisions hidden somewhere, without being entirely sure of it. So, at evening, as we sat at our meagre supper, the fear that our children might want the necessary food sometimes led me to say:

"Eat! feast away! I am not hungry. I want an omelet or a chicken. Potatoes do not agree with me."

I would laugh, but Sorlé knew very well what I was thinking.

"Come, Moses," she said to me one day; "we are not as badly off as you think; and if we should come to it, ah, well! do not be troubled, we shall find some way of getting along! So long as others have something to live upon, we shall not perish, more than they."

She gave me courage, and I ate cheerfully, I had so much confidence in her.

That same evening, after Zeffen and the children had gone to bed, Sorlé took the lamp, and led me to her hiding-place.

Under the house we had three cellars, very small and very low, separated by lattices. Against the last of these lattices, Sorlé had thrown bundles of straw up to the very top; but after removing the straw, we went in, and I saw at the farther end, two bags of potatoes, a bag of flour, and on the little oil-cask a large piece of salt beef.

We stayed there more than an hour, to look, and calculate, and think. These provisions might serve us for a month, and those in the large cellar under the street, which we had declared to the commissary of provisions, a fortnight. So that Sorlé said to me as we went up:

"You see that, with economy, we have what will do for six weeks. A time of great want is now beginning, and if the Emperor does not come before the end of six weeks, the city will surrender. Meanwhile, we must get along with potatoes and salt meat."

She was right, but every day I saw how the children were suffering from this diet. We could see that they grew thin, especially little David; his large bright eyes, his hollow cheeks, his increasing dejected look, made my heart ache.

I held him, I caressed him; I whispered to him that, when the winter was over, we would go to Saverne, and his father would take him to drive in his carriage. He would look at me dreamily, and then lay his head upon my shoulder, with his arm around my neck, without answering. At last he refused to eat.

Zeffen, too, became disheartened; she would often sob, and take her babe from me, and say that she wanted to go, that she wanted to see Baruch! You do not know what these troubles are, Fritz; a father's troubles for his children; they are the cruelest of all! No child can imagine how his parents love him, and what they suffer when he is unhappy.

But what was to be done in the midst of such calamities? Many other families in France were still more to be pitied than we.

During all this time, you must remember that we had the patrols, the shells in the evening, requisition and notices, the call to arms at the two barracks and in front of the mayoralty, the cries of "Fire!" in the night, the noise of the fire-engines, the arrival of the envoys, the rumors spread through the city that our armies were retreating, and that the city was to be burned to the ground!

The less people know the more they invent.

It is best to tell the simple truth. Then every one would take courage, for, during all such times, I have always seen that the truth, even in the greatest calamities, is never so terrible as these inventions. The republicans defended themselves so well, because they knew everything, nothing was concealed from them, and every one considered the affairs of his nation as his own.

But when men's own affairs are hidden from them, how can they have confidence? An honest man has nothing to conceal, and I say it is the same with an honest government.

In short, bad weather, cold, want, rumors of all kinds, increased our miseries. Men like Burguet, whom we had always seen firm, became sad; all that they could say to us was:

"We shall see! – we must wait!" The soldiers again began to desert, and were shot!

Our brandy-selling always kept on: I had already emptied seven pipes of spirit, all my debts were paid, my storehouse at the market was full of goods, and I had eighteen thousand francs in the cellar; but what is money, when we are trembling for the life of those we love?

On the sixth of March, about nine o'clock in the evening, we had just finished supper as usual, and the sergeant was smoking his pipe, with his legs crossed, near the window, and looking at us without speaking.

It was the hour when the bombarding began; we heard the first cannon-shots, behind the Fiquet bottom-land; a cannon-shot from the outposts had answered them; that had somewhat roused us, for we were all thoughtful.

"Father Moses," said the sergeant, "the children are pale!"

"I know it very well," I replied, sorrowfully.

He said no more, and as Zeffen had just gone out to weep, he took little David on his knee, and looked at him for a long time. Sorlé held little Esdras asleep in her arms. Sâfel took off the table-cloth and rolled up the napkins, to put them back in the closet.

"Yes," said the sergeant. "We must take care, Father Moses; we will talk about it another time."

I looked at him with surprise; he emptied his pipe at the edge of the stove, and went out, making a sign for me to follow him. Zeffen came in, and I took a candle from her hand. The sergeant led me to his little room at the end of the passage, shut the door, sat down on the foot of the bed, and said:

"Father Moses, do not be frightened – but the typhus has just broken out again in the city; five soldiers were taken to the hospital this morning; the commandant of the place, Moulin, is taken. I hear, too, of a woman and three children!"

He looked at me, and I felt cold all over.

"Yes," said he, "I have known this disease for a long time; we had it in Poland, in Russia, after the retreat, and in Germany. It always comes from poor nourishment."

Then I could not help sobbing and exclaiming:

"Ah, tell me! What can I do? If I could give my life for my children, it would all be well! But what can I do?"

"To-morrow, Father Moses, I will bring you my portion of meat, and you shall have soup made of it for your children. Madame Sorlé may take the piece at the market, or, if you prefer, I will bring it myself. You shall have all my portions of fresh meat till the blockade is over, Father Moses."

I was so moved by this, that I went to him and took his hand, saying:

"Sergeant, you are a noble man! Forgive me, I have thought evil of you."

"What about?" said he, scowling.

"About the landwehr at the tile-kiln!"

"Ah, good! That is a different thing! I do not care about that," said he. "If you knew all the kaiserlichs that I have despatched these ten years, you would have thought more evil of me. But that is not what we are talking about; you accept, Father Moses?"

"And you, sergeant," said I, "what will you have to eat?"

"Do not be troubled about that; Sergeant Trubert has never been in want!"

I wanted to thank him. "Good!" said he, "that is all understood. I cannot give you a pike, or a fat goose, but a good soup in blockade times is worth something, too."

He laughed and shook hands with me. As for myself I was quite overcome, and my eyes were full of tears.

"Let us go; good-night!" said he, as he led me to the door. "It will all come out right! Tell Madame Sorlé that it will all come out right!"

I blessed that man as I went out, and I told it all to Sorlé, who was still more affected by it than myself. We could not refuse; it was for the children! and during the last week there had been nothing but horse-meat in the market.

So the next morning we had fresh meat to make soup for those poor little ones. But the dreadful malady was already upon us, Fritz! Now, when I think of it, after all these years, I am quite overcome. However, I cannot complain; before going to take the bit of meat, I had consulted our old rabbi about the quality of this meat according to the law, and he had replied:

"The first law is to save Israel; but how can Israel be saved if the children perish?"

But after a while I remembered that other law:

"The life of the flesh is in the blood, therefore I said unto the children of Israel: Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eateth it shall be cut off; and whosoever eateth of any sick beast shall be unclean."

In my great misery the words of the Lord came to me, and I wept.

All these animals had been sick for six weeks; they lived in the mire, exposed to the snow and wind, between the arsenal and guard bastions.

The soldiers, almost all of whom were sons of peasants, ought to have known that they could not live in the open air, in such cold weather; a shelter could easily have been made. But when officers take the whole charge, nobody else thinks of anything; they even forget their own village trades. And if, unfortunately, their commanders do not give the order, nothing is done.

This is the reason that the animals had neither flesh nor fat; this is the reason that they were nothing but miserable, trembling carcasses, and their suffering, unhealthy flesh had become unclean, according to the law of God.

Many of the soldiers died. The wind brought to the city the bad air from the bodies, scattered by hundreds around the tile-kiln, the Ozillo farm, and in the gardens, and this also caused much sickness.

The justice of the Lord is shown in all things; when the living neglect their duties toward the dead, they perish.

I have often remembered these things when it was too late, so that I think of them only with grief.

XVIII

DEATH OF LITTLE DAVID

The most painful of all my recollections, Fritz, is the way in which that terrible disease came to our family.

On the twelfth of March we heard of a large number of men, women, and children who were dying. We dared not listen; we said:

"No one in our house is sick, the Lord watches over us!"

After David had come, after supper, to cuddle in my arms, with his little hand on my shoulder, I looked at him; he seemed very drowsy, but children are always sleepy at night. Esdras was already asleep, and Sâfel had just bidden us good-night.

At last Zeffen took the child, and we all went to bed.

That night the Russians did not fire; perhaps the typhus was among them, too. I do not know.

About midnight, when by God's goodness we were asleep, I heard a terrible cry.

I listened, and Sorlé said to me:

"It is Zeffen!"

I rose at once, and tried to light the lamp; but I was so much agitated that I could not find anything.

Sorlé struck a light, I drew on my pantaloons and ran to the door. But I was hardly in the passage-way when Zeffen came out of her room like an insane person, with her long black hair all loose.

"The child!" she screamed.

Sorlé followed me. We went in, we leaned over the cradle. The two children seemed to be sleeping; Esdras all rosy, David as white as snow.

At first I saw nothing, I was so frightened, but at last I took up David to waken him; I shook him, and called, "David!"

And then we first saw that his eyes were open and fixed.

"Wake him! wake him!" cried Zeffen.

Sorlé took my hands and said:

"Quick! make a fire! heat some water!"

And we laid him across the bed, shaking him and calling him by name. Little Esdras began to cry.

"Light a fire!" said Sorlé again to me. "And, Zeffen, be quiet! It does no good to cry so! Quick, quick, a fire!"

But Zeffen cried out incessantly, "My poor child!"

"He will soon be warm again," said Sorlé; "only, Moses, make haste and dress yourself, and run for Doctor Steinbrenner."

She was pale and more alarmed than we, but this brave woman never lost her presence of mind or her courage. She had made a fire, and the fagots were crackling in the chimney.

I ran to get my cloak, and went down, thinking to myself:

"The Lord have mercy upon us! If the child dies I shall not survive him! No, he is the one that I love best, I could not survive him!"

For you know, Fritz, that the child who is most unhappy, or in the greatest danger, is always the one that we love best; he needs us the most; we forget the others. The Lord has ordered it so, doubtless for the greatest good.

I was already running in the street.

A darker night was never known. The wind blew from the Rhine, the snow blew about like dust; here and there the lighted windows showed where people were watching the sick.

My head was uncovered, yet I did not feel the cold. I cried within myself:

"The last day had come! That day of which the Lord has said: 'Afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take away and cut down the branches."

Full of these fearful thoughts, I went across the large market-place, where the wind was tossing the old elms, full of frost.

As the clock struck one, I pushed open Doctor Steinbrenner's door; its large pulley rattled in the vestibule. As I was groping about, trying to find the railing, the servant appeared with a light at the top of the stairs.

"Who is there?" she asked, holding the lantern before her.

"Ah!" I replied, "tell the doctor to come immediately; we have a child sick, very sick."

I could not restrain my sobs.

"Come up, Monsieur Moses," said the girl: "the doctor has just come in, and has not gone to bed. Come up a moment and warm yourself!"

But Father Steinbrenner had heard it all.

"Very well, Theresa!" said he, coming out of his room; "keep the fire burning. I shall be back in an hour at latest."

He had already put on his large three-cornered cap, and his goat's-hair great-coat.

We walked across the square without speaking. I went first; in a few minutes we ascended our stairs.

Sorlé had placed a candle at the top of the stairs; I took it and led M. Steinbrenner to the baby's room.

All seemed quiet as we entered. Zeffen was sitting in an arm-chair behind the door, with her head on her knees, and her shoulders uncovered; she was no longer crying but weeping. The child was in bed. Sorlé, standing at its side, looked at us.

The doctor laid his cap on the bureau.

"It is too warm here," said he, "give us a little air."

Then he went to the bed. Zeffen had risen from her chair, as pale as death. The doctor took the lamp, and looked at our poor little David; he raised the coverlet and lifted out the little round limbs; he listened to the breathing. Esdras having begun to cry, he turned round and said: "Take the other child away from this room – we must be quiet! and besides, the air of a sick-room is not good for such small children."

He gave me a side look. I understood what he meant to say. It was the typhus! I looked at my wife; she understood it all.

I felt at that moment as if my heart were torn; I wanted to groan, but Zeffen was there leaning over, behind us, and I said nothing; nor did Sorlé.

The doctor asked for paper to write a prescription, and we went out together. I led him to our room, and shut the door, and began to sob.

"Moses," said he, "you are a man, do not weep! Remember that you ought to set an example of courage to two poor women."

"Is there no hope?" I asked him in a low voice, afraid of being heard.

"It is the typhus!" said he. "We will do what we can. There, that is the prescription; go to Tribolin's; his boy is up at night now, and he will give you the medicine. Be quick! And then, in heaven's name, take the other child out of that room, and your daughter too, if possible. Try to find some one out of the family, accustomed to sickness; the typhus is contagious."

I said nothing.

He took his cap and went.

Now what can I say more? The typhus is a disease engendered by death itself; the prophet speaks of it, when he says:

"Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming!"

How many have I seen die of the typhus in our hospitals, on the Saverne hill, and elsewhere!

When men tear each other to pieces, without mercy, why should not death come to help them? But what had this poor babe done that it must die so soon? This, Fritz, is the most dreadful thing, that all must suffer for the crimes of a few. Yes, when I think that my child died of this pestilence, which war had brought from the heart of Russia to our homes, and which ravaged all Alsace and Lorraine for six months, instead of accusing God, as the impious do, I accuse men. Has not God given them reason? And when they do not use it – when they let themselves rage against each other like brutes – is He to blame for it?