iiililltmsilftiiMlfHitlttlli
 
 GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 OF
 
 THE STOEY OF A CAMPAIGN 
 KABYLIA, 
 
 AND OTHER TAT/RS.
 
 ' I pulled up to look at this charming residence." 
 Campaign in Kabytia.} [Page 31.
 
 THE STOEY 
 
 OF A 
 
 CAMPAIGN IN KABYLIA, 
 
 ftolb hg a (fffcassntr b'^frupu. 
 AND OTHEE TALES. 
 
 BY 
 
 MM. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAlSr, 
 
 .Authors o/ " Waterloo," "TheAlsacian Schoolmaster," " Citizen Bonaparte, 
 "Confessions of a Clarionet Player," &o, t Ac, 
 
 WARD, LOCK AND CO. 
 
 LONDON: WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.Q 
 NEW YORK: BOND STREET. 
 
 86045
 
 c\ 
 
 CO 
 07 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 A CAMPAIGN IN KABYL1A, 
 
 I. 
 
 'ISTEN to me (said iny friend Goguel to 
 me) ; you are a peaceable man ; you are 
 fond of cattle, bees, and everything be- 
 longing to country life. Nothing can be 
 more natural ; from father to son your 
 family have always been ploughing, and sowing, and 
 reaping. But you must not suppose that all men are 
 just like you, and that you alone are fulfilling the 
 decrees of Heaven. If there wajS to be nothing but 
 peace in the world, God would never have made hawks 
 to pounce down upon your poultry, wolves to devour 
 your flocks, and pikes to swallow carp. 
 
 P-ott my part, I confess to feeling a far greater satis- 
 faction when I am bestriding a good horse, with a 
 sword hanging at my belt and a carbine slung to my
 
 10 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 side, than when I used to be seated on a cart carrying 
 vegetables to market. 
 
 Well, so it is ; every man to his trade. 
 
 The happiest day of my life was on the 30th of 
 March, 1871, when Grosse, an old trumpeter in the 
 First Chasseurs d'Afrique at Blidah, sounded a call to 
 the quartermasters* of all the squadrons ; and, entering 
 the ward- room, I saw Adjutant Pigace smiling and 
 twisting his moustaches. 
 
 I felt in a moment that something pleasant was going 
 to happen, and I was not mistaken, for the moment our 
 comrades were assembled, the adjutant cried 
 
 " The order of the day ! What number ? What ! 
 no one knows ? Oh, come ! we'll settle that by-and-by. 
 Promotions : the colonel in command of the First Regi- 
 ment of Chasseurs d'Afrique appoints Alban Montezunia 
 Goguel quartermaster." 
 
 He had scarcely ceased speaking when I felt myself 
 quite another man. I, Goguel, appointed, during the 
 rest of the war with Prussia, quartermaster in the 
 Chasseurs d'Afrique, at the end of only eight months' 
 service ! You would never be able to understand the 
 extent of my gladness. I drew myself up, with my 
 shoulders back, and ray two thumbs in my trousers' 
 pockets, spreading them, out wide, and shouting, " Vive 
 la France !" 
 
 The other fellows laughed ; and the adjutant, closing 
 his book, said to me with a smile 
 
 "Aha, Goguel! there you are now with your foot 
 in the stirrup ; the path of honour lies before you." 
 
 "You may be sure I invited my comrades te tako 
 
 * MarecJiaux des logis. An exact equivalent docs not exist iu 
 the English army. Tr.
 
 'Every man to his trade." 
 
 A Campaign in KabyHn.} 
 
 [f'agt 10.
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfrique. 11 
 
 absinthe with me ; and so we marched off to the canteen 
 arm-in-arm. Till five o'clock we did nothing but drink 
 and laugh, and see the best side of everything. But at 
 five G-rosse sounded the call again. We went out, and 
 in front of the quarters, Quartermaster Goguel is 
 named to join the detachment at Tizi-Ouzou with foui 
 chasseurs on foot. 
 
 Tizi-Ouzou is in the Kabyle country, about thirty- five 
 leagues from Blidah. We have a fort in that place foi 
 the protection of the European villages. A few of oui 
 men had died down there, from sickness or other causes, 
 and four of our chasseurs were ordered there to replace 
 those men and to mount their horses. 
 
 That was right enough, of course, but it seemed to 
 me very hard to make my men carry their cloaks and 
 their baggage for thirty-five leagues under the burning 
 sun of Africa. I have always been of opinion that the 
 soldier ought to be taken care of as much as possible 
 and I spent the rest of the day plaguing the commis 
 saries to let us have old Lubin's one-horse car to carrj 
 my chasseurs a business this old fellow had carried 
 on for fifteen years past. At last my request wan 
 acceded to. 
 
 Next morning, before daybreak, having saddled mj 
 horse and seen that my men were fully equipped, I gavt 
 the word to march. 
 
 But first I went to shake hands with my friend 
 Jaquet, an attorney at Blidah. My horse was pawing 
 the ground at the door. We drank a glass of kirsch. 
 wasser that he had had from home ; then, after a hearty 
 shake, I vaulted into my saddle, and rejoined my little 
 detachment at a gallop. 
 
 The old Jews' street was still silent and empty ; a
 
 12 The Story of a Campaign in Kafylia, 
 
 few women were sweeping the pavement, and were 
 turning round to see the quartermaster darting past at 
 full speed, with his sword jingling against his boot, and 
 his white cap-cover floating over his shoulders. 
 
 Very soon after leaving the Algiers Gate I overtook 
 the cart, which was moving slowly along with my four 
 chasseurs smoking their pipes in the early morning, 
 and talking of anything that came into their heads. 
 
 A little further on we fell into the Dalmatie road, a 
 military road along the foot of the Atlas mountains, 
 which was to lead us direct to Arba, the end of our first 
 day's march. 
 
 Never shall I forget the calm pleasure of our start, at 
 that early hour when the air is still cool under the 
 shadow of the mighty Atlas. The quails were calling 
 and answering one another in the midst of the corn : 
 these birds are innumerable in Algeria. At our right 
 rose the Atlas mountains, with copses of mastic-trees 
 covering their feet, with golden furze-bushes and 
 oleander-trees ; from our left spread out the plain of 
 Metidja, covered with rich crops, and traversed by a 
 thousand little rills flowing from the neighbouringpasses. 
 
 As the sun rose in the sky, the turtle-doves, the- 
 nightingales, and other native birds raised their voices 
 in the sycamores, and we were better able to distinguish 
 through the shadow at the foot of the Nador the 
 barracks of the Zouaves, whither I had so frequently 
 accompanied my comrades, Rimbaud and Lauriston ; 
 farther on, the great pyramidal mound of stones called 
 the Queen's Tomb, and at the furthest horizon the high 
 mountain of the Zachar. 
 
 The prospect was of immense extent ; no one without 
 leeingit could form any idea of the wealth of this country.
 
 Told ly a Chasseur d'Afnque. 13 
 
 If railroads liad been made in Algeria thirty yeara 
 ago, villages would have been built by thousands along 
 their lines, as they tell us they are in America ; and 
 then we should have a richer France, and more beautiful 
 than the old. But we want to see the villages first, 
 before we lay down the rails, or make even common 
 roads ; we bestow whole regions upon people who grow 
 nothing, and who are opposed to the settlement of real 
 colonists upon this promised land ; and, to crown all, 
 we have set up those Arab bureaux. 
 
 Perhaps you don't know what an Arab bureau is ; I 
 will tell you ; it will not take me long. 
 
 In the first place, Algeria is divided into three great 
 provinces: Algiers in the centre; Oran, west; and 
 Constantine, east. 
 
 Each of these provinces is subdivided ; and these 
 smaller divisions are administered, some by a civil 
 government, by prefects, as in France, others are under 
 military government by Arab bureaux. 
 
 In these provinces the Arab bureaux possess full 
 powers. They impose taxes ; they administer justice ; 
 they superintend public education ; they even claim, 
 authority in matters of religion. 
 
 So it happens that the post of head of an Arab 
 bureau, no matter how small it may be, is a capital 
 berth, especially as regards the collection of taxes. A 
 mere sub-lieutenant, over head and ears in debt, and 
 ruined by gambling, luxury, and evil habits, when he 
 has the good fortune to be set over some Arab bureau, 
 pays off his debts in a very short time, buys an estate, 
 rides blood horses, walks upon lion-skins and panther- 
 skins ; in fact, lives in the style of a pacha and all 
 upon a sub-lieutenant's pay,
 
 14 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 Of course I shall not attempt to account for this 
 phenomenon, or explain the mode of procedure of these 
 gentlemen. That is their business ; and it is not the 
 business of the army of Africa. A good soldier's duty 
 is to fight when his country requires his services, and 
 not to thrust his nose into doubtful matters. But you 
 will understand that those fellows stick fast to their 
 posts in proportion to their profits, and that the Arab 
 bureaux look upon the civil administration as their 
 most dangerous enemy. 
 
 So we went on, thinking ; I upon my horse Negro, 
 which seemed to me to be moving on thoughtfully like 
 ourselves, raising his head, and looking around, with a 
 low neigh ; and my men upon their low car, with old 
 Lubin in front, in his weather-stained blouse, his frag- 
 ment of an old hat hanging over his ear, crying at 
 every step, " Hue, Grisette, hue !" which had not the 
 least effect in inducing her to move faster. 
 
 Now and then we met an Arab on the road, perched 
 upon his horse with his knees up, as if he were sitting 
 in an arm-chair, his long, full white burnouse covering 
 him down to the stirrups, his long rifle slung over his 
 shoulder ; further on, perhaps, a young woman return- 
 ing from the neighbouring well, with her stone jug 
 resting on her shoulder. 
 
 Not a word passed between us. Those people always 
 seemed to treat us with contempt, passing us without 
 so muck as a sidelong glance. 
 
 In the little village of Dalmatie, where we arrived 
 about six in the morning, my men insisted on my taking 
 a glass of wine, which I could not refuse. That thin 
 Dalmatian wine is excellent ; but for all that I told 
 them plainly, after wiping my moustache, that we would
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 15 
 
 have no more stoppages on the way, because an officer 
 has his own duties to perform ; that if they behaved 
 well they should have their share of fifty francs which 
 my friend Jaquet had lent me, to lighten the fatigue of 
 the journey ; but that if they played any tricks upon 
 me, they should get nothing but their pay. They pro- 
 mised that all should be well, and we started, having 
 only about thirty kilometres further to go.* 
 
 On my way I could not help smiling at the thought 
 of the sportsmen in our country, wearying themselves 
 from morning to night running after a hare, while from 
 every clump of dwarf oaks, mastics, or aloes, interwoven 
 with a long grass called alfa, flights of partridges and 
 Carthage hens swarmed out in all directions. 
 
 It is most assuredly a country well stocked with 
 game ! As for agriculture, there is a profusion of every 
 product. That is the country for our poor labourers to 
 live in with their wives and children, who have to toil so 
 hard to get a little barley and a few potatoes to grow 
 out of the red sand of our mountains. But we should 
 be far better without those Arab bureaux, which are the 
 cause of perpetual wars in Africa ; and what farmers 
 want in the very first place is peace. 
 
 Sometimes, on raising our eyes, we would notice far 
 over the mulberry, olive, and other trees, far up the 
 hillside, an Arab shepherd leaning upon his long crook, 
 and silently gazing upon us, with his lean, short-haired 
 dog behind him, amongst the little flock of sheep. 
 
 To complete the picture, we met from time to time a 
 Kabyle, a native of another kind, darker, more spare, 
 
 * A kilometre is 1,093 yards, therefore thirty kilometres aro 
 about eighteen miles. Tr.
 
 16 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 and yet more muscular than the Arab, and mostly em- 
 ployed in trade. These men are seldom seen on horse- 
 back, being genuine mountaineers. They passed by us 
 wrapped in greasy burnouses, and driving their mules 
 loaded with skins of oil. Oil is the chief article of the 
 Kabyle trade. In every village is a press to which the 
 natives bring their crops of olives. The Kabyles supply 
 our. markets with oranges, citrons, peaches, pomegra- 
 nates, melons, cucumbers 1 , peppercorns, the fruit of the 
 egg-plant in a word, with all the fruits and vegetables 
 which they grow around their villages. Corn is grown 
 only by the Europeans. They make that their business. 
 
 My chasseurs began with singing comic songs and 
 laughing over them, and then they turned to some of 
 the old songs they had sung in the Crimea, in Italy, in 
 Mexico, and even at Luneville in Lorraine, before the 
 retreat upon Metz and Sedan, when three out of four of 
 our old comrades had fallen in arms. Thinking of those 
 brave fellows, the little party looked grave. They had 
 all done their duty, and now were lying in the mists of 
 the Meuse and the Moselle. 
 
 But is it not better to be dead, than to live and to 
 remember that you have given up your sword to save 
 your life and your munitions of war? At any rate, 
 the dead feel no shame, and their memory animates the 
 patriot's breast. 
 
 At last, at the distance of four kilometres from the 
 end of our first day's march, I went ahead, knowing 
 that at Arba I should find my old comrade Eellin, who 
 had been detached a fortnight before, along with twenty 
 men, to guard a powder-train. 
 
 On approaching Arba, I observed outside the walls 
 the bivouac, the ammunition waggons, the tents, the.
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 17 
 
 picketed horses. I galloped there at once, and I can 
 fancy I still see old Rellin, with his pointed beard, his 
 kepi over one ear, busy mending his boots. I can still 
 hear him calling to me, thrusting his head through his 
 tattered tent 
 
 " Hallo, Goguel ! is that you ? Come on, old fello\v 
 Of course you have got the pay for my detachment ?" 
 
 " No, that I have not. I have nothing for you but a 
 good appetite, which I recommend to your care." 
 
 He laughed, and answered, " Well, then, come off 
 your horse." And turning to one of his chasseurs, 
 who was rubbing down the horses a little further off, 
 he cried 
 
 " Mathis, picket the quartermaster's horse, and see 
 that he is properly attended to." 
 
 " Yes, quartermaster." 
 
 " And inform the cook that there's work for another 
 knife and fork." 
 
 Then he came out, and taking me by the arm, he said 
 
 " Now we'll have a glass of vermouth, till the cook 
 has made all ready." 
 
 We were passing the low wall of the bivouac, when, 
 turning round again, with his hands hollowed on each 
 side of his mouth, he shouted 
 
 " Mathis, you will find us at the ' Colon Econome.' " 
 
 The chasseur beckoned that he heard, and we threaded 
 our way down a narrow passage in front of the bivouac. 
 Arba is a large, fine European village, situated at the 
 junction of the military road along the foot of the 
 Atlas, with that from Algiers to Aumale ; its houses 
 are in straight lines and substantially built, roofed with 
 tiles, and well whitewashed. 
 
 The village has a church, a guard-house, a large mill
 
 18 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia, 
 
 upon the El-Arach, a noble square planted with trees, a 
 fine fountain built in the form of a cross, and outside, 
 just where we were encamped, a corn and cattle market, 
 to which the neighbouring dealers resort twice in the 
 week. 
 
 A little further on, we entered the handsome inn 
 called " Le Colon Econome," a corner house ; but we 
 had scarcely had time to take our seats, when Mathis 
 came to call us at twelve exactly, and we returned to 
 the bivouac, where my men, who had just arrived, were 
 sharing their comrades' mess. 
 
 Eellin and I, seated upon our saddles in the shadow 
 of his tent, dined off a boiled chicken and rice, and as I 
 had remembered to bring a bottle of wine from the 
 inn, we made ourselves very comfortable ; and then we 
 had coffee. 
 
 Whilst eating and drinking, Eellin informed me that 
 a Ca'id in the neighbourhood of Aumale had thrown 
 up his office and his pay, and declared war against us ; 
 that the third and fourth squadrons of the regiment 
 had started for Aumale by forced marches, leaving 
 twenty baggage carts standing close by ours, under the 
 guard of a few chasseurs ; and that he was expecting 
 every minute the arrival of a battalion of the First 
 Zouaves to escort the train. 
 
 He informed me besides that the diligence from 
 Algiers had ceased running, and that the Arabs had 
 begun hostilities by cutting the telegraph wires. 
 
 This news surprised me, for at Blidah that very 
 morning there had been no mention of all this. 
 
 Eellin assured me that the Arabs had been tempting 
 our men to sell them chassepot cartridges, which made 
 them suspect that something wrong was going on.
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfrique. 19 
 
 I was indeed surprised at first ; the notion of crossing 
 swords with the Arabs then came over me, and filled 
 me with excitement ; and thinking of these matters, I 
 went to take an afternoon nap in Bellin's tent. About 
 four o'clock he awoke me; we found all right, the 
 chasseurs at their post, and we returned to the " Colon 
 Econome." A crowd of Algerine corn and cattle 
 dealers, who had no doubt come for next day's market, 
 filled the public room, and were drinking beer. The 
 innkeeper's two daughters found their hands full. 
 
 These men, with their straw hats and dark faces, 
 seemed to be very good fellows. The sight of our 
 uniforms was some satisfaction to them; they invited 
 us to a glass of beer with them ; Eellin accepted, and 
 we were very soon deep in their politics. 
 
 A little old white-headed man, with animated eyes 
 and a sharp nose, argued that the Empire was the cause 
 of all our misfortunes. He knew everything that had 
 happened in the colony for forty years, and energetically 
 thumped the table with his small fist. He told us of 
 numberless abominable deeds done by the Arab bureaux, 
 the congregations of Jesuits, the commercial companies, 
 and many others besides. 
 
 I don't know where the little man had picked up all 
 this ; and all I can remember just now was his winding- 
 up, when he cried 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen, that's just how we stand. It's 
 melancholy it is dreadful to think of! But wait a 
 few days, and you will see worse coming. I am told 
 that out at Aumale things are looking bad; that 
 Mahomet-el-Mokrani is in open revolt. Well, I should 
 not be surprised if Arab bureaux were at the bottom of 
 that. It is said that the new governor .general,
 
 20 The Stoiy of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 Monsieur de Grueydon, has arrived with full powers 
 from the Republic, and that his first act will be the 
 suppression of the Arab bureaux. I doubt it; for 
 Monsieur de Gueydon is a Royalist, and under the 
 influence of the priests ; but still the Arab bureaux, 
 believing themselves in danger, may very likely get up 
 a little insurrection, just as they have done so many 
 times before, to prove oce more that they are indis- 
 pensable." 
 
 Not one of those dealers found fault with his speech ; 
 on the contrary, they all seemed to be of his opinion, 
 and as for us it was not our business, and we listened 
 without making remarks of our own. 
 
 Towards evening all those people went away, and we 
 two remained at the inn alone, watching the movements 
 of the innkeeper's daughters, Marguerite and Marie ; 
 the first a dark-eyed, lively brunette ; the second a fair- 
 haired girl. They were putting the house to-rights 
 after the confusion left by the visitors. The younger 
 ended her work by laying the cloth for supper ; and the 
 landlord, Monsieur Pouchet a tall, thin man, of very 
 respectable appearance pleased, no doubt, with our 
 quiet behaviour, invited us to take our soup with his 
 family, an invitation we accepted with great pleasure. 
 
 I took good care to let everybody be seated first, and 
 then managed to sit by the side of Mademoiselle Marie, 
 whose blue eyes and fair hair reminded me of the young 
 lasses of the Vosges. 
 
 I should be very much puzzled to tell you what we 
 had for supper ; but I think it was a haricot soup, fol- 
 lowed by a leg of mutton, flavoured with garlic, and a 
 salad; but this I can positively affirm, that when I 
 returned to the bivouac about ten, I would willingly
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrigue. 21 
 
 Lave given my quartermaster's stripes to be always 
 seated at the side of Mademoiselle Marie ; and that 
 that night, not having unpacked my tent, and sharing 
 Eellin's with him, I prevented him from even closing 
 his eyes by boring him with my enthusiastic admiration 
 of that young lady. 
 
 It was a magnificent, bright, and starlight night. 
 The nightingales were chanting out of every orange 
 grove with all the powers of their tuneful voices, and 
 the sweet perfume of the flowers drove me crazy. 
 
 " You are asleep, Bellin ? Are you not ashamed of 
 yourself to sleep such a night as this ?" said I, nudging 
 him with my elbow. 
 
 " No, no I can hear you go on, go on !" said he, 
 beginning to snore softly, " I am listening." 
 
 II. 
 
 AT daybreak I rose up ; I fed Negro, and woke up 
 old Lubin, who made haste to give his nag his proven- 
 der. The chasseurs were already preparing their coffee ; 
 Mathis brought us ours ; then having saddled my 
 horse, and my men having mounted their cart, I shook 
 hands with Eellin, and we were at once on our way to 
 Alma our second day's march. 
 
 Passing the village, I stopped a couple of minutes at 
 the " Colon Econome," in hopes of getting one more 
 look at Mademoiselle Marie, and bidding her adieu ; 
 but all was silent and motionless in the house, and it 
 was only when we had gone a little further that, turn- 
 ing my head round for a last parting glance at the inn, 
 I saw Monsieur Pouchet opening his blind, and wavirg 
 
 B
 
 22 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 his farewell with his outstretched hand. Such is a 
 soldier's life. You arrive with your heart perfectly 
 sound. A pair of beautiful large eyes pierces you 
 through and through. You would give anything to 
 stay, but the bugle sounds, and " March !" For an 
 hour I could think of nothing else ; then niy reflections 
 took another turn. 
 
 The appearance of the country was changing ; brush- 
 wood was taking the place of cultivated land along both 
 sides of our way. At one spot, looking round, we dis- 
 tinguished at our left, over the plain, the distant sea 
 and the city of Algiers, with its white houses seen 
 against the blue sky all around the bay. The cart 
 stopped, and my chasseurs and Lubin, gazing on the 
 prospect, sniffed with satisfaction the smell of the sea, 
 borne upon the breezes which came to us in gentle 
 whiffs over the wide expanse. 
 
 Then, resuming our way, we arrived at Fondouck, a 
 small village, but girt round with fortifications. A 
 pretty lively business is carried on here in wine and 
 cattle ; and we were able to lay in a small stock of 
 potatoes and bacon. But there was no wood, and we 
 therefore left this place, fording the stream which 
 comes down from the Atlas. 
 
 But then began our miseries ; at every step the way 
 became worse, rocks and rocks followed each other in 
 endless succession ; from one rut you tumbled into 
 another. The old horse was soon spent. Lubin swore, 
 the chasseurs hallooed, but this did not help us. 
 
 To complete our tale of misery, at two kilometres 
 from the village the axle-tree of our poor cart snaps in 
 two ; I must return at the gallop to look for a black- 
 smith, while my chasseurs stand waiting. I am told
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 23 
 
 that there is one further on, on the road we are travel, 
 ling. I trot back, I find the cart emptied ; the miser- 
 able beast at last obeys the whip to induce him to move 
 on a little ; of course we shout and cry again, and at 
 last it begins to move slowly on, and at three kilo 
 metres further on we come upon an old hut, where 
 fortunately we find Eivero the blacksmith, a man from 
 Mahon a little dark fellow, who is living there with 
 his three children. 
 
 As soon as we had arrived our miseries were for- 
 gotten, and whilst the bellows were blowing, and the 
 hammer ringing a merry tune upon the anvil, my 
 chasseurs were hunting for wood, and artichokes, 
 onions, and salad in the little vegetable garden behind 
 the hut ; others cooked, and soon a smoking omelette 
 was produced, made from the whites of the artichokes. 
 This was the first I had ever tasted, and I declare to 
 you that it was excellent. 
 
 At length the cart was repaired, Eivero paid, and 
 once more we started on our road, if that can be called 
 a road where only a few tracks indistinctly marked out 
 the way through cactuses, aloes, lentiscuses, rocks, 
 hollows, and ruts of every size and shape. 
 
 In <tn hour's time we had lost our reckonings com- 
 pletely, and that pleasant refreshing smell of the sea, 
 which we had enjoyed at Fondouck with every breeze, 
 had brought clouds which broke over us with frightful 
 violence. 
 
 What an African storm is can only be understood by 
 experience ; the incessant rolling of the thunder, the 
 long downfall of torrents of rain, are enough to shake 
 the stoutest heart. And the worst of it was that we 
 should have been very much puzzled to know how to
 
 24 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 get back, for we had completely lost our way ; when, 
 straining our eyes in every direction after the heavy 
 storm, I luckily made out some smoke across the low 
 underwood. We made for the point at once, and in a 
 few hundred yards reached an Arab hut, or gourbi, at 
 the edge of a narrow rivulet. 
 
 Fancy a charcoal-burner's hovel ; in the middle of it 
 a few flaming logs ; three or four Arabs asleep, an old 
 woman creeping close to the fire, a young Arab cutting 
 up tobacco-leaves into strips, two lean dogs growling, 
 and a swarthy child asleep upon a sheepskin. In this 
 country this is called a gourbi. 
 
 It was still raining ; and these people waiting for 
 their coffee, and now suddenly roused, were much sur- 
 prised to see in their midst a quartermaster on horse- 
 back, chasseurs with their rifles slung over their 
 shoulders and dripping like water-rats, then the cart 
 with old Lubin in it. Their restless eyes expressed 
 uneasiness. 
 
 I asked them for coffee for my men and myself; the 
 young lad made haste to get us some out of their kettle. 
 After this I had only to ask our way, and the poor 
 creatures showed it us through the little villages of 
 St. Pierre and St. Paul. 
 
 We reached Alma about six in the evening. This 
 place consists of a long string of houses on each side 
 of the road, crossed by a fine river, about as wide as 
 our Meurthe, and which rushed with great speed over 
 its gravelly bed, in issuing from the mountain's side. 
 On the banks are large wash-houses, where the W(At n 
 are seen on their knees, beating the linen clean on 
 boards, just as they do in Fr^ce ; cattle troughs ; a 
 church ; a gendarmerie ; gardens , Jms with large arch
 
 Told by a Chasseur $AfriqU6. 25 
 
 ways, where you may see carriages and people standing. 
 But for the mulberry-trees and the olive-trees rising 
 behind, you might think yourself in Europe. 
 
 As the storm had saturated the ground, we could 
 not bivouac ; and bidding my men to follow me, we 
 found our way to the carriers' inn. This inn was just 
 like ours at home in Lorraine ; there were the barn, the 
 stables, the sheds, the large farmyard behind, full of 
 geese, Guinea-fowls, and common poultry. 
 
 I asked the landlord, a young man of thirty, for leave 
 to put up our horses in his stable, and for the chasseurs 
 to sleep in the barn. He willingly consented. After 
 having got rid of their knapsacks, my men thought they 
 would like to fish in the river. I saw no reason why 
 they should not, and they set off. 
 
 After having changed my clothes, I went to the con- 
 tractor to exchange my orders for goods, and to the 
 gendarmerie to get my road-bill signed. 
 
 I might here tell you of my happy meeting with 
 Brigadier Lefevre, a tall fellow of military bearing, and 
 whose heart was ever in his hand, who invited me, 
 according to custom, to take absinthe, and then to 
 dinner ; I could tell you of the return of my chasseurs 
 with a splendid basket of barbel, which they cooked 
 themselves in the laundry ; and then, whilst we were 
 sitting at dinner, in a large room papered with a fine 
 picture of a lion-hunt, the arrival of the brigadier from 
 the heights of the Beni-Aichia, who had the ague, and 
 saw everything in gloomy colours, whilst we were sing- 
 ing, jolly catches, and everything looked rose-coloured 
 to us. Of course, I might easily expatiate upon this 
 chapter of our march, and tell you of our visit to the 
 " Sucking Calf," where Brigadier Lefevre was quite
 
 26 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 at home; but these things would take too long to 
 tell. 
 
 But there is one thing which I must not omit, and 
 that is the ai*rival at this place of the schoolmaster 
 Wagner, from Rothau, whom you used to know 
 formerly; you remember the little Alsacian school- 
 master, with his red whiskers, his wide mouth, and his 
 eyes like a pair of blue saucers. 
 
 Brigadier Lefevre and I were chatting together and 
 laughing and singing, when all at once comes out of a 
 waggon stopped at the door a young woman, with her 
 bundles and her bandboxes. The brigadier cries 
 
 " Hallo ! here is Madame Wagner !" 
 
 We help her to unpack, she is invited to a seat ; and 
 great is our joy ; for a pretty face always gladdens a 
 soldier's heart. 
 
 This lady was talking to us about her husband, and 
 their working the great farm of San Salvatore ; I was 
 listening to her, not without great admiration of her 
 rich brown hair, and white teeth, when down comes her 
 husband in another waggon; he enters, I turn my 
 head, and whom should I see but my old comrade, 
 Wagner of Rothau. Yes, it was himself ; but he, too, 
 had the ague, and he was as thin and dried up as a red 
 herring. 
 
 We recognise each other; he opens his arms, 
 Crying 
 
 " Montezuma Goguel, from St. Die, as I live !" 
 
 And thereupon he bid me salute his wife, which I 
 did with great pleasure. 
 
 We drank, we talked of home, of our excursions to 
 Fondoy in the Vosges, at Father Q-rollier's, the kirsch- 
 wasser, the nice smoked bacon, the fat larks, the trout,
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 27 
 
 the crayfishes, the delicious white wine of Mutzig, till 
 our mouths watered. 
 
 Wagner's wife was laughing, the two brigadiers 
 laughed too, the man from the Beni-Aichia forgot his 
 ague. How could I do justice to my feelings of that 
 evening? The delight of meeting a friend of one's 
 youth at five hundred leagues from home in the heart 
 of Africa is more than I can express. 
 
 Here we stayed till five in the morning, when my 
 chasseurs brought me back the horse, the cart, and old 
 Lubin, all ready for a fresh start. 
 
 Renewed embracings, and then farewell ! I mounted 
 Negro, and having had no sleep for two nights running, I 
 quietly fell asleep in my saddle, without knowing where 
 we were going. 
 
 Fortunately the road is a straight one ; and as from 
 Alma to the river Isser it is thirty- six kilometres, I 
 had plenty of time before me. 
 
 Up to the brow of the Beni-Aichia we ascended, and 
 I was asleep ; scarcely did I open my eyes now and 
 then, as in a dream, to become partly conscious of the 
 trees and bushes filing slowly past me. But at the top 
 of the hill the sharp, cool air woke me up completely. 
 The Djurjura, a giant peak of the Atlas, rose before us 
 white with snow, and his great ramparts were spreading 
 beneath our feet, along the plains of the Isser in Kabylia, 
 This region is infested with lions. Africa lay green 
 and smiling before us with her olive woods, her white 
 villages, her mosques, and her blazing sun bathing all 
 in light. 
 
 No one would have suspected how soon the sword 
 was to sweep through these fair /alleys, with fire and 
 pillage in its tram.
 
 28 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 From this point our road lay downward into the 
 plain, leaving on our right that of Constantine, which 
 passes through Palestro, two-thirds of whose popula- 
 tion were doomed to extermination before a fortnight 
 had passed away ! We had no suspicion of what was 
 coming ; we went on in full confidence, and about 
 twelve arrived at the Isser, a wide valley where several 
 streams unite and descend into the sea. 
 
 We passed over a bridge ; a few metres further on 
 we found the great caravanserai, a vast square edifice, 
 with a court in the middle, and a splendid syca- 
 more-tree at the right of the gate, where formerly 
 the caravans stopped, and now let to a Jewish 
 merchant. 
 
 About this building the Isser market is held full in 
 the sunshine. At eight o'clock on Friday morning it 
 is a silent desert ; at twelve o'clock 30,000 persons are 
 crowding it and trading together. Oils, and corn of 
 many kinds, tobacco, baskets full of roots, oranges and 
 peaches, mountains of melons, booths five or six shelves 
 deep loaded with game, are all heaped up together on 
 this vast trodden-down field. The Kabyles bring here 
 their oxen, their mules, their mares, their asses ; Jews 
 are here in crowds, arguing and debating, just as they 
 do at home ; the Kabyle mountaineers 1 sten in silence, 
 with a frowning aspect ; Ca'ids arc gravely traversing the 
 crowd, mounted on superb horses; spahis in scarlet 
 cloaks are moving amongst them, to maintain order 
 amidst this crowd. 
 
 At five, not a soul is left ! It is all over. Thousands 
 of sparrows, darting out of the caravanserai and the 
 great sycamore, quarrel over the remains of the feast 
 that are left for them.
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfnque. 29 
 
 Such is the market of Isser, one of the principal ones 
 in Algeria. 
 
 As it Was not Friday, all was quiet when we arrived. 
 We halted at the wooden public-house kept by Mon- 
 sieur Paul, a very good fellow, but so worn out with 
 ague that he could scarcely stand. At this inn some 
 officers were staying on their way from Dollys to Dia- 
 el-Mizan, and it was full of people. We had to look 
 out for another lodging further on, and were at last 
 able to get shelter. 
 
 I put up my horse in the stable, and my chasseurs 
 began to make their soup. 
 
 Here I was informed that at the caravanserai there 
 was a quartermaster detached for duty with three men 
 and six horses. Of course, I buckled on my sword, and 
 started off to see who it was. 
 
 The Jewish trader, who kept a Moorish cafe at the 
 entrance, took me into the court of the caravanserai, 
 which is surrounded with buildings, the roofs of which 
 incline inwards to the court, and the walls of which are 
 everywhere pierced with loopholes. He pointed out 
 the stables to me, and the place where the detachment 
 were lodging ; and imagine, if you can, my satisfaction 
 at finding there in a little chamber, hung with smoked 
 meats, and almost lined with bottles upon shelves, my 
 old friend Collignon, busy putting his papers to rights. 
 Fancy our mutual greetings, and the jollification which 
 followed ! I must not stop to tell you these things, how- 
 ever agreeable it may be to drink with an old comrade, 
 and to talk of friends and neighbours that you have 
 not seen'for years. It would be pleasant to write to you 
 about these things, but you might think me rather too 
 much given to gossiping, and therefore I will proceed.
 
 30 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia, 
 
 Next morning, while taking a parting petit verre with 
 Collignon, I could not but notice the prevailing uneasi- 
 ness in people's countenances and conversation. Some 
 traders from Dellys, who had come to market, were 
 mentioning, at the inn, fires which had been seen in 
 the direction of Aumale, market houses destroyed by 
 the Kabyles, and other injuries done. 
 
 Those people now and then cast a glance at me, to 
 see what effect this news might produce upon me, but 
 I only laughed at their dismal tales. I am not accus- 
 tomed to trouble myself about coming evils. 
 
 It seemed to them that the twelve native spahis, 
 commanded by a native quartermaster, appeared not to 
 believe much in the safety of the caravanserai, and the 
 Isser market, and one of them at last said to me 
 
 " Quartermaster, take my advice. Your next march 
 is to Azib-Zamoun, only sixteen kilometres from this 
 place a fine road all the way. Well, I think you had 
 better remain here until twelve. French soldiers, even 
 but five in number, would inspire more confidence than 
 these spahis." 
 
 "Come now!" I replied; "do you take me for a 
 fool? My orders are to be at Azib-Zamoun before 
 twelve. Suppose anything happened to my detach- 
 ment, would you answer for them ?" 
 
 At that moment my chasseurs were arriving at the 
 door upon their cart. I came out, shaking hands with 
 Collignon, and bestrode my horse, which Father Lubin, 
 standing by, was holding by the bridle ; then we 
 started. 
 
 They tell that when terrible things are going to 
 happen the earth trembles, and the sun hides his face ; 
 and other similar tales, to show Nature's horror at the
 
 Told ~by a Chasseur cPAfrique. 31 
 
 wickedness of the world. I can only say that the 
 weather just now was beautiful, and the larks were 
 singing up in the sky, as if nothing unusual was pre- 
 paring. 
 
 We passed quietly through the small village of 
 Bordj Mena'iel ; then we began our ascent along a road 
 bordered by corn-fields at each side, up the steep height 
 of Azib-Zamoun. 
 
 I remember now that at the end of an hour's march 
 we observed at the right-hand side of the road a pretty 
 European house, such as a retired tradesman would 
 enjoy living in a garden in front, inclosed by pali- 
 sades, beds of artichokes, cauliflowers, cabbage-lettuces, 
 radishes, and with a verandah before the door, quite 
 hidden under convolvuluses, honeysuckles, and other 
 flowering climbers hanging all round it. 
 
 The orchard was full of European trees : there were 
 cherry, plum, and apple-trees, and orange-trees in full 
 bloom. 
 
 I pulled up to look at this charming residence. My 
 men saw nothing but the artichokes, and one of them 
 said, " Quartermaster, it is an earthly paradise if one 
 could but get in !" 
 
 But there was a palisading all round ; and, besides, 
 I could espy through the flowers, sitting under the 
 verandah, a black-bearded gentleman, with piercing 
 eyes, who did not look a likely man to allow us to rob 
 his artichokes. 
 
 So we pursued our way, and I have since learned 
 that the road and bridge surveyors lived there. But I 
 also learned a few days afterwards that that pretty 
 place had been plundered by the Kabyles, its trees cut 
 down, and several of the inhabitants killed.
 
 32 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 Men act with the deepest villainy towards each 
 other. Let them find a nest full of young, and they will 
 leave nothing of it but blood and scattered feathers. 
 
 Pursuing our way we came to Azib-Zamoun, where 
 we pitched our tents. I filled up my cheque for our 
 rations, and then went myself to the innkeeper and 
 contractor, Monsieur Boucher. 
 
 But scarcely had I opened iny lips to ask for our 
 supply of provisions and fodder for our horses, when 
 this Monsieur Boucher broke out into a furious rage, 
 abused our army as a worthless encumbrance, and 
 charged us with all the misfortunes of the country. 
 Presently his wife came to help him to load us with 
 insults. 
 
 In a very short time I got angry, and shouted to 
 them to hold their tongues, or I would have them both 
 lashed with the ropes that we had brought to tie up our 
 provender with, and have them brought before the 
 Governor of Tizi-Ouzou, who might listen to their 
 abusive language if he pleased. 
 
 Then at last they subsided, and delivered in the goods 
 in exchange for my orders. 
 
 On my return to the bivouac, after eating our soup, 
 and seeing that there were eight hours of daylight left, 
 I decided upon doubling our march to reach Tizi-Ouzou 
 that night. We raised our little camp, and as we were 
 passing out of the village, the Bouchers, man and wife, 
 stood shaking their fists at us. 
 
 I laughed aloud at them. 
 
 These poor creatures fell afterwards into the hands 
 of the Kabyles, and must have had some sad thoughts ; 
 by that time they must have found out that but for the 
 soldiers their shop would not be worth much.
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfrique. 33 
 
 Such lessons cost dear ; but men, as it happens, learn 
 best by experience. 
 
 From Azib-Zamoun our road lay through the wide- 
 spreading valley of the Sebaon, an impetuous stream, 
 almost dry in June and July, but bordered at all times 
 with reeds, tamarisks, and other plants. The barren, 
 scrubby mountain-tops of Kabylia were spreading far 
 away over our heads ; the river was rolling down into 
 the plain. 
 
 As we advanced, the features of the landscape 
 became more and more striking ; a little to our right, 
 standing out against the blue sky, shone the white 
 walls of the National Fort, and the clearly denned 
 road which winds in zigzag to its gate ; before another 
 summit at our left glittered the Marabout Dubelloi, a 
 little Arab hermitage distinguished by its^ crescent. 
 
 When we had passed the marshal's camp, and the 
 little village of Vin Blanc, we discerned at last, at the 
 foot of those colossal mountain masses, upon a gently 
 rising ground, the bordj or fortress of Tizi-Ouzou, 
 
 In Africa the air is much purer and more transparent 
 than in our misty climate, and objects can be made out 
 at great distances. This fort, built upon a low hill 
 scarcely higher than the fields of corn and barley, with 
 its whitewashed wall three yards high, did not look at 
 all imposing. In spite of my good-will, I formed at 
 once a very poor opinion of it, the more because it hid 
 from us the European and Arab villages, both lying on 
 the other and furthest slope of the hill ; so that I could 
 not help fancying the weary time we should have of it. 
 
 But we should never despair ; and presently I will 
 tell you of the most unexpected entertainment we re- 
 ceived at Tizi-Ouzou to spend our time upon.
 
 34 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia, 
 
 Before reaching the forb we had the pleasure of seeing 
 the very beautiful fountain made by the Turks during 
 the time of their occupation of the country. It lies on 
 the left, somewhat below the road, and is surrounded 
 by substantial masonry, even with the surface of the 
 ground, and shaded by two splendid weeping willows. 
 No water could be clearer, cooler, or sweeter than this, 
 and those two fine willows, drooping their long branches 
 and their pale foliage over the basin, produced an 
 admirable effect. 
 
 Almost every passer-by dismounts at this spring to 
 water the mules and the horses. We did so too, and 
 about six o'clock we arrived at Tizi-Ouzou, at last per- 
 ceiving, on the opposite side of the hill, the European 
 village, with its wide street, its church, its square bor- 
 dered with lime-trees ; and, built on the side of the 
 Dubelloi Mountain, the Arab village, its mosque, the 
 governor's house, where lives Ca'id Ali, and all deeply 
 embowered in the foliage of the orange-trees, the fig- 
 trees, and the oleanders. 
 
 This prospect was a cheerful one, and I promised 
 myself often to visit both these villages. 
 
 The fort itself, with its three gates opening towards 
 Algiers, Bougie, and the Arab bureau, commanded the 
 whole neighbourhood. The centre of it is the old fort, 
 heavy and massive, built by the Turks, of quarried 
 stone, twenty to thirty feet high, and furnished with 
 embrasures. Around this central fort had risen a 
 number of military works : the powder magazine, the 
 hospital, the engineering works, two officers' tents, two 
 long barracks of one story only, answering the double 
 purpose of storehouses and soldiers' lodgings ; the whole 
 was surrounded by a wall, several of these buildings
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 35 
 
 being themselves fortified, their windows facing the 
 country strongly barred, and their only doors opening 
 on the interior. 
 
 III. 
 
 OUR comrades received us with open arms, and the 
 rest of the day was spent in talking over the news. 
 
 The detachment of the First Eegiment of Chasseurs 
 at Tizi-Ouzou consisted of a lieutenant, a sub-lieu- 
 tenant, three quartermasters, two buglers, a blacksmith, 
 sixty men, and seventy horses. 
 
 My comrade, Quartermaster Ignar, was on duty that 
 week. I made acquaintance, the same day, at the can- 
 teen, with Quartermaster Deschar, a fine, brave soldier, 
 for whom I have always felt the greatest respect. 
 
 The next day, after our mess, Deschar, who had been 
 in the artillery, and myself made the round of the 
 fortress, both smoking our pipes ; for my first act, on 
 arriving in any new place, is always to see clearly where 
 I am. Prom the ramparts, there lay in all directions 
 a wide prospect, along both sides of the valley. Des- 
 char explained it all to me. 
 
 "There," said he, pointing up the road, "there is 
 the National Fort, at the distance of twenty- six kilo- 
 metres* by the road, but in a straight line not more 
 than ten or twelve. It is armed with six rifled guns, 
 and garrisoned with eight hundred men, and is sup- 
 plied with water from an excellent spring. It is to bo 
 regretted that we have no spring water ; we have only 
 tanks ; and our water may be cut off without much 
 difficulty, which would be very awkward during the 
 * Sixteen miles.
 
 36 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia^ 
 
 groat heats of May, June, and July. Between the 
 National Fort and ourselves, at the bottom of that 
 ravine, runs the Oued-Aissi, a small river rising in the 
 Djurjura, and the water of which is as clear and cold 
 as if it had just welled out of the rock-spring; it is 
 full of good fish, as you will see by-and-by. The Oued- 
 Aissi winds away behind that hill and falls into the 
 Sebaon ; at the confluence of the two rivers is the Arab 
 village of Si-kou-Mcdour, to which we sometimes have 
 a niarch-out. All the mountains round about us are 
 inhabited by Kabyles ; and it must be acknowledged 
 that these men fight well. They are tribes of warriors, 
 especially the Beni- Eaten and the Maatka. Look on 
 that ridge. Don't you see the low white walls among 
 the trees and bushes ? Would you not think those 
 were hawks' nests? That is the village of Bou- 
 noum. The Kabyles never build villages as we do by 
 the river-sides ; they build retreats in the mountain- 
 peaks; their women prefer fetching water in their 
 pitchers every day at a distance of three or four miles ; 
 and the men would rather go up and down the hills a 
 thousand times with tbeir loads of oil, fruits, and vege- 
 tables than trust themselves within our reach. I have 
 even been of opinion that they never trusted anybody, 
 neither the ancient Romans, nor the Arabs, nor the 
 Turks. They have always more confidence in their 
 rocks than in the words and promises of generals." 
 " That is a mark of great want of confidence." 
 " Yes, quarterm aster, and yet we cannot say they are 
 altogether in the wrong, for generals and emperors 
 have been known to break their word. These Beni- 
 Eaten, these Maatka, and all the other Kabyles live, 
 therefore, up in the air, and only pretend to submit
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 37 1 
 
 when they know themselves the weakest. Up in their 
 villages, where the huts are dropped here and there 
 without any order, like molehills in a field, they manu- 
 facture all they want yataghans, rifles, powder and 
 ball, and even bad money. As they refuse to trust us, 
 we cannot be expected to trust them." 
 
 " I am quite of your mind. What is that I see down 
 there V" 
 
 " That is the European cemetery, surrounded by a 
 low wall. And that road winding through the valley 
 is the mule-road to Dra-el-Mizan further on we lose 
 sight of it in the deep gorges of Maatka." 
 
 " And this, quartermaster, behind the hospital ?" 
 
 " That is the burial-place of brave men. There lie 
 the French who were slain in 1857, at the capture of 
 the fort of the Beni-Eaten, when we completed the 
 conquest of the country. Lower down, where the drain- 
 age from the fort comes out, is the soldiers' garden, 
 now let to old Antonio, a good fellow, who sells us vege- 
 tables for our ordinary use ; besides which he keeps a 
 small public-house, where now and then we get a glass 
 of absinthe." 
 
 Deschar was favouring me with all this information, 
 and much besides, as we walked round the parapets. 
 Then we came down into the village by the Bougie 
 gate, and got a few pints of beer at the sign of " La 
 Femme sans Tete," no great way from the soldiers' 
 stables. The beer of this country is not to be despised 
 before the month of May, and then you cannot always 
 be drinking absinthe and vermouth. 
 
 So there we were, leaning with our elbows on the 
 table. I was looking out of window at the people 
 coming and going in the street. Within an hour I had 
 
 86045
 
 38 The Story of a Campaign in 
 
 seen the black-bearded young curii pass by, with hia 
 fcree-cornered hat under his arm ; then a pair of nuns 
 vith the white band over the forehead, on their way to 
 the girls' school ; and the schoolmaster Deveaux, 
 formerly a sergeant of Zouaves, whom my friend Des- 
 char called in by tapping at the window, was glad to 
 accept a petit verre, without sitting down, before he 
 opened his school. The brigadier of gendarmes came 
 in to have a look at the new arrivals. 
 
 What surprised me most of all was to see the forest- 
 keeper, Nivoi, an old grey-headed man, and very 
 deaf, who watched the forests belonging to the State 
 in these parts. He, too, came to get a little refresh- 
 ment across the counter, with his gun slung over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Then I thought to myself, ' Why, Tizi-Ouzou is but 
 an outlying part of France, where we have all the same 
 people as at home the cures, and the cheres sceurs, 
 and the forest-keepers, and the gendarmes ; as for the 
 insurrections, the fires, the market-houses razed to the 
 ground, the Beni-Raten and the Maatka, they are all a 
 ridiculous practical joke nothing more." 
 
 I even felt vexed. I found all these people's counte- 
 nances so quiet and peaceable, that I said to myself 
 again 
 
 " Goguel, you are a fool to believe all the tales that 
 you hear ; if these folks had any cause of uneasiness, 
 wouldn't they look very different ? Oh, come, come ! 
 there's nothing the matter at all. The game has been 
 put off for a long while to come." 
 
 But I was out in my reckoning. Hasty judgments 
 are not to be depended upon. 
 
 On Sunday, the 9th of April, Quartermaster Ignar,
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 39 
 
 of the fourth squadron, finished his week of duty, and 
 now it was my turn. 
 
 All went on quietly till the 12th. On that day I 
 had to walk out the horses on the road to the National 
 Fort. The chasseurs asked my permission to go as far 
 as the Mill of St. Pierre a few kilometres from the 
 fort and I consented. 
 
 It is a French mill upon the Oued-Aissi, worked by 
 Algerines. Their agent was there, with his wife and 
 his sister-in-law. 
 
 So we rode pleasantly down the ravine, which is 
 luxuriantly planted everywhere ; the trees are tall and 
 handsome, the cultivation high, and the whole prospect 
 is cheerful and pleasing to the eye. 
 
 The agent, a kind-hearted man, showed us his whole 
 establishment with every attention ; after which we 
 came back at the trot, for I was afraid we might have 
 gone too far, and would be late back ; but we reached 
 home in time for dinner ; and that same day, whilst we 
 were all busy rubbing down in the stables under the 
 fort, down the slope of the hill, Lieutenant Wolf, front 
 the Arab bureau, arrived accompanied by a few horse- 
 men. 
 
 " Look well to your horses," said he, " and let them 
 have a good feed ; for there is every probability that 
 you will have to be in the saddle to-night." 
 
 He went off, and the whole afternoon the place waa 
 in a stir. 
 
 The old spahi brigadier, Abd-el-Kader Suleiman, who 
 had been for years connected with the Arab bureau, 
 arrived at the top of his horse's speed at five in the 
 afternoon. The noble animal's mane was flying wildly ; 
 his long tail swept the ground. The rider looked no
 
 40 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 less excited, with bis grey beard in unwonted disorder, 
 and bis camel-bair scarf loosely rolled around bis wbite 
 bood. I cried to bim 
 
 " Well, Abd-el-Kader, wbat news ?" 
 
 " Don't stop me, quartermaster," be replied, baiting 
 for just a moment, and, in doing so, throwing back bis 
 borse almost on bis haunches. " Ca'id Ali has revolted. 
 Monsieur Goujon, the interpreter, went to speak with 
 him last night, and we are afraid that be and his two 
 spahis have been kept prisoners." 
 
 And be urged his horse again on bis journey at full 
 speed. I followed him at a distance, and at the moment 
 I was entering in at the gate of Bougie, he was already 
 at the bureau of Commandant Leblanc ; he sprang on 
 bis horse and passed me like an arrow shot from a bow. 
 
 You have never seen a horse thoroughly in hand 
 unless you have seen an old Arab horseman flying down 
 such a hill as that at full speed. 
 
 Whilst he was on his way to carry orders elsewhere, 
 I went up to our mess-room, where I found Quarter- 
 masters Ignar and Brissard. 
 
 " Goguel," said Brissard to me immediately, " here 
 is news ; the lieutenant has ordered me to give him a 
 list of all available horses, to make up three packets of 
 cartridges per man, to prepare orders for six days' 
 rations, and to bold ourselves in readiness to start at 
 any moment." 
 
 " Very good," said Ignar, " and now we shall get 
 about and see the country ; in three days we shall be 
 at Auniale." 
 
 I did not agree with them ; and I told them that 
 Ca'id Ali had revolted in our own neighbourhood, which 
 would make it unnecessary for us to go any further.
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 41 
 
 " What can Ca'id All expect to do with his big cor- 
 poration ?" said Brissard. " How can that fat pumpkin 
 be kept on horseback ?" 
 
 I remarked that Ca'id ALL would have no need to 
 march at all; and that he had two brotliers-in-law, 
 Mokraui and Said Ca'id, who would come out in his 
 stead. 
 
 Upon this Brissard went out to complete his prepa- 
 rations, and about seven o'clock, Lieutenant Cayatte 
 and Sub-Lieutenant Arissy came to give us notice that 
 in an hour we must be ready, and that we should be in 
 all forty men. 
 
 They recommended us especially not to run, to make 
 no noise, to avoid all that might arouse the enemy, and 
 to be prepared for combat after having laid in six days' 
 provisions. 
 
 After these orders every man went about his own 
 business to make ready, and at eight o'clock, after 
 mustering, our officers divided the men into two com- 
 panies of twenty men each, the first commanded by 
 Lieutenant Cayatte ; Brissard and Ignar being quarter- 
 masters ; the second by Lieutenant Arissy, and myself 
 as non-commissioned officer. 
 
 We were to leave in the fort behind us fifteen chas- 
 seurs, a hundred and four mobilised men fgom the 
 Cote-d'Or, five artillerymen under the command of a 
 brigadier, and twenty privates commanded by Quarter- 
 master Deschar, who held at the same time the post of 
 adjutant. 
 
 The commandant-in-chief of the place was Monsieur 
 Leblanc, the head of the Arab bureau of Tizi-Ouzou. 
 The Arab bureau consisted of Monsieur Sage, captain ; 
 Wolf, lieutenant j Laforcade, sub-lieutenant ; and Mon-
 
 42 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia, 
 
 sieur Groujon, interpreter, a very active young man. 
 Add to these one guard of engineers, one guard on the 
 battery,* a young assistant surgeon-major, fresh from 
 college, and Monsieur Desjardins, and all are told. 
 
 At half-past eight, every man being at his place in 
 the ranks, Lieutenant Cayatte gave the word of com- 
 mand to march, and we began to descend the hill into 
 the village. Crossing the high street, Lieutenant 
 Arissy asked me if I had room for his flask anywhere. 
 A chasseur d'Afrique is never without a little corner 
 for his flask. We halted for a moment at the door of 
 the cafe Thibaud. Mademoiselle filled the flask with 
 eau-de-vie, and offered us a petit verre of cognac, after 
 which we rejoined the detachment, which was pursuing 
 its way in silence along the high road. 
 
 A dark night came on ; and a short distance further 
 on we took the road to Si-kou-Mcdour, fording the Oued- 
 Aissi. The horses were up to their saddle-girths in the 
 water ; the reflection of the stars trembled in the waves. 
 
 After reaching the other bank, for more than half an 
 hour we had an almost impracticable road before us, 
 beset with immense cactuses, whose sharp points 
 pierced our clothes and drew blood ; but we went on 
 without a complaint. 
 
 About eleven, the dogs of Si-kou-Mcdour warned us 
 by their barking that we were turning the village ; we 
 were at no great distance from it, and a few minutes 
 after we came out from that painful stage of our march 
 upon a wide and undefined plain, as well as I was able 
 to judge in that dark, wet night. 
 
 Here the lieutenant ordered us to draw up in two 
 ranks, then to dismount, and picket and tether our 
 horses.
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 43 
 
 This being done, lie called us, the three quarter- 
 masters, and told us to inform the men that we should 
 pitch no tents, light no fires, and that they must make 
 no noise. 
 
 " The horses," said he, " are not to be unsaddled 
 only unloaded; every man, after having loosed his 
 horse's bridle, will lie close to his horse, his sword 
 buckled on, his rifle under his hand, the bridle round 
 his arm, to be ready to bridle and mount at the first 
 signal. Of course, two sentinels will be placed, and 
 will be relieved every hour. One of you will remain at 
 the horses' heads for two hours, and a brigadier will 
 station himself behind them at the same time ; each 
 man will take his turn at this duty. I will stay awake 
 while Monsieur Arissy rests ; then he will come to 
 relieve me. At four in the morning the horses will 
 have their rations, the coffee will be made, and at five 
 we shall be in the saddle again." 
 
 After these orders I took my first watch, the lieu- 
 tenant lighted his pipe, and when the horses had been 
 unloaded, silence fell upon the whole detachment. 
 
 The night was very dark ; we could hear the waters 
 of the Sebaon rushing over its stony bed, and at a 
 greater distance the packs of jackals howling to each 
 other across the valley. 
 
 The silence was also broken occasionally by the 
 neighing of the horses, which sometimes bit and fought 
 with each other, sometimes too by the cries of the 
 chasseurs, suddenly awoke, who began to abuse and 
 threaten them. 
 
 At the end of my two hours, I went to awake Ignat 
 who lay asleep in his cloak. He is a very good fellow, 
 but for all that he took it on himself to pretend, while
 
 44 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 shaking himself awake, that I had not given him five 
 minutes' sleep. 
 
 Corporal Peron went also to awake his comrade, who, 
 by what I could hear, was in no better humour than 
 my friend was. 
 
 At last I lay down at my horse's side, and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 Daybreak was just beginning to tinge the mountain 
 summits, when my chasseur Capel woke me. 
 
 " Here, quartermaster," said he, holding out to me 
 a good quart of coffee, " this will warm you." 
 
 Immediately I got on my legs and looked around 
 me; we were very near Si-kou-Medour, whose mud- 
 cabins, thatched with reeds, and whose little gardens, 
 separated from each other by huge cactus hedges, lay 
 only at fifty paces from us. We were occupying a 
 narrow plateau behind the village, where a few stacks 
 of straw were standing, fenced round with thorns. 
 
 A few officers from the Arab bureau, who had arrived 
 after us during the night, had taken up their quarters 
 under shelter of the stacks ; their spahis were prancing 
 on horseback around them. 
 
 A crowd of Kabyles in groups of fifteen or twenty, 
 habited in their long white burnouses, and their long 
 rifles slung over their shoulders, were coming down 
 from the neighbouring mountains. These were our 
 own contingents, professedly come to support us. 
 
 I could see all this at a glance. 
 
 The children from Si-kou-Medour came, too, to 
 mingle amongst us, and were watching us like little 
 magpies, whilst the women congregating around ob- 
 served us from under their veils, and the storks from 
 the house-tops kept their eyes upon us too.
 
 Told by a Chasseur (PAfrique. 45 
 
 I had never seen so many storks in my life as there 
 were there. 
 
 I swallowed my coffee, then I joined in tasting the 
 contents of Lieutenant Arissy's flask ; and I called my 
 comrades, Avho wished him good morning. 
 
 Lieutenant Cayatte came up immediately after ; he 
 ordered the horses to be laden again, their nosebags 
 to be removed, the ropes and the pickets to be taken 
 up. 
 
 The sun was shining in his glory. In all those 
 Kabyles who were gravely advancing and halting a few 
 paces from the bivouac, I could feel no confidence 
 whatever. Presently the officers of the Arab bureau 
 began to distribute cartridges among them ; mules with 
 further supplies were still arriving, and the distribu- 
 tions went on. 
 
 The spahis, whose spirits were rising at the appear- 
 ance of so many friends, were chattering with them ; 
 and I said to Abd-el-Kader, who was approaching on 
 horseback, offering him the flask at the same time 
 
 " I say, corporal, what is the meaning of all these 
 Bedouin fellows coming about us ? Where do they drop 
 from ; and what do they want with us ?" 
 
 He, looking furtively all round, to make sure that no 
 one was observing him, raised his arm, took a good 
 pull, then slowly passing his hand over his long grizzled 
 moustaches, returned me the flask and replied 
 
 " Caid Ali has revolted with all his village of Temda ; 
 so you see, quartermaster, we have given notice to all 
 the other tribes to send us men to help us to pillage. 
 These are our friends ! We shall march in front, as 
 usual ; they will follow behind. Ca'id Ali may probably 
 fight, and we are distributing a few cartridges among
 
 46 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 these men to load their guns with. There will be a 
 razzia," he added, smiling. 
 
 " But suppose our friends turn round upon us ?" said 
 Brissard. 
 
 "There is no danger of that, you will see. The 
 women and the children have already left Temda ; we 
 shall plunder everything, and then burn the village. 
 There are plenty of cattle at Temda ; if I get a bullock, 
 my friends the chasseurs shall have it." 
 
 Such was the opinion of this veteran spahi of the 
 Arab bureau. He had seen atrocities of every descrip- 
 tion for thirty years past, and yet he was suspecting no 
 harm this time. Then he darted away to meet fresh 
 groups of Kabyles, and to show them where the car- 
 tridges were being distributed. 
 
 After a few minutes Lieutenant Cayatte formed us 
 first into fours and then into twos, and placed himself 
 at the head of the column, with a horseman at his side 
 from the Arab bureau, who was to act as our guide > 
 and so we proceeded quietly across the scrubby brush- 
 wood, until we reached the line where the new road is 
 marked out from Tizi-Ouzou to Bougie. 
 
 Two or three hundred Kabyles were preceding us ; 
 but noticing that the great body of them were not fol- 
 lowing, the lieutenant halted the column, and the guide 
 turned back to see what was delaying those men. 
 
 He turned to inform us that the Kabyles were divid- 
 ing themselves into two columns, one of which was 
 skirting the foot of the mountains of the Beni-Eaten 
 at our right, the other the banks of the Sebaon at OUT 
 left. He added that these two columns would join ug 
 before we reached Temda. 
 
 The lieutenant, satisfied with this explanation, after
 
 Told by a Chasseur (KAfrique. 47 
 
 having made us dismount to tighten our girths, again 
 gave the word to advance. 
 
 We were proceeding thus, without haste. The road, 
 which is but marked out as yet, follows that magnificent 
 valley of the Sebaon in its whole length ; on each side 
 rise high mountains dotted with olive-trees, out of 
 which peep the white walls of the Kabyle villages. 
 
 This was a magnificent sight under the slanting rays 
 of the rising sun. 
 
 The Sebaon, almost dried up, had left three-fourths 
 of its bed bare and dry, and covered with boulders 
 white as marble ; on the side that we were advancing 
 on, the deeper water was winding against the steep 
 bank amongst tamarisks and oleanders. From, time to 
 time flights of teal, widgeon, storks, and other aquatic 
 birds rose at our approach and vanished in the distance. 
 The two columns from, the Arab bureau, having at last 
 made up their minds to move, were accompanying us 
 at a considerable distance the one in a long file, under 
 the shadow of the mountains ; the other on the peb- 
 bles and shingles of the river-bed, full in the sun. They 
 had the appearance of an escort. 
 
 The march had proceeded thus for an hour, when we 
 discerned at a distance of five or six kilometres before 
 us, across the valley, a high hill on the left, entirely 
 bare of wood, and covered with green corn. 
 
 The Sebaon made a circuit round the foot of this hill, 
 which was swarming with thousands of Arabs. 
 
 At the top of a gentle elevation on our right stood 
 an Arab horseman in a black burnouse, and mounted 
 on a black horse. 
 
 As soon as this man saw us in the distance, he gal- 
 loped down the hill and joined the rebels,
 
 48 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 !No doubt the guide must have told the lieutenant 
 that " here was the enemy," for these words were 
 repeated down the line to the rear-guard in which I was 
 riding. 
 
 In twenty minutes we reached the elbow of the river, 
 iu this place about half a mile wide, its bed being of 
 hard gravel ; and the width of running water only 
 about ten yards, flowing against the bank on our side. 
 We forded this narrow stream, and on the bed of the 
 river itself we formed in order of battle the first 
 company to the front ; the second, which was mine, to 
 the rear. 
 
 A few hundred yards in front of us, at the foot of the 
 hill, lay a great orchard of fig-trees, in which we could 
 distinguish five or six Arab horsemen riding to and fro. 
 I was told that these were part of the family of the 
 revolted Ca'id. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHILST we were forming in order of battle, our 
 auxiliary columns of Kabyles had been collecting 
 themselves into one body ; for already, for more than 
 half an hour, the column to our left, which was moving 
 in the gravel beds, had crossed the river, and that on 
 our right, which was keeping to the foot of the moun- 
 tains, had descended into the valley ; so that instead of 
 having them in our flanks as supporters, we now had 
 them in our rear. And all these fine men and brave 
 allies, in their full white burnouses, their long beards, 
 and their guns, stood quietly waiting on the bank, to 
 see what we should do next. 
 
 A. few indeed had discharged their old muskets,
 
 Told by a Chasseur cPAfrique. 49 
 
 for they knew that they could not carry half the 
 distance. 
 
 This was not our business ; this was the concern of 
 the Arab bureau. 
 
 Lieutenant Cayatte did not seem to trouble himself 
 about them. ; he extended his company in skirmishing 
 order and in five minutes, six saddles, in that fig-tree 
 orchard, were emptied ; we learnt afterwards that two 
 of the horsemen had died of their wounds ; the rest had 
 gained their line of retreat, carrying off the wounded. 
 
 Thus the fight commenced. 
 
 And now bring the scene before your mind : 
 
 The first company mount and go off at a gallop ; the 
 Kabyles, concealed in the corn-fields, rise as fast as 
 they can load, and fire upon them, rapidly retiring at 
 the same time ; our men charge through the orchard 
 and reach the top of the hill; we, in the bottom, 
 formed in readiness impatient to be off and behind 
 us the officers of the Arab bureau, haranguing our 
 auxiliaries to persuade them to pass the Sebaon. 
 
 The horseman Ali, of the Arab bureau, kept passing 
 and repassing the river, to show them that it was not 
 deep ; but these brave men, looking all the while as 
 solemn as patriarchs, pretended neither to see nor to 
 hear him, when a ball hit his horse just in the middle 
 of the forehead, and laid it dead in the stream. Then 
 all at once our good friends, in the utmost excitement, 
 uttered loud shouts, and threw themselves into the 
 water, some to secure the bridle, others the saddle of 
 the poor beast. 
 
 Ali reached the bank in safety, and came to join our 
 reserves. 
 
 During this time, the first company had got two-
 
 50 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia, 
 
 thirds of the way up the hill; and the firing was 
 becoming more rapid. 
 
 All at once we saw, debouching in the rear of our 
 first company on the right, a close column of Kabylcs, 
 with their broad green and yellow standard displayed ; 
 they were coming on full speed, to cut off the retreat 
 of our men. 
 
 Lieutenant Arissy became aware of the danger in a 
 moment. 
 
 "There is not a minute to lose," he cried; "draw 
 swords ! forward ! charge !" 
 
 And we darted off like a flash of lightning. In a 
 very few moments we were in the orchard. There we 
 had to pass in single file down a narrow ravine, and we 
 threw ourselves out in line in the corn, just in front of 
 the Kabyles, who did not wait for us a moment, but 
 beat a hasty retreat. 
 
 We continued our charge up the first third of the 
 hill, near to three or four old buildings, where a cactua 
 hedge terminated, cutting the hill diagonally. 
 
 " Now, the best shots, dismount," cried the lieutenant. 
 
 In a moment I was out of the saddle, and I handed 
 the bridle to the trumpeter Lecomte, and asked him for 
 his chassepot. Then I threaded the narrow passage 
 between the buildings, in which ran a slender stream 
 full of large stones, spotted with great stains of blood ; 
 for it was by this way that the Kabyles had carried off 
 their wounded. 
 
 At the end of the narrow lane was a field of corn. I 
 found close to me the brigadier Pcron, my orderly 
 Cappel, the old chasseurs Audot and Kouverdier ; we 
 knelt on one knee, and began firing. 
 
 Two or three mounted chasseurs on the other side of
 
 Told ly a Chasseur d'Afrique. 51 
 
 the hedge behind us were also firing over the cactuses. 
 Lieutenant Arissy, smiling, mounted on his little bay 
 pony, was pointing for us with his sword, in which 
 direction to fire. 
 
 " To the right of the field there are two slipping 
 away. Attention !" 
 
 But they were approaching in closer and closer order, 
 creeping on the ground, when with a sudden start the 
 lieutenant cries 
 
 " Every man to horse ! Quick, quick ! or we shall 
 be outflanked." 
 
 I cried to the skirmishers, " Let us cross the fence 
 again." 
 
 But I had hardly reached the other side when all our 
 men were in full retreat. The trumpeter Lecomte was 
 on the point of galloping off with my horse in his 
 hand. I angrily called him back. He threw the bridle 
 to me, and spurred away in great haste. 
 
 I could hear the Kabyles running and calling to each 
 other. My horse, seeing the others gone, became 
 dangerously impatient to be gone too. I wanted to 
 mount, but as the ground was on a slope, and the right 
 side for getting on was down the incline beneath, I 
 was unable to reach the stirrup ; my saddle was turn- 
 ing round, my horse rearing to be gone. 
 
 The Kabyles were coming closer. 
 
 At last I got to the other, the wrong side. I pulled 
 the saddle round, and with my rifle strap round my 
 throat, and my sword between my legs, I contrived to 
 get into the saddle. 
 
 It was time indeed. 
 
 I loosed the reins and the horse sprang off like 
 lightning. The Kabyles, only twenty paces distant,
 
 52 The Story of a Campaign in Kalylia^ 
 
 had thought to take me alive ; they might have shot 
 me a hundred times j their cruelty and hatred had 
 saved my life. 
 
 My horse, keeping the others in sight, darted down 
 the hill, in the midst of balls flying like hail. I thus 
 went on about a thousand yards, and then reached the 
 brink of an immense declivity, at the foot of which 
 stretched an arid plain ; a narrow stream of water, 
 slightly embanked, was winding along it ; and behind 
 the stream, amongst the tamarisks, our chasseurs of 
 the first and second companies, deployed in skirmishing 
 order, were kneeling ready to fire. 
 
 On arriving at the edge of the declivity, I saw Bri- 
 gadier Pcron, lying under his horse, unable to extricate 
 his leg. I cried to him 
 
 "Peron, fly ! the Kabyles are after us !" 
 
 Then making a great effort, he drew out his leg; 
 but his scabbard was also caught under the horse, and 
 it was impossible to pull it out. I said to him 
 
 " Take off your sword-belt, and leave your scabbard 
 behind." 
 
 He did so, and then descended the hill on all-fours, 
 holding his gun in one hand and his sword-blade in the 
 other. 
 
 We had not reached the bottom of the hill when the 
 Kabyles were already at the top. Fortunately our 
 chasseurs in ambush gave these first arrivals a warm 
 reception, which enabled us to join the detachment. 
 
 As soon as we had arrived in the midst of our friends, 
 I was glad to be able to dismount, to put my saddle 
 right, and restore order in my equipment. Lieutenant 
 Arissy, glad to see me again, came to shake hands 
 with me.
 
 Told by a Chasseur cPAfrique. 53 
 
 At once we went again to present a new front in the 
 dried-up bed of the river, and there we learnt with 
 regret that the old chasseur Audot, as well as Kouverdier, 
 had disappeared from our company. The chasseur 
 Joseph, of the second company, had a ball in his thigh. 
 
 Peron took possession of Eouverdier's horse, which 
 had joined us. 
 
 The Kabyles made as if they would have followed us. 
 The black horseman, to lure them 011^ came down even 
 to the foot of the hill, coolly discharged his rifle at us, 
 and then calmly retreated with a slow step, till he 
 reached his own men. The balls hailed round him, 
 raising the dust, but we could not touch him. 
 
 He was a splendid soldier. No one said it, but it 
 was felt all the same. 
 
 All the time of the firing our chasseurs were asking 
 each other for cartridges ; and then it was discovered 
 to our dismay that there remained for the whole detach- 
 ment only three packets. 
 
 . Not a very pleasant prospect, at a distance of seven 
 miles from Tizi-Ouzou ! 
 
 If the Kabyles would but have shown themselves in 
 the plain, we might have charged them, sword in hand ; 
 but they kept to the higher ground. 
 
 We therefore recrossed the river, and again met our 
 valuable auxiliaries, who had been so well supplied 
 with cartridges. Their inward satisfaction was manifest 
 in their countenances ; fortunately they had no suspicion 
 of our want of ammunition, or I have no doubt they 
 would have attacked us without further loss of time. 
 
 All that was left for us to do was to return to Si-kou- 
 Mddour, which we therefore did, and in a couple of 
 hours we were again at our starting-point ; the horses, 
 
 D
 
 '54 The Story oj a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 unbridled and unloaded, were quietly eating their 
 rations of oats in the same spot where we had bivouacked 
 in the morning ; the men were cooking their soup, and 
 six hundred yards in advance, in the direction of the 
 enemy, stood one of our chasseurs on vedette. 
 
 We spent the night on the same spot. Towards 
 evening, at sunset, came a mule with a load of cartridges, 
 sent to us by the commandant of the district, Leblanc. A 
 strong guard was set around us, for the enemy could not 
 be far off ; no doubt they would follow us. And all that 
 night, thinking of my comrades who were lying dead 
 behind the cactus hedge, I fancied I heard the jackals 
 yelling to each other more loudly than the night before. 
 I remarked upon it to old Abd-el-Kader, who replied 
 that it was the rallying-cry of the Kabyles. 
 
 How many sad thoughts passed then through my 
 mind, reflecting that but for an instant of time I should 
 have been consigned to the fate of the brave Eouverdier 
 and of old Audot. I wondered how they had been 
 taken ; no doubt Audot had fallen dead in the corn- 
 field, where I last saw him. Eouverdier had run to the 
 end of the fence, hoping to escape by the old buildings, 
 where the Kabyles were lying in wait for him. My 
 thoughts were none of the brightest. 
 
 At last daylight came, and the guard was relieved. 
 Our rascally auxiliaries, the Kabyles, who had not quite 
 left us yet, came in the midst of us. There was a talk 
 of reinforcements from Tizi-Ouzou, of chasseurs-a-pied, 
 of artillerymen, and so on ; and a spahi even asserted 
 that they were only a couple of miles over the Oued- 
 Aissi. 
 
 Our friends the Kabyles, seated in groups around us, 
 were listening attentively, when in a moment, without
 
 lold ly a Chasseur d'Afrique. 55 
 
 any warning, the crack of a rifle is heard, no one can 
 tell whence or how, and the sub-lieutenant, Arissy, who 
 has been quietly watching his horses feed, with his 
 hands crossed behind his back, utters a sudden cry ; he 
 has just received a ball from behind, which has broken 
 his hip-bone and passed into the body. 
 
 The chasseurs were full of indignation ; the Kabyles 
 spoke not a word. 
 
 " G-oguel," cried Lieutenant Cayatte to me, turning 
 sharp round, " go to Tizi-Ouzou for the doctor." 
 
 I leaped into my saddle, and went off at full gallop. 
 
 After having crossed the Oued-Aissi, I observed at a 
 distance on the road a troop of chasseurs-a-pied, and 
 of artillerymen; but there was no time either to tell 
 news or ask for any. 
 
 On arriving at the fort, I learned that the old com- 
 mandant, Leblanc, had been relieved of his command, 
 and Monsieur Letellier, a young chef de bataillon of 
 the First Zouaves, appointed in his place. I waited 
 upon him to report the occurrence which had brought 
 me there. He put me a few questions, and then issued 
 orders for the sergeant to go, and at the same time to 
 harness a cart, and bring back the wounded man. 
 
 I returned to the village slowly to give my horse 
 breathing-time, when I met Sergeant Deveaux, the 
 assistant to the schoolmaster at Tizi-Ouzou, who was 
 coming up to the fort, and who lost no time in telling 
 me that sixty-six chasseurs-a-pied, armed with chasse- 
 pots, commanded by two officers, had arrived that very 
 morning, on their road to the National Fort, with thirty 
 men of the train, and twenty-four artificers belonging 
 to the tenth company of artillery, commanded by Ser- 
 geant-Major Erbs ; but that since our defeat the whole
 
 56 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 tribe of the Bern-Eaten had risen, and that therefore 
 this detachment would stay at Tizi-Ouzou; that the 
 commandant of the National Fort was also relieved of 
 his duties, and replaced "by Colonel Marchal, lieutenant- 
 colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Chasseurs d'Af rique, 
 who had refused to endanger his little detachment, and 
 had ventured alone all through the insurgent country. 
 
 " He will be there by this time," said the sergeant, 
 " unless he has had his throat cut by the way." 
 
 After having told me this news, the little Sergeant 
 Deveaux said 
 
 " I will leave you, for, you see, everybody is going up 
 to the fort ; all Kabylia is in insurrection ; in a short 
 time we shall be besieged. Colombain, the old school- 
 master, has already driven his cow there ; but his wife 
 and children are still at the school-house, securing what 
 they can. Here come the two cheres soeurs, with a pair 
 of heavy baskets, and Monsieur le Cure's men carrying 
 all his treasures. Thibaud at the officers' cafe is pack- 
 ing up his bottles, and there is Louis the butcher 
 coming up trotting with his mule-cart ; he has made 
 already half-a-dozen journeys." 
 
 " Come now," said I to the sergeant ; " it is quite 
 plain that there are a few cowards here. The Kabyles 
 will never come within fire of the guns of this fortress." 
 
 "Aha! Quartermaster Goguel," he answered, "I 
 have not all my life been attached as assistant-master 
 to a school. I have seen twenty years' service ; I have 
 followed the First Zouaves in many expeditions, and I 
 know those fellows better than you. In 1857 they gave 
 us plenty of occupation, and long before that they had 
 blockaded Colonel Beaupretre in the old fort. Beau- 
 prctre! what a splen<J?4 fellow ! He was the man to
 
 Told oy a Chasseur d'dfrique. 57 
 
 deal with the Kabyles, and never spared their heads ; 
 consequently they respect him still, and say among 
 themselves, ' He was a brave man such a brave man !' 
 With no more than thirty chasseurs in the fort, he kept 
 them all at bay." 
 
 Sergeant Deveaux was going to tell me the whole 
 story, but I was in a hurry. 
 
 " By-and-by," I cried ; " I can't stop now." And I 
 went on my way. 
 
 A couple of miles further on, I met our chasseurs, 
 the drivers, and the artillerymen, who were returning 
 at the double. I quickened my pace, and joined our 
 detachment. 
 
 Every man was on horseback. Sergeant-Major Bris- 
 sard was calling over the muster-roll ; the Kabyle con- 
 tingents standing around us were watching us keenly. 
 Muster over, Lieutenant Cayatte, lighting his pipe, said 
 quietly, " All are present." 
 
 He formed us by twos, and we filed past our good 
 friends the Kabyles, whose bronzed countenances and 
 dark gleaming eyes were not expressive of much affec. 
 tion for us. Brissard was in the front, I was in the 
 centre, Ignar brought up the rear. 
 
 A moment before starting, as Brissard was passing 
 near me, I whispered 
 
 " You see those fellows : this morning they were our 
 friends ; so said the Arab bureau, at least. Now they 
 are with the insurgents. Beware of the pass ! If they 
 can get up their courage when they see themselves ten 
 against one, and their cartridge-boxes full, they will fire 
 a volley upon us ; not a man of the detachment will 
 escape." 
 
 *' Was that what you were thinking of, Gougel ?"
 
 58 TJie Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 said he, with a knowing wink. " Well, the same notion 
 has got into my head too." 
 
 After the word of command " March," we had to 
 leap a narrow ditch to get into the road. The lieute- 
 nant placed himself at the very end of the column. 
 Brissard passed first ; then the two trumpeters ; then 
 the two baggage horses ; then all the chasseurs cleared 
 it one after the other. On the other side of the 
 ditch we halted to form in ranks. Three-fourths of the 
 column had sheathed their swords and slung their 
 rifles; there remained only one man and the lieute- 
 nant. 
 
 Our backs were turned to the Kabyles ; but I had 
 instinctively turned round ; and as the last chasseur, 
 Ketterling, a young Alsacian, was going to jump, his 
 horse missed his footing, and he fell into the ditch, the 
 lieutenant standing alone on the other side. Ketterling 
 raised himself up again, and was on horseback in a 
 moment ; and the lieutenant, having passed too, again 
 commanded 
 
 " March !" 
 
 The Kabyles stood motionless. They dared not 
 attack us yet. 
 
 In two hours' time we were re-entering Tizi-Ouzou, 
 headed by our trumpeter, having left Quartermaster 
 Ignar with eight men, to keep the road open from 
 Berton's Farm, at the distance of a mile and a half from 
 the fort. 
 
 All the villagers were coming up into the fort behind 
 us, weeping and lamenting, and carrying beds, mat- 
 tresses, furniture, and provisions. Never had I beheld 
 such a scene of alarm and distress. 
 
 We soldiers picketed our horses in the courtyard,
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 59 
 
 got into the barracks which we had left two days 
 before. 
 
 In the evening at nine, the night being very dark, 
 the commandant of the place, Letellier, sent orders to 
 Quartermaster Ignar to draw nearer with his men, and 
 to guard the road by the Eoman fountain, which is 
 only about six hundred yards from the fort, and on the 
 road by which we had just entered the place. 
 
 A quiet night followed. 
 
 Next morning Lieutenant Cayatte took me with 
 thirty men to make a reconnaissance on the road to 
 Si-kou-Medour. Passing near to Ignar, he ordered him 
 back to the fort ; then we pushed on as far as Berton's 
 Farm, where we could see nothing remarkable. We 
 therefore retraced our steps, returning by the old road, 
 which runs by the gendarmerie, and passes the Arab 
 cemetery. 
 
 The lieutenant ascended a knoll on the left, which 
 commands a view of the valley, and observing nothing, 
 we descended, crossing the road to climb another hill 
 in front of Tizi-Ouzou, where in 1857 stood a redoubt. 
 
 The lieutenant, having examined the country round, 
 said to me 
 
 " Goguel, you will remain here with ten men and a 
 corporal, You will throw out three vedettes one to 
 watch in the direction of Maatka, one up the Valley of 
 Sebaon, and the third at the foot of the mountain 
 where the Marabout Dubelloi lives."* 
 
 Then he went off with the rest of the men, after 
 having instructed me, if I should notice anything, to 
 send the corporal and report to the commandant. 
 
 * A Marabout is a Maliommcdau priest; liis residence is also 
 called a Marabout. Tr,
 
 60 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 About ten, as I was quietly smoking my pipe and 
 looking first one way and then another, suddenly I 
 saw some Arabs crossing the river and approaching 
 the house of the road surveyor. They broke in the 
 door, and in two minutes the flames were leaping on 
 the roof ; but the villains were out of the range of our 
 rifles. 
 
 Then I could seo them coming out and making for 
 the Berton Farm. Notwithstanding the impossibility 
 of hitting them, I tried to send a few bullets among 
 them, but they fell short. Presently the buildings 
 begin to blaze, the roof falls in, and the four walls alone 
 remain standing. 
 
 Whilst we were gazing in helpless dismay with arms 
 crossed, there appeared in another direction from the 
 entrance of the pass, and moving towards the Maatka, 
 a long line of Arabs in white burnouses, leading their 
 mules by the bridle. It was Ca'id All's army, passing 
 from tribe to tribe, summoning them to join the insur- 
 rection, or to be burnt out. 
 
 As a matter of course, means such as these might 
 swell the body of the insurgents at a very rapid rate. 
 The green and yellow standards were flying in the 
 front. 
 
 The commandant, Letellier, sent a few shells amongst 
 them, which served to drive them closer to the foot of 
 the mountain; but the marching proceeded without 
 
 Confusion. 
 
 At nightfall Quartermaster Ignar came to recall me 
 with my ten men ; we therefore fell back upon the fort. 
 
 We had not been long back, when the pillagers were 
 already swarming in the Arab village ; then they in- 
 vaded the European village, which had been abandoned
 
 Told by a Chasseur cPAfnque. 61 
 
 the evening before. The commandant immediately 
 ordered out the militia, supported by a few chasseurs- 
 a-pied, to drive them out. A pretty shai'p fire of 
 musketry followed, and many Kabyles were killed ; but 
 others filled their places. 
 
 V. 
 
 WE were compelled to fall back, and a few minutes 
 after, about ten, fire broke out in the village ; first in 
 the house belonging to the military garden at the foot 
 of the fort, facing the hospital ; then in the granaries, 
 then at the gendarmerie, and then at last every house 
 in the place burst into flames. Waves and spires of 
 flame broke out everywhere, and the air was alive with 
 myriads of flying sparks. I could hear the crash of 
 falling roofs, and the dull rumble of tumbling walls, 
 and in the streets, over which was spreading the red 
 light of the conflagration, were seen the miscreants who 
 were making all this havoc, traversing the place in all 
 directions in their white cloaks, and with torches in 
 their hands. 
 
 The unfortunate village people, from their refuge in 
 the fort, beheld the disappearance in smoke and ashes 
 of what they had saved by so much labour. It was 
 truly horrible. 
 
 A few cannon-shots were fired at those wretches; 
 but this was of no use. By night you can only fire at 
 random. 
 
 That same evening the pipes leading to the public 
 fountain were cut off ; and now we had no water but 
 what was in the tanks.
 
 62 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 The next day, Sunday, the 16th April, the Comman- 
 dant Letellier declared the state of siege, proclaimed 
 martial law, and regulated the posts and appointed 
 each man his duty. We were now blockaded and cut 
 off from all communication with the outer world. 
 
 The commandant ran up the standard of France upon 
 the fort ; he took possession of the keys of the cisterns, 
 and distributed rations in the following proportions : 
 For men a litre and a half* of water per day ; women 
 and children, half-rations ; horses, five litres.f Half 
 the garrison were to mount guard on the battlements, 
 while the other half were in reserve. 
 
 The effective strength of the garrison now stood as 
 follows : 104 mobiles from the Cote-d'Or, officered by 
 a captain, a lieutenant, and a second lieutenant ; 57 
 Chasseurs d'Afrique, under the command of Lieutenant 
 Cayatte ; 66 chasseurs on foot, commanded by Captain 
 Truchy and Lieutenant Masso ; 50 soldiers of the first 
 regiment of artillery, under Lieutenant Vale ; 24 artil- 
 lery smiths of the 10th company, under Sergeant Erbs ; 
 then the militia of the village to the number of 40, 
 under the command of Captain Thibaud. 
 
 The inhabitants of the European village encumbered 
 the place, and the commandant found it no easy matter 
 to house so many families ; separate accommodation 
 was very scarce ; they had to be lodged anywhere, in 
 the barracks, in the engineers' tents, and in those of 
 the artillery and of the Arab bureau. We had besides 
 about fifteen Arabs, who had been surprised by the 
 insurrection, and the spahis, who were commanded by 
 the Corporal Abd-el-Ivader Soliman. 
 
 * About t\vo pints and a half 2'G4 pints, 
 f About a gallon 8'8 pints.
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 63 
 
 For all these people provisions and water had to be 
 ftnmd. 
 
 Fortunately a herd of cattle belonging to a contractor 
 of the National Fort had been obliged to fall back upon 
 the place ; at the moment that the rising took place 
 the herdsman had been unable to meet with any other 
 refuge ; his herd consisted of twenty oxen. There were 
 besides the cows and the cattle belonging to private 
 individuals. In every possible nook and corner were 
 these poor beasts stowed away, even in the dungeons, 
 with such hay and straw as could be got together. 
 
 On Tuesday, the 18th April, we heard the guns of 
 the National Fort thundering against the enemy ; the 
 Arabs were pressing us very closely. 
 
 We had been unable to man the redan of the gate of 
 the Arab bureau, on account of its extent ; this gate, 
 therefore, was left to its fate. It was of solid timber 
 for about two yards of its height ; its upper part was 
 of strong wooden bars, and the engineers had built be- 
 hind it a dry stone wall. 
 
 The redan of the Bougie gate remained in our pos- 
 session to the last, because Commandant Letellier had 
 lost no time in constructing in front of it epaulementa 
 and intrenchments, in which the sentinels found cover. 
 
 All the guns we had to defend the place were smooth- 
 bores : two mortars, fifteen-pounders ; three four- 
 pounders, and two small mortars, generally called 
 "crapauds." 
 
 The Kabyles, seeing from afar that the gate of the 
 Arab bureau was unguarded from the outside, hoped to 
 obtain possession of it. They immediately set to work, 
 and the very first night, intrenching themselves in their 
 covered ways, they had thrown up sufficient earth to
 
 64 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 attract our notice. For several nights afterwards they 
 carried on their work with the same zeal. 
 
 On that day there was continual firing ; they dis- 
 charged a plunging fire into the place. Then, finding 
 out that they had made a mistake in setting fire to the 
 European village before pillaging it, every night was 
 heard the crashing of timbers, whilst they were carrying 
 off half-burnt beams, windows, and doors, and even 
 tiles from amongst the ruins. Sometimes they fell out 
 about the division of the booty; then there would 
 follow a loud clattering of sticks amongst the 
 disputants. 
 
 As the colonists at Tizi-Ouzou had sown all the 
 fields around the place, with the object of applying the 
 proceeds to the relief of the victims of the war with 
 Prussia, barley and beans were growing in great luxuri- 
 ance up to the very foot of the ramparts. These rich 
 crops were a serious hindrance to the defence. The 
 Arabs glided through the long grasses, and by night 
 crept close to the walls, uttering coarse insults in 
 French against the cure, the cheres sceurs, and others, 
 threatening to cut all our throats within four or five 
 days, and bidding us prepare ourselves. 
 
 And what was the use then of firing into the long 
 rank grass at the miscreants who were creeping like 
 snakes amongst it ? It would have been a waste of 
 powder and shot. 
 
 But we might have joked over these small grievances, 
 had it not been for the burning thirst the time for 
 which was fast coming on. I don't know a worse pain 
 in the world than thirst. 
 
 By the 20th of April we were already suffering con- 
 siderably with our one litre and a half of water, of
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 65 
 
 which one-fourth was for coffee, another fourth to 
 drink, and the rest for soup. This was already trying 
 enough ; when the rations were reduced to one litre per 
 man, and three for the horses. 
 
 You can form no idea of the intense misery of this 
 privation, both for men and for beasts. 
 
 If you had but seen our oxen wandering without a 
 purpose here and there about the prison courts of the 
 Arabs, and in the fort, lowing deeply from their chests, 
 cries which seemed to issue with difficulty from their 
 dried- up lungs ; if you had seen them carrying their 
 heads low, eyes starting from their heads, nostrils dis- 
 tended and dry, and looking like desiccated carcasses, 
 you would have shuddered ; the meat, when they were 
 killed, was redder than ham. And the sheep and the 
 goats, they were to be seen swallowing the most refuse 
 of bits of paper! And we men every one of us 
 with our faces black with dirt and powder, for we 
 had left off washing ourselves you should have seen 
 us ! With something over our faces that felt like a 
 mask of plastered dirt, we were objects of pity to one 
 another. 
 
 This was suffering indeed ! and you may be sure that 
 our sensations filled us with rage against the villains 
 who had brought us to this condition. But they were 
 more than a hundred to one ; others by thousands were 
 swarming far out of the reach of our guns ; they kept 
 every road and every pass. 
 
 All the night through, in the midst of the deep 
 silence, we could hear something or other hammering 
 at the smithy they had set up in the church of Tizi- 
 Ouzou. In the morning, when they were repairing in 
 troops to the trenches and distributing the men to their
 
 60 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 posts, Commandant Letellier never lost the opportunity 
 of sending tliem a few shells ; but during the daytime, 
 whilst the burning heat of the sun beat upon the fort, 
 all was quiet ; for those wretches had resolved to re- 
 duce us by hunger and thirst. 
 
 I felt certain that Arabs and other traitors shut in 
 with us were keeping our besiegers fully acquainted 
 with all that was going on within. This became evi- 
 dent on the 22nd April. 
 
 On that day, a few minutes before noon, the whole 
 garrison received notice that at noon exactly a sortie 
 would be made to destroy the Kabyle works, which 
 were harassing us at the gate of the Arab bureau. It 
 was quite as well that the order was given so close upon 
 the time for the attack, since the enemy learnt our in- 
 tention almost the next moment. 
 
 They were not prepared to receive us ; they required 
 time to call in reinforcements. This will account easily 
 for the sudden appearance of the bearer of a flag of 
 truce at the gate of Bougie ; he held in his hand a reed 
 with a sheet of blue lawyer's paper at the end of it. 
 
 " Let him in," said the commandant, who guessed 
 the trick in a moment. 
 
 He was an old grey-bearded Kabyle, acting the saint 
 the man of peace. 
 
 The commandant from the niidst of his officers asked, 
 " What is your business ?" 
 
 The fellow replied that he had succeeded in obtaining 
 from his fellow-countrymen, before they stormed the 
 place, that the commandant should be invited to 
 capitulate; and that if he consented, the garrison, the 
 women and the children, should be conveyed in safety 
 to Dellys.
 
 " He was an old grey-bearded Kabyle.' 1 
 
 Campaign in Kabylia.~\ 
 
 [I'age 66.
 
 Told ly a Chasseur cPAfrique. 67 
 
 tf Are you in earnest ?" cried the commandant. 
 "You will see presently how we capitulate." 
 
 Then, turning to the corporal of gendarmerie, he 
 said 
 
 " Keep this man in sight, and we will resume our 
 conference by-and-by." 
 
 And at once, with his sword at his side, his revolver 
 in his band, and his field-glass under his arm, he took the 
 command of tbe troops who were standing in readiness 
 behind the gate. 
 
 I remained with twelve men on the bastion of the 
 Arab bureau ; Ignar, with the same number, was on 
 the engineers' bastion. The gate lay between us. 
 
 Lieutenant Cayatte and Quartermaster Brissard, 
 with five chasseurs, remained in reserve at the sortie 
 gate. Ignar and I, with our rifles in the embrasures, 
 were to cover the retreat. Sergeant Erbs, with a 
 fifteen-pounder, now and then threw a shell into the 
 village, to prevent the Arabs from coming in that direc- 
 tion to the support of their friends. 
 
 The troops forming the sallying party consisted of 
 chasseurs-a-pied, mobiles, a few artillerymen, and the 
 militia, with spades and pickaxes to destroy the Kabyle 
 works. A small four-pounder, worked by five gunners 
 and a corporal, was to support the attack. 
 
 Of course the engineers had removed the dry stone 
 wall which had been built against the gate. The gate 
 was thrown open wide, and our men dashed out at the 
 charge step. The Kabyles in their works were not 
 more than thirty yards away from us. 
 
 As long as I live I shall have that spectacle before, 
 my eyes. 
 
 The soldiers yelled and shouted.
 
 68 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 Six paces in front ran Monsieur Goujon, the inter- 
 preter. The first Arab who showed his head above the 
 covered way he shot dead ; then he leaped in, the butt- 
 end of his rifle rapidly rising and falling. 
 
 Captain Truchy followed close upon his footsteps ; 
 then the whole body of the chasseurs, with fixed 
 bayonets. There were shouts and howls of rage be- 
 neath us, under the battlements, and frightful curses 
 filled the air and made us shudder. 
 
 The Arabs only stood the assault a very few minutes, 
 and then fell back; their wounded, after dragging 
 themselves a few yards, dropped. This was the cause, 
 a few days after, of a frightful infection. One of those 
 wretches having dropped just before the redan, the 
 corpse began to decay in the place where he fell, for 
 neither the Arabs nor ourselves could remove it. 
 
 But to return to the sortie. In a few minutes, from 
 the top of the battlements, we saw a cloud of Arabs 
 joining down. In spite of the grape-shot they came by 
 thousands. They seemed to issue from the ground. 
 Our volleys, every one of which tore right through the 
 mass of them, seemed only to excite them to fury. 
 
 The commandant saw them, sounded a retreat, and 
 'n a moment our men withdrew precipitately, and the 
 *ate was closed. 
 
 The militia and artillerymen had destroyed the 
 >vorks of the Kabyles, and filled up their covered ways ; 
 ind, therefore, the principal object of the sortie had 
 :>een achieved. But all the remainder of that day and 
 light not a man was allowed to close his eyes. 
 
 "Attention! Every man on the ramparts!" had 
 >cen the order of Commandant Letellicr. 
 
 He was right, for we were in the middle of a ring of
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfrique. 69 
 
 ITabyles, who were all beside themselves with blind 
 rage ; their standards were flying in all directions. I 
 should never have thought it possible there could be so 
 many Kabyles. We were expecting them every mo- 
 ment to open the assault; but no doubt they had 
 orders from their officers to wait for a more favourable 
 opportunity; and they were hoping to reduce us by 
 thirst. 
 
 This excitement abated during the night. They had 
 suffered great losses. Our casualties were : one chas- 
 seur, unfortunately left amongst the enemy; and an 
 old corporal in the artillery, who had received a wound 
 in the head, of which he died in hospital. Quarter- 
 master Martin was also severely bitten in the thumb by 
 a Kabyle. 
 
 After that 22nd of April, the horses began to perish. 
 To bury them seemed almost impossible ; a wide and 
 deep pit made behind the powder magazine was soon 
 filled up. Besides the misery of the horses there was 
 that of the cattle, which were dropping with weakness. 
 
 I can still fancy I see the old schoolmaster, Colom- 
 bian, a little shrivelled old man, wrapped up in his 
 black and greasy cape, his old battered hat lying over 
 one ear, coming up the canteen, followed by his cow 
 and her calf, which never left him now. I can hear 
 him making his doleful request 
 
 " Ah, gentlemen officers, pray have pity on my poor 
 cow ! It is all we have got. What is to become of 
 us my wife, my children, and myself without our 
 cow ? Do give us a little water, I beg of you ! See 
 how the poor beasts follow me everywhere !" 
 
 You may fancy the kind of reception we gave him. 
 Only to hear him asking for w ter was enough to put
 
 70 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 ns in a terrible rage ; we were nearly pitching him out 
 of the window. 
 
 This poor old man used every day to climb up the 
 young plane-trees in the square, the leaves of which he 
 pulled off for his cow. The Kabyles, sighting him from 
 afar, sent bullets flying amongst the boughs, but he never 
 cared. It was of no use calling out to him to come 
 down ; he would not listen to us. 
 
 The courageous old man succeeded in saving the 
 lives of both his cow and his calf. He richly de- 
 served it. 
 
 I remember, about that time, a strange and even 
 moving spectacle. A civil engineer, whose name I 
 cannot at present remember, had some thirty asses in- 
 side the fort ; the poor brutes had had no water for 
 several days ; their ears were hanging low ; their 
 tongues were protruding; they were a melancholy 
 sight. 
 
 At last when they "were beginning to die, and it 
 would have been troublesome work to bury them, it 
 was decided that it would be best to let them go loose, 
 and trust to chance. They were all branded with a 
 hot iron, and the engineer hoped, no doubt, that it 
 would prove the best way to save them and get them 
 back, if we should be rescued from our dreadful 
 position. 
 
 I was standing just by the redan of the Bougie gate, 
 when they were all brought in a string, to be set at 
 liberty. They could hardly stand ; and it was found 
 very difficult to get them to understand that what we 
 were doing was for their advantage ; they would not 
 move on to the glacis ; aud they had to be pushed on 
 from behind, one after the other. But scarcely had
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 71 
 
 they snuffed the open air of the country, when their 
 long ears rose upright again, and they began to trot 
 like hares in the direction of the fountain. They smelt 
 the water at the distance of three-quarters of a mile. 
 
 Seeing them galloping off at this rate in a long 
 string, with spirits revived, we thought we should have 
 liked to follow them. 
 
 Since the mishap to Lieutenant Arissy, I had not 
 forgotten to go and see him every day at the hospital. 
 
 It would be difficult to give you any proper concep- 
 tion of that little whitewashed room that filthy bed, 
 and that almost unbearable odour. Water was wanting, 
 and the bandages could not be washed. 
 
 There is no need to say more. 
 
 And now let me declare the truth. In the shop- 
 windows at Paris and elsewhere, you always see pictures 
 of the cheres scours and of Monsieur le Cure seated 
 by the bedsides of the wounded, and succouring the 
 wounded even in the field of battle ; but those we had 
 at Tizi-Ousou were never seen to do this, and remained 
 prudently out of the reach of harm. 
 
 This is known to all the inhabitants of the fort and 
 the whole garrison. No one will deny it. 
 
 Surely pictures might be drawn somewhat in 
 harmony with facts. At any rate it would save us the 
 pain of seeing folks shrugging their shoulders at such 
 things as mere fancies. 
 
 In consequence of this complete isolation, my brave 
 and good lieutenant, whom I had known formerly so 
 gay and so fond of his laugh, was in a state of complete 
 depression. How the sight of him grieved me, and 
 how glad he was to get a little news from the outside 
 world I
 
 72 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 Sometimes he boiled over with excitement and would 
 cry 
 
 " My dear Goguel, is it not melancholy ? Here am 
 I escaped out of Sedan ; here am I, who was in that 
 famous charge in which our regiment conducted itself 
 so nobly, only spared to come here and catch a stray 
 bullet in bivouac after a skirmish. Ah ! if it had but 
 struck me in the heart, I should have been happy to 
 dieJ" 
 
 Then his feelings would overpower him, and the 
 tears came. 
 
 You may be sure that these things did not tend to 
 cheerfulness, and I often said that if we ever came out 
 of that hole, the Kabyles would have to smart for it. 
 I pressed the handle of my sword, and thought 
 
 " You will have a bad time of it when I hear the 
 charge sounded! We will pay you off for what we 
 have suffered through you ! You'll smart !" 
 
 On their side, the miscreants were no doubt enter- 
 taining themselves with similar reflections. Every 
 morning I could see them with upturned faces, in 
 their trenches, sharpening their daggers, as if they 
 were saying 
 
 " Make your throats ready ! here's something for 
 you ! Your tanks must be getting empty ; in a very 
 short time you won't care much for your meat !" 
 
 We were at that time close upon the month of May ; 
 every day it grew hotter ; and in our fort, from nine in 
 the morning till seven in the evening, when the glaring 
 sun of Africa was flooding our white walls with dazzling 
 light and heat, and there was neither vegetation nor 
 shade, we almost visibly dried up. Nothing stirred : 
 there was stillness everywhere ; even our spahis, who
 
 Told by a Chasseur tfAfrique. 73 
 
 are better able to bear thirst than we are, sat motion- 
 less in their places, with knees drawn up, the head 
 bowed low in a deep stupor. 
 
 The Arabs have always one consolation under every 
 trouble. They say, " It is written ;" but this mode 
 of reconciling themselves with misfortune did not suit 
 me, and I was resolved to die in the defence of my life. 
 
 But nevertheless, to be shut up in a place like a 
 living cemetery, and be obliged to mount guard around 
 it in my regular turn, without ever being able to cross 
 swords with the enemy ; to be ever dreaming of drink- 
 ing, and to imagine what a pleasure it would be to 
 draw a long draught of cool beer, and to devise to 
 myself a succession of such illusions, and find them all 
 a deception, this was terrible to bear. 
 
 Sometimes clouds would pass over our heads, and 
 then we would hopefully say to one another, " It will 
 rain soon." But the clouds floated away amongst the 
 olive-clad mountains, the sun came out fiercer than 
 ever, and we were left parched and dried like fishes on 
 the banks when the water has retired. 
 
 Sometimes we fancied we could hear a distant storm. 
 But it turned out to be the cannon of the National 
 Fort, or of Dollys, or of Dra-el-Mizan ! The insurrec- 
 tion was spreading in all directions. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I AM not altogether ashamed to confess that, in those 
 awful times, I often wished myself back again at 
 St. Die, in the Vosges, shaded by the tall fir-trees, lying 
 on the banks of a cool running stream ; and that at
 
 74 The Story of a Campaign in Rabylia, 
 
 night time, with my cloak wrapped round my head, in 
 some corner, when I was off duty, I many a time called 
 myself a consummate fool to have come and thrust 
 myself into this hornets' nest at Tizi-Ouzou, whilst so 
 many others, who had remained at home, deaf to the 
 calls of the Provisional Government, were enjoying 
 their regular three meals a day, washed down with good 
 wine, and quietly smoking their pipes at the public- 
 house in the evening, shuffling their cards, and talking 
 over the news of the day. Ah ! how often did I say to 
 myself 
 
 " Oh, Goguel ! what a fool you must be to have en- 
 listed without a moment's reflection, whilst so many 
 thousands of lads richer than you, and with more to 
 defend, have never stirred from home ! Those fellows 
 will become mayors, they will be members of the 
 Conseil General, deputies for the department ; they will 
 be married to pretty girls, who might very likely have 
 given the preference to you, if you had been there ; and 
 here are you, in this awful mess, perishing with thirst ; 
 with a prospect before you of having your head carried 
 about from one village to another, stuck on the end of 
 a pole ! Poor, poor Goguel ! if you had but shown a 
 little common sense at the right moment ! Of course, 
 if everybody had been compelled to serve, well, you 
 would only have been doing your duty when you 
 marched away from your comfortable home; but as 
 things are, I must confess you are a fool!" 
 
 Such weie my melancholy reflections. 
 
 It moved my indignation to see that the Kabyles, 
 instead of attacking us, wanted to catch us alive L : ke rats 
 in a trap. 
 
 At last the patience of these creatures came to an
 
 Told by a Chasseur cTAfrique. 75 
 
 end. They thought us at the last extremity, when one 
 evening the clouds, which had been so long coming and 
 going away again, gathered in masses over the fort, the 
 lightnings began to play, arid we had an abundant 
 downfall. 
 
 What a delightful event both for men and cattle ! 
 Now we had water in plenty and we enjoyed it as we 
 had never enjoyed water before. The rain came down 
 from every roof, and the cisterns were more than half 
 full. The Arabs burst out into a furious rage. 
 
 " Ah ! French dogs," they yelled from their covered 
 ways, "it is lucky for you that Allah has thought of 
 you ! You have had five or six days added to your 
 lives ; but you will have lost nothing by waiting !" 
 
 Soon we saw them trooping away in gangs to the 
 neighbouring villages, whence they brought back 
 timbers, planks, bundles of sticks. All this material 
 was piled up behind a mound, facing the gate of 
 the Arab bureau ; and the garrison came to the 
 conclusion that the enemy had decided upon a final 
 assault, and that they would dash in at the first 
 signal, each man with a faggot on his shoulder, which 
 they would pile up at the foot of the wall, to the height 
 of the rampart, when we should meet them hand to 
 hand. 
 
 We were prepared to give them a warm reception. 
 
 The attack was expected that night. I was with the 
 reserves at the Arab bureau. The moon was shining 
 brilliantly. Our stables lay close to that bureau ; the 
 ridge of the roof was leaning against the wall of the 
 fort ; and within the court its edge rested upon posts, 
 like a cartshed. Underneath, the horses and mules 
 stood in rows, and inside the back wall, pierced with
 
 76 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 loopholes, stood our spaliis with arms ready, watching 
 the open country. 
 
 I had orders to prevent the least interchange of 
 words between our men and the enemy ; for the 
 Kabyles in their trenches were not many yards 
 from us. 
 
 So I walked backwards and forwards, smoking my 
 cigarette, listening and observing. 
 
 At the stroke of midnight I woke Corporal Peron, 
 who mounted guard in his turn ; then, enveloped in my 
 full white cloak, I lay down at full length behind the 
 horses, upon a bundle of straw, under the shelter of the 
 roof, and fell into a sound sleep. 
 
 How long I slept I cannot tell, nor what the time was 
 when, from my sleeping-place, I saw between the 
 horses' feet an immense hole in the wall, just beneath 
 the manger. 
 
 " Aha !" said I, thinking in a moment of the Kabyles, 
 " this is the way they mean to come in !" 
 
 And immediately a black-boarded Kabyle face ap- 
 peared through the hole ; the eyes were gleaming 
 fiercely, like a tiger's about to pounce on his victim. I 
 shuddered ; horror overcame me, and seemed to petrify 
 me. The man held in his hand a long yataghan, and 
 was creeping up in the direction where I lay. Then I 
 saw another, then a third, then more and more. 
 
 I struggled to rise, I made terrible efforts to cry for 
 help, to call the men to arms. It was impossible ! A 
 heavy weight upon my chest bore me down each time 
 that I rose. 
 
 The first Kabyle has reached me. He glares upon 
 me in the dark shadow with cruel, hateful eyes ; his arm 
 is lifted high, the yataghan plunges down, and I shiver
 
 Told ly a Chasseur cFAfrique. 77 
 
 under the deadly wound "with which I am pierced 
 through the body ; I feel the hot blood bubbling from 
 the wound ! Then I am able to shout 
 
 " Comrades, to the rescue !" 
 
 The sentinel, much surprised, turns round and 
 asks 
 
 " What is the matter with you, quartermaster ?" 
 
 I answer, with both hands upon my hot and satu- 
 rated chest 
 
 " I am wounded ! I am losing blood fast !" 
 
 But, strange to say, there was unbroken silence every- 
 where. I rose upon my feet, and what did I see by the 
 clear moonshine ? My white cloak stained and dis- 
 coloured from head to foot. I had just had a night- 
 mare ; and all my alarm I found was caused by a spahi, 
 who had passed by me in haste to carry a pot of hot 
 coffee to a thirsty comrade, and stumbling over a stone, 
 had fallen himself, and discharged its whole contents 
 over me ! This was the story of my supposing myself 
 to be covered with blood ! 
 
 This was great fun for all our comrades next day, 
 when I gave them an account of my dream. All the 
 garrison enjoyed a hearty laugh, and a good laugh was 
 of rare occurrence in these days ; it was a momentary 
 relief to our misery. 
 
 Unfortunately, the expected assault never took place. 
 The Kabyles, far from meditating an attack by storm, 
 had built up barracks with their timber, to watch us 
 more at their ease. Several men had been killed on 
 the ramparts ; seventeen horses had died of thirst ; of 
 the cattle only a fourth were left ; the water in the 
 cisterns had again sunk low ; the well at the end of the 
 lightning-conductor had several times been examined
 
 78 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 for water in vain ; help was hoped for expected and 
 none came ! 
 
 We might easily have fought our way out sword in 
 hand, and with fixed bayonets; but the women and 
 children could not have followed us, and Commandant 
 Letellier was not the man to leave them behind. Be- 
 sides, not a man amongst us would have encouraged 
 such a thought ; we would have died to the last man 
 sooner than be guilty of such cowardice I will do our 
 men that justice. 
 
 We therefore hoped now only in the column which 
 we were expecting to come to our relief. 
 
 On the llth of May, being on guard at the powder- 
 magazine bastion, as I was crossing the place about 
 noon, to get my dinner, passing by the waggons of 
 MM. Monte of Algiers, who had put them into the -fort 
 for safety, and turning round before entering the 
 canteen, I observed an immense column of smoke or 
 dust slowly rolling through the air in the far distance. 
 
 " What is that ?" I asked of one of the drivers. 
 
 " That, quartermaster, is the caravanserai of Azib- 
 Zamoun on fire." 
 
 I went in, supposing that he was right. 
 
 But in the evening, after having relieved my sen- 
 tinels, just as I was about to lie on my camp-bed to 
 enjoy a sleep, the distant booming of a gun made me 
 lift up my head in haste. I listened breathlessly. A 
 second faint report reached the fort, and I exclaimed 
 
 " If I hear a third, it is the signal, and we are 
 eaved !" 
 
 And then came the third report ; but so faint in the 
 distance, that without specially directing the attention 
 to it, it might have escaped notice.
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 79 
 
 I could have wished to announce the good news to 
 my comrades ; but being on duty, I was unable to quit 
 my post. 
 
 The whole of that night the Kabyles kept up an in- 
 cessant shouting and firing, no doubt to prevent us 
 from hearing or seeing any further signals. 
 
 But at four o'clock the old corporal, Abd-el-Kader, 
 appeared, and said to me, with hand outstretched to- 
 wards the gate of the Arab bureau 
 
 " There are no more Kabyles that way, quarter- 
 master ; they are all gone to the Bougie gate." 
 
 I could scarcely believe it ; but presently I saw a 
 company of the Mobiles from the Cote-d'Or moving 
 rapidly out from the ramparts, and setting to work to 
 cut corn for the cattle; then, near the marshal's 
 camp, at the angle of the road, prolonged clouds of 
 dust, giving unmistakable notice of a column on the 
 march. 
 
 Immediately the news spread that the siege was 
 raised, and that we were relieved ! You may imagine, 
 if you can, the joyous excitement of unhappy wretches 
 so long shut up, as they broke out to assure themselves 
 of the fact with their own eyes. 
 
 Two hours afterwards we saw the little village of 
 Vin Blanc in flames ; then a French officer, riding in at 
 full spe'ed upon a horse covered with foam, to announce 
 to us the arrival of the column of General Lallemand, 
 composed of eight thousand men, ten field guns, and 
 two mitrailleuses. 
 
 How could I describe to you the enthusiasm of our 
 men, the loud cries in all directions of " Vive la France! 
 Vive la Ei'publique !" 
 
 The Kabyles retired in haste to the mountains ; they
 
 80 The Story oj a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 concentrated at the Arab village, near the Marabout 
 Dubelloi. 
 
 A poor gun- driver ran to the ramparts to enjoy the 
 happy sight. I can still see him running up, his face 
 beaming with delight, and leaning over an embrasure, 
 when suddenly he fell back and dropped, his head 
 streaming with blood. The last ball shot by the 
 Kabyles sped for him. They carried him away and 
 buried him. 
 
 " Come away ! come away !" cried Lieutenant Cay- 
 atte, " we have no time to lose. Bridle your horses, , 
 and take them out to water." 
 
 But how were we to put their bridles on? They 
 could scarcely open their cracked and chapped mouths. 
 However, we got on their backs and started. 
 
 I had caught up a piece of soap ; and just as we 
 arrived at the Turkish fountain, the head of the column 
 was beginning to debouch past it ; General Lallemand, 
 seeing the condition we were in, and our haste to reach 
 the water, could not help smiling. Without actually 
 seeing it, you can form no idea of the pleasure of wash- 
 ing, and dipping, and soaping, and rubbing down with 
 sweet, clear, cool water. The whole column was filing 
 past us ; presently came past our own regiment. Our 
 regiment ! That is a pleasure you don't know, because 
 you have never served. His regiment, I tell you, is the 
 soldier's family ; his regiment is everything to him ! 
 
 The little shakos, under their white sun-covers, the 
 sky-blue jackets, the full, red, flapping trousers, the 
 broad white shoulder-belts, advanced with measured 
 tramp through clouds of dust ; the merry jingling of 
 swords, the neighing of horses once again cheered our 
 listening ears ; we gazed our fill.
 
 Told ly a Chasseur ffAfrique. 81 
 
 Suddenly a voice cried, " Goguel !" And my old 
 comrade, Eellin, threw himself from his horse ; other 
 non-commissioned officers followed him. The hearty, 
 vigorous grips that were then exchanged, it still does 
 my heart good to think of them, so great was our joy 
 at meeting again. 
 
 But the column marched on ; our friends were 
 obliged to remount, and set off at the trot to resume 
 their places in the ranks. 
 
 And as for us, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, soap in 
 hand, we went on with our great wash. Then, after a 
 most complete lathering and rub-down, we returned to 
 Tizi-Ouzou, leading our horses by the bridle. 
 
 Everything was prospering in our direction, except 
 that at twenty-six kilometres (sixteen miles) from us, 
 on the heights, the National Fort remained closely 
 blockaded. The Kabyles, strongly intrenched all round 
 it, had cut the road at twenty places, and intercepted 
 the supplies ; it was difficult to approach it. During 
 the interval, until they could be driven away, General 
 Lallemand gave orders to rid the neighbourhood of 
 the presence of the enemy ; and as we were returning 
 to the fort, a battalion was just on the point of start- 
 ing, with arms sloped, to capture the Arab village. 
 
 But the resistance was more serious than we had 
 expected. The Kabyles, enraged to see that we were 
 escaping from them, fought with the courage of despair. 
 A second battalion had to be sent, then a regiment ; 
 then the whole column was engaged. 
 
 At the first cannon-shot I had ascended the rampart 
 of the old fort, which commanded the whole position. 
 Hundreds of Kabyles, sheltered in the houses of the 
 village, and behind the immense cactus hedges, were
 
 82 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 keeping up a continuous firo from all sides from the 
 midst of the orange-trees, the mulberries, and the 
 sycamores the white smoke of their incessant dis- 
 charges rose in dense clouds. 
 
 Our artillery soon replied from the European village, 
 hacking all that "beautiful greenery like chopped straw, 
 and our skirmishers were dashing in upon them at the 
 charge step. Many of the lanes and by-streets were 
 already choked with the dead and wounded. 
 
 The struggle was a long and hard one ; but about 
 nightfall the Kabyles, broken along their whole line, 
 commenced their retreat. Their long brown legs might 
 be seen traversing the country with great strides, and 
 climbing up the Marabout Dubelloi, in order to gain 
 the more distant heights. Now and then a random 
 shot lighted the darkness far away amongst the olive- 
 trees ; then silence fell on all, aud s the flames made the 
 village their prey, lapping round the great old trees, 
 already disfigured by the shot, and whose dark 
 shadows were trembling on the plain. 
 
 This over, Lallemand's column stayed two days at 
 Tizi-Ouzou. They reconstructed the fountain, laying 
 down the pipes afresh ; they provisioned the place, and 
 took their leave of us on the morning of the third day, 
 leaving with us a company of infantry, a rifled gun, 
 and a mitrailleuse. The column marched northward, 
 in the direction of the sea, and fought the next day the 
 bloody engagement of Taourga, the result of which 
 was the dispersion of the insurgents, and the raising 
 of the blockade of Dellys. 
 
 In another week the column had returned to Temda, 
 and received the submission of the Beni-Rateu. It 
 was thither that our little detachment, escorting a
 
 Told ly a Chasseur d'Afrique. 83 
 
 convoy of bread, went to rejoin it. The commandant, 
 Letellier, was at our head. On the road we saw Si- 
 kou-Medour, now completely deserted, the Sebaon, 
 whose stony bed we followed once more, and the hill 
 upon which we had given battle forty days before. 
 
 At last, about eight o'clock in the morning, we 
 reached Tenida. The column lay encamped there. 
 
 I spent a few hours with my comrades. We took a 
 turn round the village, and I remember seeing a lot of 
 Turcos in a lane plundering some beehives that they 
 had found. They were covered with bees, and were 
 laughing like lunatics without minding the stings of 
 the irritated insects, having, no doubt, some way of 
 their own of protecting themselves against their effects. 
 They were not afraid even to bite the combs through 
 with their teeth, and were so obliging as to offer us 
 some. 
 
 On that day they blew up the house of Caid Ali, and 
 set fire to Temda. About four o'clock in the evening, 
 the column had packed up bag and baggage, and was 
 descending to the Sebaon to encamp further up the 
 mountain country. We resumed the road 'o Tizi- 
 Onzou, and about five we were passing through 
 Si-kou-Mcdour, whose inhabitants had joined the in- 
 surgents. 
 
 The heat was stifling. Everything was quiet in this 
 disorderly collection of gourbis, huts, and hovels, where 
 hundreds of storks had taken up their abode ; every 
 old roof carried two or three huge nests full of young, 
 whose long necks thrown back, and great wide-open 
 bills, seemed ever on the look-out for food. The mother- 
 birds came by dozens from the valley of Sebaon, bring- 
 ing them snakes, toads, and frogs. Even the trees
 
 84 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 were so loaded with these nests that they looked like 
 haystacks. 
 
 Beneath, in the narrow lanes between the dense 
 hedges, ran large numbers of poultry, which the Arabs 
 had not had time to carry off with the cattle. 
 
 These were the only inhabitants of Si-kou-Medour. 
 
 As we approached the village, the commandant gave 
 orders to set fire to the place, which was very soon 
 done by a dozen chasseurs. From the nearest roof a 
 handful of thatch was pulled out, which they lighted 
 with a match, and this served for a torch. In a 
 quarter of an hour the whole place was blazing, and in 
 that hot, still air, the flames soon united into a vast 
 spire ; then the black volumes of smoke rose straight 
 into the sky. 
 
 I saw then a sight both sad and terrible ; the storks, 
 those birds of the fens, attracted by the cries of their 
 young, hovered awhile in the midst of the black smoke, 
 then falling headlong into the furnace, dropped dead 
 upon their broods. 
 
 We started off at the quick- step; but how many 
 times I turned round, gazing, upon this heartrending 
 spectacle, and remembering our own sufferings in 
 Prance ; our cities ravaged with fire, our land devas- 
 tated, our relatives shot down by the Prussians! 
 
 An hour after we re-entered Tizi-Ouzou, and for 
 many days after we could hear the distant roar of 
 irtillery amongst the hills, and could see the villages 
 burning right and left. 
 
 About the 1st of June, Lallemand's column returned 
 to encamp near to us ; the general found that he was 
 not in sufficient force to raise the blockade of the 
 National Fort ; but General Ceres' column, from six to
 
 Told "by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 85 
 
 seven thousand strong, was on its way from Atimale ; 
 and efforts were being made to effect a junction of the 
 two armies before commencing the attack. 
 
 On the evening of the 5th of June, having been to 
 shake hands with my friend Babelon, a lieutenant in 
 ftie First Eegiment of Algerine Tirailleurs, he informed 
 me that on the following night the column would raise 
 the camp, and would reach the foot of the Maatka by 
 daybreak, and pass over its highest ridge to join tho 
 column of General Ceres. 
 
 Accordingly, Lallemand's column left us the next 
 morning, leaving at Tizi-Ouzou a handful of cavalry, a 
 company of infantry, two field-piece?, and two mitrail- 
 leuses. On the same morning, the 6th of June, this 
 small detachment also started, directing its course by 
 the mule-road to Dra-el-Mizan, towards the mountain 
 on which lies the village of Bounoum. The Kabyles, 
 tinder the belief that we were on our way to attack 
 them in that quarter, descended the hill in dense 
 masses to encounter us, and Lallemand's column, which 
 was some distance further on, profiting by the diversion, 
 made straight for the ridge of the Maatka without 
 meeting any resistance. 
 
 By eleven o'clock in the morning all was over, the 
 detachment returned to the fort, and that same evening 
 we saw the fires of the two columns lighting up the 
 mountain-tops ; the junction had been effected. 
 
 From that moment until the 15th of June, every day 
 the deep roll of the artillery was heard behind the 
 Maatka ; but it seems that they were unable to get to 
 the National Fort from that point ; for the united 
 columns of Ceres and Lallemand returned to Tizi- 
 Ouzou. We feared they were dispirited, when one 
 
 r
 
 86 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 night the whole of the infantry started off, leaving the 
 cavalry behind on the plain ; they reached the foot of 
 the Beni-Eaten about four in the morning, near the 
 mill of St. Pierre, and the assault of those immense 
 heights which are crowned by the National Fort com- 
 menced immediately. 
 
 From our ramparts we could distinguish our men 
 climbing through the olive-trees and the shrubs, 
 dragging their artillery after them. The whole body 
 were advancing and firing at the same time. The guns 
 were placed in battery on every available shelf, and 
 thundered in their turn ; the Kabyles offered a 
 courageous but ineffectual resistance. The din of our 
 twenty guns awoke the loudest echoes amongst the 
 peaks and crags of the Beni- Eaten. The long, tremen- 
 dous, incessant roar was both grand and terrific. 
 
 In the midst of the hottest of the action, a sortie 
 was made from the National Fort ; and the Kabyles, 
 attacked in front and rear, at length abandoned their 
 position; they scattered themselves in all directions, 
 and the blockade was raised. At half-past three the 
 two columns were encamping under its walls. 
 
 As we were now extricated, I might stop at this 
 point, but I must tell you the end of this history ; for 
 what remains belongs not to war only, but to the 
 internal affairs of this beautiful, rich, but unhappy 
 land. 
 
 vn. 
 
 ON the evening of the 24th June, Commandant 
 Letellier, of the district of Tizi-Ouzou, took four 
 squadrons of cavalry under his command, and selected
 
 Told ly a Chasseur tfAfrique. 87 
 
 us for his escort, on account of our Laving supported 
 him in his defence of the fort. We halted upon the 
 ashes of Si-kou-Medour. On the 25th we encamped 
 a little above Temda, and on the 26th, very early, wo 
 started with the commandant, the four squadrons, and 
 the spahis of the Arab bureau. We proceeded to the 
 village of Djema-Sahridj, in the tribe of the Beni- 
 Fraoussen, to receive their submission, and maintain 
 them in it by our presence, for the insurrection was not 
 yet suppressed, and a crowd of insurgents were even 
 yet ready to go and swell the ranks of the enemy. 
 
 All that day the artillery was heard in the direction 
 of the National Fort ; there must have been a sharp 
 engagement going on up there. Our commandant's 
 precaution proved useful ; our horses were picketed in 
 the middle of the village, and not one of the inhabi- 
 tants, with those before his eyes, felt any inclination to 
 go and fight elsewhere. 
 
 The village of Djema-Sahridj is perhaps one of the 
 most beautiful in Algeria; seeing it from the valley 
 beneath, one would hardly think so, for rocks are 
 hemming it in and bristling all round it ; but when you 
 have reached it you discover an earthly paradise ; more 
 than fifty springs are bubbling up in the neighbour- 
 hood, and in this land of fierce burning heat water is 
 the first of treasures. Water is abundance, water is 
 wealth. Being thus fortunate, all the houses in Djema- 
 Sahridj are built of stone, roofed with tiles, surrounded 
 Dy charming gardens, and half buried under the grateful 
 shade of walnut, cherry, orange, and fig trees, covered 
 with fruit, and trellised troni tree to tree are immense 
 vines. Near the mosque 1 even observed three palm- 
 trees, which are but rarely f^md in the elevated Kabyle
 
 88 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 country. The women and the children alone had 
 forsaken the village ; but they had not gone far, and 
 we could see them watching us fearfully from the crags 
 and rocks. 
 
 Then the chasseurs prepared coffee. The Kabyles 
 brought us baskets full of dried figs ; the poor creatures, 
 having witnessed the destruction of so many other 
 villages, were in a state of alarm. At last our com- 
 mandant, who had been walking to and fro, deep in 
 thought, gave out the order to march and we returned 
 to the camp, where our comrades were bivouacked. 
 
 We started again next day, ascending the bed of the 
 Sebaon, to encamp a few miles further up, near the 
 sources of the river. The valley contracted as we 
 advanced ; brown rocks rose to our right and our left ; 
 cultivated ground became more scarce; brambles, 
 dwarf-oak, and lentiscus became the prevailing vegeta- 
 tion. A few miserable Kabyle villages lay scattered at 
 wide intervals amongst these thickets. 
 
 The next day, early, the commandant sent off a 
 squadron on a reconnaissance amongst the Beni- 
 Dje'ma ; then he took us to a very advanced spot in the- 
 valley. 
 
 About eleven we reached a low hill, where we halted 
 the whole day on the watch. In the evening we 
 returned to the camp. The night was passed very 
 quietly in this remote nook, and the next day we were 
 off again, reinforced with a company of the first regi- 
 ment of chasseurs. 
 
 After having marched three or four hours through 
 brushwood, where there was no appearance of a path, 
 we arrived near a small solitary marabout, almost 
 hidden in the long grass j there was an orchard of fig-
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 89 
 
 trees below, on the slope of the ravine, and lower stil' 
 a Kabyle mill by the river's edge, shut ir; with high 
 embankments . 
 
 This mill, covered with thatch, and its mossy wood- 
 work, seemed to be of great antiquity. The water was 
 supplied by a mill-race of a thousand yards in length, 
 which came down in a rapid torrent over the rocks and 
 boulders, and fell into a great hollow trunk of a tree 
 about fifteen feet long, at the lower end of which was a 
 wooden water-wheel, roughly hewn. In the axle of 
 the wheel was the millstone, in the form of a teetotum. 
 To stop the motion of the machinery, it was only 
 necessary to draw the hollow tree to one side, which, 
 as it was merely suspended by a rope, was easily done, 
 and then the water fell to one side. I examined this 
 attentively, for these mechanical contrivances always 
 interest me. 
 
 You see, therefore, that water-wheels are not things 
 of yesterday ; for this structure was at least a hundred 
 and fifty years old. All around it grew ash-trees of 
 enormous size. I had seated myself on the bank to 
 smoke a pipe ; Ignar, my comrade, was on vedette with 
 five men near the marabout, and our chasseurs were 
 pulling up onions in the little garden, to eat with their 
 bread. It might have been about ten o'clock when 
 the commandant issued orders to remount. We then 
 descended into the dry bed of the river, where we 
 halted. 
 
 We had been there a quarter of an hour ; the com- 
 mandant was standing twenty or thirty paces to the 
 front, when we saw approaching us a European woman 
 on a mule, escorted by two armed Kabyles. Thia 
 woman was somewhat advanced in years, and was only
 
 90 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 half clad in a tattered gown ; on her head was a straw 
 hat, with its brim hanging down and fastened over her 
 ears. On reaching the presence of the commandant 
 she alighted from her mule, and throwing herself at his 
 knees, she kissed his hands, his boots, and even his 
 horse's hoofs. We could not tell the meaning of this ; 
 and as Ali, the horseman of the Arab bureau, was 
 passing near me, I inquired what it all meant. 
 
 " That woman," he replied, " is the wife of a colonist 
 of Bordj-Mena'iel, whom Ca'id Ali made prisoner with 
 fifty others from the same village ; he is sending her 
 under a flag of truce." 
 
 Never have I seen a sadder and more affecting sight 
 What the unhappy woman said to the commandant I 
 cannot tell ; but I heard him reply 
 
 " Go ! Eeturn to Ca'id Ali, and tell him that if he 
 still refuses to restore you all to liberty, we will come 
 for you. I am tired of waiting." 
 
 Then she remounted her mule, and returned escorted 
 by the two Kabyles. 
 
 We had not long to wait ; about an hour after we 
 saw, debouching into the valley, a troop of armed 
 Kabyles ; they were advancing in slow time, and halted 
 at four hundred yards from us. The commandant 
 went alone to meet them ; a brother of Ca'id Ali ad- 
 vanced on his side ; they exchanged a few words ; then 
 the Caid's brother, turning round, made a sign to his 
 men, and we soon saw approaching from the end of 
 the gorge a crowd of poor creatures, sinking with 
 exhaustion, ragged, torn, and haggard ; they were the 
 remains of the population of Bordj-Menaiel, the sur- 
 vivors of the massacre ! Ca'id Ali had thought fit to 
 retain these as hostages, keeping them in reserve to cut
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 91 
 
 their throats, if h 3 conquered ; and if he was beaten, 
 to restore them to liberty ; this would be pronounced 
 by an Arab bureau to be a highly-extenuating circum- 
 stance. 
 
 Imagine the joy of these people when they saw us ! 
 There were none but old men, sick people, women, and 
 children some in blouses, some in jackets, hats, or 
 caps, just as they had snatched them up two months 
 before some at home, some in the fields, where they 
 happened to be at work all looking like fugitives from 
 gaol ; I could hardly describe them better. For seventy 
 days they had been dragged from tribe to tribe ; every 
 day these miserable wretches could hear the guns of 
 the column as it drew nearer, and every night Caid Ali 
 drove them further on. 
 
 They came to press our hands, and tell us of their 
 miseries. You could scarcely believe the story of their 
 hardships. Every village had to feed them by turns ; 
 but they got nothing but corn and dried figs, and every 
 time that the Kabyles met with a check, the villains 
 came whetting the edges of their flissas, and saying 
 
 " Make ready, it is time !" 
 
 Then they would pretend to deliberate, and turning 
 round upon their victims, would say 
 
 " Well, no, not to-day, but to-morrow." 
 
 I could not bear to tell you of the other cruel out- 
 rages which they perpetrated upon them. It would be 
 too horrible ! Religious fanaticism makes men worse 
 than brutes. 
 
 The commandant, having recalled Ignar and his five 
 men, mounted all these poor people on mules, which 
 had been requisitioned at the next village, and they 
 departed, under escort of a squad of chasseurs, in the
 
 92 77*0 Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 direction of the spot where the rest of the cavalry 
 were stationed. Their orders were to conduct them the 
 next day to Tizi-Ouzou. 
 
 The commandant had only retained near him a single 
 man, the one who seemed to him the strongest and 
 most intelligent of the number, to take him to General 
 Lallemand, who was encamped in Upper Kabylia, near 
 the Djurjura. 
 
 I gazed thoughtfully upon this scene. One figure 
 among the Kabyles chiefly drew my attention ; he was 
 a tall man, with a prominent nose, a short, black, and 
 curly beard. I was considering where I had seen this 
 man, when Brissard said 
 
 " Don't you recognise that Arab on horseback ? It 
 is Said Caid, the black horseman of Temda." 
 
 I immediately remembered him. He was riding the 
 same horse, and wore the same black cloak, surveying 
 us with a proud and distant look, and laying his hand 
 upon his beard with an air of perfect indifference. He 
 was come to make his submission, now that longer 
 resistance was useless. 
 
 The commandant called the word of command to 
 advance. " Quick march !" he cried, pointing to the 
 mountain-tops. "It will take us six hours to get 
 there." And we started off. 
 
 If I had to describe to you the ways by which we 
 passed in single file, always clambering like goats 
 precipices sometimes on our right, sometimes on our 
 left, the long slopes covered with wild olive-trees, dwarf 
 oaks, myrtles, and junipers, as far as the eye could 
 reach beneath us I should be greatly puzzled to know 
 how to do it. When we reached one peak, and were 
 Baying, " Here we are at last," another higher yet came
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afnque. 92 
 
 in sight; we thought there would never be an end 
 to it. 
 
 Still our Arab ponies seemed none the worse for the 
 exercise ; they were quite in their element. 
 
 At long intervals we came upon Kabyle villages 
 lately brought to submission ; the people, standing at 
 their doors, presented us with water in wooden bowls 
 to refresh us. 
 
 At last, after seven hours of climbing, we came in 
 sight of a plateau extending between two sharp peaks, 
 and covered with tall ash-trees and hoary green olive- 
 trees ; there stood the little white tents, and there 
 moved the red-trousered soldiers of our column. 
 
 Commandant Letellier, the colonist whom he had 
 "brought, and Ca'id All repaired to head-quarters, and 
 we encamped just above a little ravine where they 
 slaughtered the cattle. At this height the atmosphere 
 is so rarefied that at first it seems to make your brain 
 whirl. 
 
 I went at once to find out my friend Babelon, the 
 Turco lieutenant. The officers of his regiment had 
 built up for themselves a hut made of leafy boughs of 
 trees ; they were just finishing their dinner. 
 
 Babelon received me as an old comrade, and the 
 gentlemen called for the cook to return to wait upon 
 me. They kindly made me sit down, which I did with 
 very great pleasure ; my appetite was keen. About 
 nine o'clock I left them. We had been fifteen hours in 
 the saddle, and I wanted to sleep. 
 
 The next morning, very early, the bugle- call wad 
 already sounding for our departure. I ran to thank 
 Babelon for his kind hospitality, and we took another 
 glass of cognac, standing.
 
 94 The Story of a Campaign in Kdbylia, 
 
 " Come, Goguel !" said he as we were parting, " soon 
 we sliall meet again at home. As soon as the expedi- 
 tion is over I shall get leave, and you will get your 
 discharge." 
 
 " The sooner the better," I replied, laughing. 
 
 He watched me galloping away, and returned to his 
 tent. 
 
 We then pursued our way along the very ridge of 
 the mountains. The air was free, and pure, and keen. 
 Far away, on the horizon, was the blue sea, fringed with 
 a thin line of white where the waves broke in foam 
 upon the shore ; Algiers, almost suspended in the sky, 
 with its harbour, its gardens, and its white houses ; and, 
 on the other hand, the lofty Djurjura, whose massive 
 buttresses, rugged with rocks and woods, were dotted 
 with Arab villages as far as the eye could reach in 
 every direction as far as the extremity of the plain. 
 Every fresh examination of the scene discovered new 
 objects of interest. It was a grand a beautiful pros- 
 pect! What a colony would France have there if a 
 tide of European emigration had but set in thither 
 during the last thirty years ! All the turbulent spirits 
 whom want and privation have driven into disorder 
 would live there in the enjoyment of plenty ; and then 
 we should have no reason to dread the revolutions that 
 want begets. But the rule of the sword is fruitful of 
 all kinds of evils. The men who turn their backs 
 upon their native land, to seek fortune elsewhere, prefer 
 to emigrate to America, where all men are free, rather 
 than to bend in Algiers under the heavy despotism of 
 Arab bureaux. Whilst at home we have millions of 
 workers without a foot of land that they can call their 
 own, down there in Algeria are millions of acres un-
 
 Told ly a Chasseur cPAfrique. 95 
 
 cultivated, and waiting for industrious arms to throw 
 up crops in the greatest abundance. 
 
 The thoughts of all the chasseurs were engaged, no 
 doubt, upon the same subject not a man spoke a 
 word ; and we gazed in silence, dropping our bridles 
 loosely upon our horses' necks, and allowing them to 
 go at their own pace. 
 
 At nine o'clock we passed the village of Echcriden, 
 where, a few days before, the decisive action of the 
 campaign had been fought. After this blow, the 
 Kabyles, driven out of their last stronghold, had no 
 alternative but to submit. 
 
 That large village was utterly destroyed. The tall 
 trees were so battered and hacked, and the smaller 
 ones so completely mown down by the grape-shot, that 
 they reminded one of corn laid by a high wind. 
 
 There I saw a Kabyle weep ! I never had seen ono 
 before. He could not tell where his house had stood, 
 His wife, crouching near him, hid her face between her 
 knees, and their children seemed bewildered. Poor 
 creatures ! that noble chieftain Caid Ali had forced 
 themunto the insurrection by the threat that he would 
 burn them out if they refused to join him. They were 
 all in utter ruin ; but Caid. Ah' had no cause for fear ; 
 he knew that his atrocious acts would obtain easy for- 
 giveness from the Arab bureaux ; for might they not 
 have occasion for his services at some future time ? 
 
 And Caid Alis and Arab bureaux are found here and 
 there in Europe too, incessantly intriguing to involve 
 nations in war, whenever they may be seeking for mere 
 justice ; selfish men are the same everywhere ; self- 
 interest rouses in them the ferocity of tigers. 
 
 About eight we arrived at the National Fort, and wo
 
 96 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 picketed our horses on the road as we entered it. The 
 weather was hot. Brissard undertook to find a break- 
 fast for us ; then we went to drink a few bottles of 
 beer with the artillery drivers, who received us hos- 
 pitably. We talked of the events of the war. Ca'id 
 Ali had attempted to take the fort by storm. He had 
 had ladders provided, frightening his men into valour 
 by telling them that whoever failed at least to touch the 
 wall would be accursed that he would have no part in 
 the delights of paradise that he would slide down a 
 razor's edge till he reached perdition. Well ! well ! it 
 was only the Arab version of the Popish delusions 
 Lourdes and La Sallette over again ! 
 
 We listened attentively, for such things awake pain- 
 ful reflections. In every land the ignorant are but 
 tools in the hands of fanatics to awake terror. Mara- 
 bouts of this kind are in our midst in our own France. 
 What can we do but reflect upon our position ? 
 
 At three we pursued our route to Tizi-Ouzou, escort- 
 ing a couple of mitrailleuses and a couple of rifled 
 guns. At seven we entered the fort. 
 
 Here ended our campaign. 
 
 Early in June the rumour was spread that soldiers 
 whose term of service was ended would very soon re- 
 ceive their discharge ; and on the morning of the 12th 
 of June, Ignar, myself, and twenty-two Chasseurs 
 d'Afrique were leaving Tizi-Ouzou for Dellys. We left 
 behind us Brissard, with Lieutenant Cayatte, and the 
 rest of the chasseurs. 
 
 That excellent comrade and brave soldier Brissard, 
 and the obliging quai^terinaster Erbes, accompanied us 
 as far as the Turkish fountain. When they left us, 
 tears were standing in their eyes.
 
 Told ly a Chasseur d'Afrique. 97 
 
 That evening we reached Dellys, and embarked in a 
 coasting vessel for Algiers, where we arrived next day, 
 ind from thence we travelled by railway to Blidah. 
 
 At last, on the 15th of July, we got our routes in 
 our pockets, and came home as fast as we could. 
 
 On my arrival home at Saint Die, I found my poor 
 father dying of the terrors of the war, and our country 
 in Prussian occupation. I had seen in Africa some- 
 thing of the blessings of military government, and now 
 I found the same in France! The only difference 
 which I found in our favour was that the Prussian Arab 
 bureaux had not been able, in spite of all their good 
 wishes, to restore to his command the Ca'id Napoleon 
 the Third, who might have been useful to them, when 
 they wanted war again, by diverting the minds of the 
 people from aspirations after liberty. 
 
 And now, my friend, if you ask me for my opinion 
 upon all these matters, whether I attribute the misery 
 of Algeria to Arab bureaux, bach-agas, agas, ca'ids, 
 sheiks ; or to those army contractors, who after every 
 razzia buy up hundreds of oxen and sheep at nominal 
 prices, and sell them the very same day to our armies 
 at from fifteen to twenty times their prime cost, which 
 I know to be a fact if you ask me whether those are 
 the men who are responsible for our misfortunes, I 
 boldly reply, No. Our governments alone are guilty. 
 
 If Louis Philippe, whose fondness for money was so 
 well known, had been obliged to pay out of his own purse 
 only the fourth part of what Algeria cost us, he would 
 never have administered the affairs of the colony by 
 Arab bureaux. Certainly not. He would have pro- 
 vided public officers of a very different stamp good 
 prefects, honourable agents, impartial judges, respon-
 
 98 The Story of a Campaign in Kabylia, 
 
 sible men whose reports he would have carefully 
 examined and verified, for whose expenditure he would 
 have required vouchers down to the last centime ; and 
 if he bad anywhere detected a deficiency, he would not 
 have allowed the matter to remain in suspense for 
 fourteen years ; he would have wanted some account 
 of the matter ; he would have moved heaven and earth, 
 and rummaged through piles of papers to save himself 
 from loss. But as he was not paymaster, but only 
 France, it mattered little to him, and he pronounced 
 the administration of the Arab bureaux to be faultless, 
 the more so because repeated African wars furnished 
 him with opportunities for showing off his sons before 
 the army, and to gain an easy reputation for those men 
 as great generals. 
 
 Again, if Napoleon the Third had been obliged to 
 fight his own wars, and carry his rifle, and knapsack, 
 and eight or ten days' provisions upon his back, in spite 
 of his wonderful confidence in his star and his destiny, 
 I believe we should have been much less frequently 
 plunged into warfare. Instead of suffering the Kabyles 
 to be worried with vexations, he would have ordered 
 them to be treated with fairness and equity, so as to 
 avoid causes of irritation. But of course, whilst the 
 soldiers were roasting under the sun of Africa and of 
 Mexico, the Emperor was quietly sitting at home in his 
 easy chair, and perhaps reflecting how much war would 
 strengthen the position of his dynasty. His sole con- 
 fidence was in his army to support his dynasty ; and 
 the only way to keep the army well affected was to deal 
 out lavishly promotions, crosses, pensions. War and 
 plunder procure everything. 
 
 The reproaches, therefore, which fall upon the Arab
 
 Told by a Chasseur d'Afrique. 
 
 bureaux, and the condemnation pronounced agains 
 them, fall with, greater justice upon the government 
 which organised them, and made their interests iden- 
 tical with those of the dynasty. 
 
 The dynasty ! everything for the dynasty ! Such is 
 the story of France for the last seventy years. 
 
 What these governments have done for France we 
 see but too well. It is the same in Africa. Here as 
 there, we have a magnificent country, but dynastic 
 egotism has brought all our disasters upon us. 
 
 The Eepublic alone, the Republic, which has no 
 interest apart from the interests of the nation, she alone 
 can restore happiness to our unfortunate country, and 
 raise Algeria to the position of one of the finest 
 colonies in the world, by establishing a just govern- 
 ment, which shall deal equal justice both to Frenchmen 
 and to Arabs.
 
 THE COLLEGE-LIFE OF MAlTRE 
 NABLOT.
 
 THE COLLEGE-LIFE OF MAITRE* 
 NABIOT. 
 
 i. 
 
 N 1834, during the reign of Louis Philippe, 
 there dwelt at Eichepierre, in Alsace, on 
 the eastern slope of the Vosges, an honest 
 lawyer, Monsieur Didier Nablot by namej 
 his wife Catherine Arnette, and their five 
 children : Jean Paul, Jean Jacques, Jean Philippe, 
 Marie Eeine, and Marie Louise. 
 
 I. was the eldest of the family, and was intended to 
 inherit my father's practice. 
 
 As I write, all that happy youthful time returns to 
 fill my memory with pleasant remembrances. I can 
 fancy I see our own old house at the entrance of the 
 village ; its yard, surrounded with sheds, barns, and 
 
 * Maitre is the professional title applied in France to barristers 
 and notaries.
 
 104 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 stables ; its dunghill, on which the cocks are parading 
 with their hens j its wide roof, over which pigeons are 
 whirling in little clouds ; and there are we children, 
 with our little noses in the air, shouting to drive away 
 the thievish sparrows plundering the pigeon-cote. 
 
 Behind are old decaying buildings ; and there too 
 lies our garden, sloping down to the foot of the hill, 
 divided by neat box-edging around its square beds, and 
 its long rows of gooseberry-bushes. Our old servant, 
 Babelo, with her petticoats fastened up, is cutting 
 asparagus with an old rusty knife ; my mother is 
 gathering beans, or whatever may be in season, with 
 her wide-brimmed straw hat drooping over her 
 shoulders, and her basket hanging on her arm. I can 
 see it all before my own eyes ! 
 
 Over us rose the village in successive terraces, dis- 
 playing its numberless windows, high and low, round 
 and square ; its old gables, protected by planks or 
 shingles against the wind and the rain ; its wooden 
 banisters and staircases. The women are coming and 
 going along the galleries ; and at the very top of the 
 hill the sentinels are patrolling, with shouldered arms, 
 along the battery of the old fort. 
 
 It was a sight never to be forgotten, one of those 
 memories of childhood beautiful as a dream, because 
 at that time we had no thought of care ; breakfast, 
 dinner, and supper stood ready every day, at the ac- 
 customed hour, and we slept peacefully in full confi- 
 dence in kind parents, without any anxious thought 
 for the morrow. 
 
 This is the happiest period of life. 
 Our father, a little, active, bustling man, was fond 
 of talking in a very loud voice, and proclaiming his
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 105 
 
 ideas on all kinds of subjects. He used to try to re- 
 form the manners of the country folks, who, as he 
 many times told us, were sharp practitioners, full oi 
 cunning tricks, who were sure to get any advantage 
 they could out of you, if you had forgotten to dot an 
 " i" or cross a " t." Far from encouraging them to 
 get into law-suits, he always cautioned them to be very 
 prudent, and to think well before they made up their 
 minds ; and when he caught them shirking, or playing 
 an underhand game, laying traps and peeping into 
 back-doors, as he used to call it, he would break out 
 into high indignation. You should have heard him 
 then lecturing them in sharp, severe tones. His voice 
 filled the house ; he could be heard in the street. And 
 his would-be clients, honest men and women as they 
 accounted themselves, cap or broad-brimmed hat in 
 hand, and with downcast, humbled countenances, would 
 slink away down the stairs in deep consultation, and 
 considering whether they should try again. But he 
 would fling his door open and settle that question in a 
 summary way : 
 
 " Go to Japan and never come back again. I don't 
 want to know any more about your business go and 
 call upon Maitre Nickel !" 
 
 Doing business in this way, it was not very likely 
 that we should grow rich ; but in all the country round 
 there was but one opinion of my father, and people 
 said, " Maitre Nablot is an honest lawyer he is a very 
 good fellow." 
 
 Our mother was a tall, fair woman, with a youthful 
 bloom upon her cheeks, although her hair was streaked 
 with silver at the time of which I write. She was the 
 tenderest, the most affectionate, and the most watchful
 
 106 The College-Life of Maiire Ndblot. 
 
 of mothers. She kept a diligent oversight of her 
 household, allowed no waste, and turned the poorest 
 of rags to some use or other for the good of her 
 children, to keep us decently dressed. All my father's 
 old clothes descended to all his sons in succession, be- 
 ginning with myself. By the time that they came 
 down at length to Jean Philippe, and he too had done 
 with them, it cannot be denied that they were well- 
 worn and patched all over. There were frequent out- 
 cries raised by that young gentleman against his eldest 
 brother, accompanied by just his father's voice and his 
 father's gesticulations, because I was always better 
 clad than he was, a fact for which he saw no justifica- 
 tion. Marie Reine, too, and Marie Louise came in for 
 their mother's left-off clothes ; and so things went on 
 regularly and comfortably all through our childhood. 
 
 We used at that time to be scholars of Monsieur 
 Magnus's school a respectable old schoolmaster, gene- 
 rally habited in a long threadbare coat, knee-breeches, 
 and shoes rounded at the toes and furnished with copper 
 buckles. A few individuals of this species were still 
 to be found in our mountains at the beginning of Louis 
 Philippe's reign. His school was completely overrun 
 with children ; some very few in number as well 
 dressed as ourselves ; but the rest barefooted, dirty, 
 in tattered blouses or in their shirt-sleeves, in ragged 
 breeches depending from the shoulder by a single 
 brace, a remnant of a cap upon the uncombed shaggy 
 head creatures that should be seen to be believed in 
 and emitting an intolerable odour, especially in 
 winter, when the doors and windows were closed. 
 
 My brothers and I were lords amongst these miserable 
 little creatures. We were fat and rosy, full of health,
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 107 
 
 and remarkably clean; and these little savages, with 
 eyes like cats' or foxes', looked as if they were ready to 
 devour us. 
 
 Monsieur Magnus, with his stick under his arm, 
 seemed to treat us with more respect than the rest, 
 and never thrashed us except when driven to the very 
 last extremity. We were well-connected children ! we 
 were the sons of monsieur le notaire o Bichepierre ! 
 And on his fete day, and on New Year's Day, our 
 mother used to send him a few cakes of chocolate and 
 two or three bottles of the red wine of Thiancourt. 
 
 For all that, we were unable to reach the top place 
 in the school. For Christophe Gourdier, the gate- 
 keeper's son ; Jean Baptiste Dabsec, the forest-keeper's 
 son ; and Nicolas Koffel, the dyer's boy, could all write 
 a better hand than we could ; could repeat their lessons 
 better, and would add up and say their tables better 
 than we could. 
 
 I was in great trouble about this, for we had always 
 been taught to believe that the Nablots, from father to 
 son, had invariably been at the head of their school, 
 and we felt it as a disgrace that the sons of an old 
 soldier, and of a fellow who had nothing to do but 
 drive the poor out of the forest when they might be 
 trying to get a little firewood, and of a poor working 
 man, should pass over our heads. My blood boiled 
 that I should be subjected to such a humiliation. 
 
 What aggravated me more yet was to know that 
 those three fellows, in the hours between morning and 
 afternoon school, used to have to go into the woods and 
 pick up dead wood to earn their livelihood, whilst we 
 bad all our time to ourselves to learn our lessons. 
 
 When I thought over these things I became blind
 
 108 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 with rage, and one day meeting Gourdier, the gate- 
 keeper's son, returning into the village without shoes, 
 and loaded with a heavy faggot, I shouted at him, 
 "Beggar!" 
 
 He was small and thin ; but, without hesitation or 
 doubt, he threw down his faggot, and his dirty, ragged, 
 wide-brimmed hat, and came down upon me like a 
 hungry wolf, and in a few seconds had rained upon me 
 such a storm of blows and kicks that I could not tell 
 where I was or who I was, and the blood ran down 
 from my face in streams. 
 
 I could not help shouting for succour. But Gourdier 
 with the greatest coolness replaced his bundle upon his 
 shoulder, passing the handle of his axe through the 
 band that tied it, and went on his way up to the fort, 
 just as if nothing had happened. 
 
 I might have reported his conduct to my father, who 
 would perhaps have had him expelled from the school ; 
 but I had enough good sense left to discern that pro- 
 bably he was in the right after all ; and so I slipped 
 quietly in at the back yard to wash my nose at the 
 pump. 
 
 From that day I have involuntarily preserved a sort 
 of respect for the old soldier's son, and for all my other 
 schoolfellows who carried bundles of wood upon their 
 shoulders, observing to myself that boys of that sort 
 were tough and bony, that the habit of climbing trees 
 made them quick and sure-footed, and that they were 
 particulai-ly heavy-handed. These considerations led 
 me to reflect a good deal upon the results of physical 
 force ! 
 
 Not long after this unpleasantness, as I used to go 
 out every Thursday and ever)' Sunday into the woods,
 
 The College-Life of Maitre NaUot. 109 
 
 bird's-nesting, with five or six of the raggedest boys in 
 the place, my father loudly objected to niy conduct, 
 crying that a son of a notaire is not like a labourer's son ; 
 that he must not lead a vagabond life with roughs, and 
 that every man in this world owes it as a duty to 
 himself and his family to maintain his position by 
 respecting himself, if he wishes to preserve the respect 
 of others. 
 
 I listened, and soon found out the meaning of it all. 
 He ended by telling me that it was time to turn to 
 serious matters, and that I was now to learn Latin of 
 Monsieur le Cure Hugues. This man was a strong 
 Lorrainer of middle height, lean and big-boned, and 
 with a very red face, and close-cut hair. He was fond 
 of my father, and used often to come in the evening 
 for a rubber. He became my instructor in the declen- 
 sions, the conjugations, and the rule, Liber Petri. 
 
 Every day after dinner I went over to the cure's 
 house, into his little back parlour, which was full of 
 books, and the open window of which looked out upon 
 a garden shut in with high walls, and full of pinks and 
 stocks. 
 
 " Ah, Jean Paul ! there you are," he used to say ; 
 " sit down you may begin to repeat." 
 
 And whilst he was pacing up and down the room, 
 taking huge pinches of snuff from his box which lay 
 on the table, he would be looking out of the window, 
 and repeating to me now and then 
 
 " Future : amdbo, amabis, amabit I shall love, thou 
 
 wilt love, he will love. Infinitive: amare, to love. 
 
 Very good, that will do. Now show me your exercise." 
 
 Which he took and looked at, and then said 
 
 "Very good indeed; we shall get on now. You
 
 110 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 already know the first two rules : Ludovicus Rex, Liber 
 Petri. That's right. Now we must take the next rule, 
 Amo Deum, and then the next after that, Implere dolum 
 vino, to fill the cask with wine wine in the ablative 
 a very useful rule, as you will see." 
 
 My belief is that he was thinking of something else 
 all the while. 
 
 Then he would dismiss me : 
 
 " You may go now, Jean Paul, and don't forget to 
 present my salutations to your father and mother." 
 
 And away I went. This is the way 1 learnt Latin. 
 
 As soon as it was known in the village that I went 
 to receive lessons from monsieur le cure, I became a 
 very distinguished person ; the old women curtseyed to 
 me, and looked at me with respectful tenderness ; the 
 report ran abroad that I was preparing to go to the 
 seminary. I was saluted and called " Monsieur Jean 
 Paul." And even my former schoolfellows, Gourdier 
 and Dabsec, were impressed by my recent accession of 
 dignity. 
 
 And as for myself, I strutted about, and put on a 
 grave countenance, answerable to the expectations I 
 supposed the public formed of me ; at home I put on 
 fatherly airs, talking to my brothers and sisters as if 
 they looked to me for protection and indulgence. The 
 notion of acting a part was coming over me ; surely 
 acting must be natural to men and women, in order to 
 put on appearances in keeping with what we suppose 
 to be the public opinion of others, and to judge of our 
 own merit through them. 
 
 This had gone on more than a year, and monsieur le 
 cure was loud in his praises of my improvement, when 
 for the first time the question was opened of send-
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. Ill 
 
 ing me to the college of Saarstadt, which conferred 
 bachelors' degrees, with the help of which you. may 
 carry on your studies farther, and become a doctor, or 
 a lawyer, or a judge, or a druggist, or a functionary in 
 the State, by going to study a few years more at Stras- 
 bourg or elsewhere. 
 
 My parents now talked of nothing else ; and as it 
 was my particular business, I listened with the greatest 
 interest to all that was being said upon this topic, 
 filling my imagination with all the joy and pleasure 
 which I took it for granted would be at my own dis- 
 posal at college, all the wreaths I should carry off 
 according to monsieur le cure's predictions and the 
 excellent position I should occupy in the end, if I 
 yielded our father's practice to Jean Jacques, to take a 
 higher rank myself. 
 
 All this seemed to me as plain and easy as eating 
 my breakfast. I had yet to learn that others besides 
 myself had a hankering after good berths ; that it took 
 fifteen or twenty years of struggling to attain them, 
 during the whole of which there would have to be 
 plenty of bowing and smiling before my betters, since 
 the prizes, instead of being purely the rewards of suc- 
 cessful competition, are often won by mediocrity and 
 hypocrisy ; and that crowds of disappointed men have 
 to fall into the rear without having obtained what they 
 expected. 
 
 My father and mother too saw only the best side of 
 everything. Their plans were settled by the autumn of 
 1834, and from that time my mother could think of 
 nothing but my outfit. 
 
 My father, who was well posted up in the ordinances 
 and statutes affecting Public Instruction, a copy oi
 
 112 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 which he had bought at Strasbourg, told us, " You 
 must get a cloth coat of bleu de roi, collar and facings 
 light blue ; waistcoat and trousers, ditto ; two pairs of 
 drawers, a blue jacket for undress, two pairs of sheets, 
 six towels, eight shirts, six pocket-handkerchiefs, twelve 
 pairs of stockings six of worsted and six of cotton or 
 thread three nightcaps, a comb and a hair-brush, two 
 pairs of new shoes, with blacking and blacking-brushes. 
 These articles you must have, in obedience to the decree 
 of March 17th, 1808, respecting communal colleges, the 
 decrees of November 16th, 1811, the statute of Sep- 
 tember 28th, 1814, the Royal ordinance of 1821, the 
 circular of 1823," &c., &c. 
 
 He had studied the whole thing beforehand, and 
 knew even the exact number of buttons required for the 
 uniform. It was quite a state transaction, this dressing 
 of me according to the regulation. The cloth had to 
 be sent for from Saarstadt, as well as the lining and the 
 buttons; and then my mother, knowing that Blaise 
 Eigaud, our village tailor, had a very bad habit of 
 dropping bits of cloth into his bag, had the whole 
 weighed before his eyes in the scales in our washhouse 
 buttons, cloth, lining, thread and all so as to be sure 
 of getting the whole back without any abstractions, 
 remnants and all. I never saw any one look so sold as 
 poor JBlaise at that moment ; he hung his head down 
 like an old fox caught in a snare ; he said nothing, but 
 no doubt thought a good deal about the cleverness of 
 women. However, as work was scarce, and he was 
 certain of good board in the house, and even a glass of 
 wine at dinner, he set to work in the large parlour, 
 beginning by taking my measure, and cutting out the 
 cloth with his great shears. Then he seated himself
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Ndblot. 113 
 
 cross-legged on the table, with his skein of thread 
 hanging round his neck, and began to drive his 
 needle. 
 
 The whole family, great and small, watched him. I 
 was always close by, to have the clothes tried on as fast 
 as he went on. My father pursued his study of the 
 laws, statutes, and decrees. 
 
 In a week, this principal part of my outfit being 
 nearly ready, Malmoury, the shoemaker, having also 
 made me two good pairs of strong shoes with three 
 rows of nails, and the sempstress a set of linen shirts, 
 it was settled that my father should buy me a regxila- 
 tion cap at Monsieur Surloppe's, hatter at Saarstadt, 
 since there was not a man at Richepierre who was 
 capable of making me one after the regulation pattern 
 of 1823. When the clothes had been tried on, paid 
 for, and packed in the old family travelling trunk, my 
 father, my mother, and monsifur le cure, the evening 
 before my departure, after supper delivered me a long 
 sermon, recommending me to work hard, to fulfil all 
 my religious duties, not to forget nay prayers, and to 
 write home at least twice a month ; and the next day 
 early, October 5th, 1834, in the midst of half the village 
 gathered together to wish me good-bye, my old school- 
 fellows, ragged as ever, scattered up and down amidst 
 the crowd our old G-risette harnessed to the char-a- 
 bancs, my father and I seated in front, and my trunk 
 behind me in the straw the whip began to crack, and 
 we prepared for our start. 
 
 My mother was crying ; my little brothers and sisters 
 were stretching out their arms to me ; old Babelo, who 
 had nursed me when a baby, was running after me 
 with her apron to her eyes, and I was thinking how
 
 114 The College-Life of Motive Nablot. 
 
 extraordinary were all these demonstrations of grief, as 
 I was going away for my own good. 
 
 From Richepierre to Saarstadt is a journey of four 
 leagues, through the woods. On the way, here you see 
 a pond, there a sawpit ; now a forest-house half hidden 
 with rocks and fir-trees, then a woodman returning 
 home with his axe over his shoulder, or a Jewish cattle- 
 dealer bringing his cow home from the fair. The 
 people stand by the roadside to see you pass, and 
 salute you with a loud good morning. Up there in the 
 mountain country the people always speak when they 
 meet ; and such meetings are few and far between. 
 
 At this season of the year the dead leaves are already 
 covering the ground, the cattle are silently roaming 
 through the valleys, and this loneliness and stillness 
 cause a feeling of melancholy. 
 
 My father did not speak. At times he gave the 
 horse a touch with the end of his whip, and we 
 quickened our pace. 
 
 About eleven we reached the high level of Hesse, and 
 the town, with its ancient ramparts, its old decaying 
 towers, its church, and its houses of red sandstone, 
 came in sight, at the foot of the hill, in the valley of 
 the Sarre. In twenty minutes we were entering in at 
 the Vosges gate. I had scarcely time to observe the 
 old moat, now divided into gardens, and the guard- 
 house passing rapidly by me. Our coach dived in 
 under the gloomy gateway, the horse-hoofs clattered 
 upon the pavement, and I was beginning to notice the 
 small low houses, but neat and in even lines, when our 
 char-u-bancs stopped in a large square, in front of the 
 Hotel de 1'Abondance, and in the midst of a number of 
 other conveyances diligences, market-carts, travelling
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 115 
 
 carriages crowding the archway, while heaps of trunks 
 stood piled up against the walls. 
 
 At that period the Hotel de 1'Abondance was one of 
 the first in the country the roast meat, and the 
 fricassees, and the fine wines of Madame Abler were 
 famed from Strasbourg to Nancy. All the commercial 
 travellers, all the landed proprietors of that part of the 
 country, were sure to stop at L'Abondance, where they 
 knew they could get an excellent dinner at forty sous, 
 and as many rooms as they wanted. It was at that 
 time a great thoroughfare, and of course, at the close 
 of the vacation, when so many Alsacians and Lorrainers 
 were bringing back their children to school, the crush 
 was greater than ever. 
 
 A groom came to take our horse out. My trunk was 
 carried up to the first floor, and we followed it to give 
 our clothes a brushing, for we were white with dust ; 
 after which we returned downstairs to dinner. 
 
 The long dining-room was full of visitors; whole 
 families of Alsacians, fathers and mothers, children 
 great and small, had all trooped in to see the town, and 
 do a little shopping before leaving some son or brother 
 at the college.* 
 
 We found with some difficulty a small table and a 
 space near a window. But we were admirably waited 
 
 * The University of France is not, as with us, a local designation. 
 All professors, public teachers, and masters are necessarily members 
 of that vast body, which is an organisation for the education of the 
 country, reaching and covering every inhabited portion of it. The 
 French colleges are either national (or imperial, or royal) or com- 
 munal. Of the former there a v e thirty-nine, of the latter three 
 hundred and twenty, mostly in a very imperfect and inefficient state. 
 The constitution of the University of Franco dates from the year 
 1808, under the Empire. Tr.
 
 116 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 upon, and bad soup, roast meat, a large dish of chou- 
 croute garnished with sausages, ham, and salad ; and 
 then walnuts, grapes, biscuits, cheese ; and every dish 
 accompanied with excellent wine. 
 
 Never had I seen such a stirring sight. 
 As soon as dinner was over, and my father had had 
 a cup of coffee, he rose and said 
 
 " Now, Jean Paul, I am going to introduce you to 
 Monsieur Eufin, the principal come along." 
 
 We came out, and crossed the crowded market- square. 
 A few cuirassier officers, with their undress caps sloped 
 over the left ear, and waists tightly compressed in the 
 light shell-jacket, were leisurely strolling amongst the 
 crowd, jingling their spurs. We turned to the left, up 
 the Rue de la Sarre, and were soon ascending the broad 
 flight of steps along the frontage of the old Capuchin 
 convent, transformed under the Empire into a college. 
 " This is the place," said my father ; " come up." 
 The principal entrance to the vestibule was still 
 open, for the classes were only to open on the following 
 day. An old tailor, Vandenberg, who was also the 
 college door-keeper, still allowed people to come and 
 go, merely watching them through the narrow window 
 of his lodge ; but for all that the echoing of our foot- 
 steps under the hollow archway, and over the flags 
 of the vestibule, awoke in me certain melancholy re- 
 flections. 
 
 We passed along the great corridor, through which 
 the old monks used formerly to pass to their chapel, 
 and whose long line of high narrow windows resembled 
 an arcade. My father tapped at a door. There was 
 an odour like incense. 
 
 "Come in," cried a nasal voice.
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 117 
 
 It was Canard, one of the college servants a dimi- 
 nutive man, a dark and ill-conditioned sort of fellow, 
 whose hair was shining with pomatum. He was tyisy 
 dusting the furniture with a feather-brush. 
 
 " Is monsieur le principal within ?" 
 
 " He is in there, sir," answered Canard, pointing to 
 a door on the right. 
 
 We had to tap again, and again we heard 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 Then we entered Monsieur Eufin's study, quite the 
 study of a college principal. The waxed floor was 
 bright and polished ; there was a fine library ; a large 
 porcelain marble-topped stove, banded with shining 
 brass, stood in a corner. The furniture was of walnut- 
 wood, the curtains of dark damask in a word, every- 
 thing was grand and imposing. The high wide window- 
 looked out upon the great quadrangle. 
 
 Monsieur 1'Abbe Rufin was a little, portly, com- 
 fortable-looking man, in a long black cassock, and with 
 clean white hands. His left eye was dim and fixed, 
 but the right was keen and watchful. Monsieur Rufin 
 was reading, but he laid his book on the table, and rose 
 to receive us, inviting us to be seated. 
 We took seats. 
 
 My fathor respectfully handed the principal a letter 
 from. Monsieur Hugues, which no doubt contained 
 everything that was satisfactory with regard to myself. 
 " Very well," said Monsieur Eufin, after he had read 
 it through, " this is quite sufficient. We will do our 
 best to carry out your views. The classes will open to- 
 morrow. You have only to get your box carried to the 
 college, and we will find the young man a suitable place 
 both in the schoolroom and in the dormitories." 
 
 K
 
 118 The College-Life of Mditre Nablot. 
 
 He patted my cheek with his dimpled fingers, looking 
 kindly upon me, while I was getting more and more 
 confused. 
 
 "As he knows the declensions, the regular verbs, 
 and the first rules of syntax," said the principal, " we 
 may at once place him under Monsieur Gradus, in the 
 sixth class ; and he will begin upon De viris illustribu& 
 urbis Romce." 
 
 I could not stir, and my father sat deeply attentive. 
 
 " He is a fine lad," said Monsieur Eufin, after a short 
 silence. 
 
 ! Then having taken down my surname and Christian 
 names in his register, received the fees for the first 
 quarter, and given his acknowledgment, monsieur le 
 principal was opening the door to us, when a flood of 
 new-comers filled the antechamber a whole family of 
 Lorrainers three boys who were to be enrolled, with 
 their father and mother, and the cure of their commune. 
 Seeing this party, Monsieur Eufin made haste to dis- 
 miss us, and turning round to the fresh arrivals, said 
 
 " Pray come in." 
 
 We came out into the corridor, the door closed, and 
 in silence we moved on to the street. 
 
 An uneasy feeling was creeping over me, while all 
 my enthusiasm was oozing away. I felt as if I should 
 have very much preferred to return home. My father, 
 no doubt, guessed at my thoughts, and as we walked 
 quietly on, he said 
 
 " Now it is all settled ; we will go and tell the people 
 at the inn to carry your trunk to the college. You will 
 find them all very good people. You will work well, 
 won't you ? You will often write home ; and, if there 
 is any need, I will come and see you. It is rather a
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 119 
 
 difficult stage of our life, but we have all to go through 
 with, it." 
 
 I knew by his voice and manner that he was trying 
 to control himself, and for the first time I appreciated 
 bhe fulness of his love for me. 
 
 When he had given his orders at the hotel, we turned 
 )ut again for a short walk through the town. He 
 pointed out the principal buildings to me ; and it 
 seemed to me as if he spoke to me with a certain degree 
 )f consideration, as one would to a young man. 
 
 " That," said he, " is the Palais de Justice ; there 
 bhe judges sit, and there, too, the standing timber is 
 sold. There are the infantry barracks, and here is the 
 military hospital," &c. 
 
 We visited every part of the little town, even its 
 incient prison, its infirmary, St. Nicholas, and its 
 synagogue. All this was merely to pass away the time, 
 and to put off the moment of our separation. 
 
 At half-past five we returned to the college; my 
 trunk had arrived, the servant had taken it to the dor- 
 mitory, and thither he conducted us. We spoke to 
 Madame Thiebaud, the matron, and her son, who had 
 lost an eye. 
 
 Upstairs, in the immense long corridor, was a great 
 crowd of pupils just arrived. The elder ones had each 
 a small private room old monks' cells, looking into 
 the inner court. They were all very busy settling their 
 little property, and handing over their stock of linen 
 to the housekeeper. They sang and they laughed just 
 like other folks when they have just had a good dinner; 
 they looked at us as we passed them, saying, " There, 
 that's a new fellow !" And there were people walking 
 about the corridor with their sons.
 
 120 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 Monsieur Canard took us to a higher story, where 
 \ve entered the long dormitory. Here were long rows 
 of small beds, in two rows, running in even lines from 
 one end of the room to the other. 
 
 " This is the washing-room," said he, pointing from 
 the open door at a couple of great tin water-jugs ; 
 "here the boys wash before going down at five to 
 morning lessons." 
 
 And then, at the very end of the room, close to the 
 two bottom windows, he showed me my bed, already 
 made, with its little round bolster, and its red-bordered 
 counterpane ; my trunk was standing at the foot of the 
 bed. 
 
 All this stir and excitement, all these bursts of boyish 
 laughter, all these strangers coming and going around 
 us, gave me an unhappy presentiment of the isolation 
 I should soon suffer. I looked around for some sym- 
 pathetic countenance, but every one was busied about 
 his own concerns. I was beginning to feel over- 
 whelmed. 
 
 None but scholars in their third or fourth year, who 
 have got well broken in, can laugh on returning to 
 college ; but all new boys, as I believe, feel a swelling 
 at the heart, and a ball in the throat. 
 
 Well, after this glance at the establishment, my 
 father thanked Canard for having conducted us about, 
 and slipped something into his hand. 
 
 Night approaching, we came down again, and as we 
 came into the court below we found old Vandenberg, 
 with his old grey linen cap drawn over his cars, his 
 nose and chin almost meeting, his knitted jacket hang- 
 ing from his stooping shoulders, and looking just like 
 an old Capuchin monk risen from the grave ; he was
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 121 
 
 opening a small cupboard tinder the vaulted roof of the 
 vestibule, from which he drew a rope, and began to pull 
 it. Then the chapel bell began to peal, its penetrating 
 sound filled all the old corridors, and the pupils came 
 down in double files. 
 
 It was the supper hour, which had been put earlier 
 for the purpose of allowing friends and relations time to 
 get home the same day. 
 
 They were mustering in the court, the little ones 
 first, the big ones in the rear. 
 
 At that moment farewells and embraces began in all 
 directions. 
 
 " Adieu, Jacques ! Adieu, Leon ! Come, my boy, 
 keep up your courage !" 
 
 A few little ones cried, and their mothers with them. 
 I put on the best face I could ; but the moment when 
 the bell ceased to toll my father said, "Now, Jean 
 Paul," and held out his arms to me, and then my tears 
 broke forth unbidden. 
 
 My father could not speak ; he held me in his arms ; 
 and only in a minute or two, having recovered his com- 
 posure, he said to me in a voice broken with emotion 
 
 " No more ! I will tell your mother that you were a 
 brave boy to the last moment. And now, work with 
 all your might ; and tell us as often as you can how 
 you are getting on." 
 
 He again embraced me, and went out abruptly. 
 
 The same moment the door-keeper slammed the 
 great door, turned the key, and now I was a prisoner ! 
 And without at all knowing how it happened, I was 
 placed amongst the very little boys ; with our masters 
 at our side, we defiled by twos in good order to pa 
 on to the dining-room.
 
 122 The College-Life of Maitre Nabkt. 
 
 That evening I was too deep in my melancholy re- 
 flections to take any particular notice of the long dining- 
 hall, with its tall windows opening upon the garden 
 court ; its old oak reading-desk ; the two old pictures, 
 so thick with the crust of ages that nothing could be 
 made out of them ; the long tables at which we sat 
 divided into sections. I did not even observe, at the 
 end, the table of monsieur le principal, where the pro- 
 fessors and assistant-masters were eating better food 
 than we had, and were drinking better wine ; nor the 
 old hatch through which Mademoiselle Thcrese, the 
 cook, handed dishes to Canard and his mate Miston. 
 My thoughts were far away. 
 
 " Come, little chap ! eat your supper," said the big 
 fellow whose duty it was to help us, an old boy already 
 whiskered, but a good-natured fellow Barabino, from 
 the Harberg " eat and drink, there's nothing like it 
 to drive away care !" 
 
 The other boys began to laugh, but Barabino re- 
 proved them, and said 
 
 " Let him alone ! By-and-by, I tell you, he will be 
 at the top of you all ! He is out of spirits just now ; 
 so might any one be, especially after leaving behind 
 the good dinners you used to get at home, and coming 
 into this college of Saarstadt ; there's no great satis- 
 faction ki seeing nothing but lentils, beans, and peas, 
 peas, beans, and lentils, on the table every day all the 
 year round, dry bread without any butter, salad and no 
 oil to it, and sour wine in fact, just the sort of provi- 
 sions which monsieur le principal calls in his circulars 
 ' food, wholesome, abundant, and varied !' I can't say 
 I like it myself. It is not jolly ; less than that mighfc 
 make a little fellow look crestfallen for a day or two."
 
 The College-Life of Maitre NaUot. 123 
 
 Such was the opinion of big Barabino plainly ex- 
 pressed and the sounds of laughter ceased. 
 
 After supper, walking alone about the long corridor 
 where my schoolfellows were telling each other about 
 their holidays, I could willingly have cried again. 
 
 Night caine at last, the bell rang again, and there 
 was once more a mustering to go to the dormitory. 
 All those footsteps, running in confusion up the old 
 monkish staircase, seemed to me like thunder. 
 
 I recognised my own bed by the little trunk at its 
 foot, and having undressed, I slipped into my narrow 
 resting-place, without forgetting to say my prayers. 
 The lamp was burning at the central pillar ; Monsieur 
 Wolfranim, one of the masters, was slowly pacing up 
 and down until we should all be in bed ; then he put 
 out the lamp, and went to bed in his own little cell at 
 the corner of the dormitory. 
 
 Monsieur Eufin, on the stroke of ten, at the moment 
 when the bugles were sounding the curfew at the 
 infantry barracks, glided by like a shadow. The moon 
 was shining through the window-panes in calm silence ; 
 tny neighbours were fast asleep and I too soon dropped 
 :>ff in my turn. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE pale light of dawn was scarcely glimmering 
 lown the two long lines of windows between which we 
 ay sleeping so comfortably, when that abominable bell 
 oegan its j anglings again. 
 
 Misery ! misery ! it was five o'clock, and we had to 
 jet up already. 
 
 Never have I known any wretchedness like it, and
 
 124 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 although thirty-seven years have passed over niy head 
 since that time, I still sometimes fancy I can hear old 
 Vandenberg's bell with its clear, sharp, aggravating 
 tones. I can still see my schoolfellows, waking slowly, 
 rubbing their sleepy eyes, yawning, then wearily, wearily 
 sitting up in bed, taking out the black ing- pot, and the 
 shoe-brushes out of the night-table, and beginning to 
 black their shoes; then they are all gathered in the 
 washing-room, refreshing their faces at the large zinc 
 washstand; then coming down to the schoolroom, 
 where Monsieur Wolframm inspects hands and shoes 
 before reading prayers. 
 
 That old ill-paved schoolroom, with its desks cut 
 and hacked by generations of scholars ; the master in 
 his chair beneath the smoky lamp, the scratching pens, 
 the thumbing of old dictionaries, the exercises, the 
 translations done by cribbing it is all before me still. 
 I shudder at the remembrance, my flesh creeps when I 
 think of it ! 
 
 And are there people so devoid of common sense 
 as to argue that this is the happiest part of our 
 lives ? 
 
 After two hours of this wearisome toil, the bell clangs 
 again; down go the desks with a terrible clatter 
 there's a race to the refectory, where Canard and 
 Miston are dealing out great slices of bread for our 
 breakfast. Boys whose connections are known to be 
 good, of whose parents Canard has a good opinion, get 
 all the nice crusts; the rest, unlucky boys, whose 
 fathers have slipped nothing but a piece of forty sous 
 into Canard's greedy palm, will get crumb all the year 
 round. Moreover, those boys with rich parents will 
 get from home hams, sausages, pots of jam and of
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 125 
 
 compote ; of all of which they will forget to offer any 
 to their schoolfellows ! 
 
 The first lesson, and the most instructive at college, 
 is this, and it is neither Latin nor Greek, but good 
 French viz., if you want to earn the favourable notice 
 of Monsieur Canard, of monsieur le principal, of 
 messieurs the professors, and even your schoolfellows, 
 you will have to be rich. 
 
 Hence are opened out the very first glimpses of the 
 nature of the position ; by this royal road to distinction 
 fools begin to learn that they are the superiors of boys 
 who get no good things from home ; for, as a matter of 
 course, those who feed on the fat of the land are made 
 of a richer kind of stuff ! 
 
 From this point the poor boy begins to shrink within 
 himself, to reflect with bitterness upon what passes 
 around him, to nurse his indignation in silence. 
 
 Yes, this is the evil beginning of many other things, 
 the point whence love departs, and all the harmony 
 which should never cease to rule in all our hearts. 
 . Base natures are early revealed ; brought up in 
 poverty at home, they are not the less fond of hams and 
 preserves ; they fawn upon the rich, they crawl humbly 
 at their feet, they smile at everything they say, they hire 
 themselves out to be their flatterers and sycophants ; 
 and as their reward, they are sometimes permitted by 
 their patrons to lick the bottom of a jam-pot, or to 
 nibble at the remains of a sausage. Thus an alliance 
 may become established between the fat bourgeois and 
 his man of business. But this is only the exception ; 
 from that very day the two classes part asunder ; and 
 if, as it not unfrequently happens, the servility of cer- 
 tain professors towards those of their pupils who take
 
 126 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 private lessons, or whose parents are able to forward 
 their interests, comes to be added to all the other 
 advantages enjoyed by the sons of the rich, then the 
 line is drawn sharper and deeper still; and so does 
 the feeling of resentment too become deeper and 
 sharper. 
 
 I was only ten years old, but coming down from 
 Monsieur Gradus's class the very first day, I knew all 
 this by instinct, just as I have told it you, and I said 
 to myself 
 
 " Jean Paul, here you are what Gourdier was at 
 Eichepierre. Work ha.rd, take care of yourself, and 
 don't expect anything from anybody." 
 
 I had observed Monsieur Gradus smiling upon the 
 sons of Monsieur Poitevin, the rich land proprietor at 
 St. Nicholas, who was a friend of Monsieur Rufiu's. I 
 had seen him look caressingly at Monsieur Vaugiro, 
 the nephew of a ci-devant colonel of the Imperial 
 Guard, who had become a priest when the wars were 
 over ; I had seen him look coldly and haughtily upon 
 the sons of the poor, and especially the shabby day- 
 scholars, whose schooling was paid for by the municipal 
 council of Saarstadt. 
 
 These last had to be careful what they were about ; 
 never were they to hear a word of encouragement; 
 humiliations came down upon them in never-failing 
 succession. 
 
 A child can see or guess these things ; I understood 
 the consequences of not being rich, and I formed the 
 resolution never to suffer myself to be trodden down 
 and domineered over by a superior race. 
 
 And now that I have spoken my mind, let us go on. 
 
 There were fifteen in our class great and small
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 127 
 
 boys who had long determined what career to choose, 
 and boys who did not know what a career meant. 
 
 I have the whole fifteen before me even now, seated 
 in their places at the end of our little whitewashed 
 schoolroom. First came Zillinger, the tall son of the 
 forest-keeper of Wasselonne, with his shoi-t jacket- 
 sleeves, his long face, square brow, and compressed 
 lips. He has come to learn Latin ; lie does not mean 
 to waste his father's money ; and he will soon want to 
 know how it happens that he does not get his regular 
 due portion of Latin, and whether it is on account of 
 those small boys that the class is kept back. He con- 
 siders that he ought to be attended to, for did not his 
 father "pay for him in advance ? Then comes Stein- 
 brenner, a heavy fellow, son of the brewer at Eeichs- 
 hoffen, who asks for his due, and being still no farther 
 than the sixth class, is calculating his examination 
 expenses after he shall have passed his Bachelor's 
 degree, and the cost of his medical studies at Stras- 
 bourg. Then the two brothers Bloum, sons of a sub- 
 stantial paper manufacturer at Ober-Hazlach, who will 
 take in no more than a moderate quantity of Latin, 
 not enough to cause indigestion ; since, being intended 
 for trade, it is a luxury in their case. Geoffrey of 
 Sarrebourg, another tall lad, takes his Latin easy ; the 
 Poitevins and Vaugiro have found their first lesson 
 quite enough for them. The day-scholars, sons of old 
 pensioned soldiers, and of small bourgeois of Saar- 
 stadt, will first try to carry off a summary victory at 
 the bayonet's point ; the first month they will be in 
 the advanced guard ; but as the strong Alsacians mean 
 to advance with a firm and steady front and Monsieur 
 Gradus encourages only the sons of people who have
 
 128 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 money tlie second quarter will be disastrous, and they 
 will only work just enough to escape punishment. 
 
 Oh, my brave comrades, Moreau, Desplanches, Engel- 
 hard, Chassard ! I can see you still standing calm and 
 onmoved under the rolling fire of Monsieur Gradus's 
 ill-natured jokes, who calls you dunces and fools in 
 spite of all your exertions, and relegates you to the tail 
 of the class, drawing a sharp line between you and the 
 rest. How full of scorn and contempt are your coun- 
 tenances, as you stand eyeing him strutting up and 
 down the class-room with his nose elevated in the air, 
 wiping his glasses, and putting 'on ridiculous airs of 
 importance because he is a Bachelor ! 
 
 I have it all before my eyes I am with them still, 
 and can fancy I hear the never-ending weary round of 
 Latin repetitions. It sends me to sleep even now, 
 thirty years after. 
 
 Out of my little corner I looked on, and resolved not 
 to let the big Alsacians bury me alive. I had the start 
 of them at the beginning, thanks to the lessons I had 
 had from Monsieur Hugues. But they were such great 
 fellows, so persistent over their work, swallowing 
 vocabularies, verbs, adverbs, and syntax with an insa- 
 tiable appetite ! Their fathers had no cause to com- 
 plain of their idleness. They got an equivalent for 
 their money. 
 
 But what melancholy teaching it was ! How dry ! 
 how barren ! Instead of beginning with simple read- 
 ings, which the professor himself should describe to 
 his scholars the sense of which he should first ex- 
 plain, and afterwards the words and phrases to oblige 
 children for four long years, even before reading as an 
 art, to pour out torrents of unconnected words and
 
 The College-Life of Matire Ndbkt. 129 
 
 abstract rules surely it is enough to stupefy a human 
 being ! The very first day, a rational man, after having 
 heard repetition lessons for a few minutes, would have 
 passed on to the written exercises, and would have 
 spoken somewhat as follows : 
 
 "My friends, I have looked over your exercises. 
 They are very bad, because you don't know how to set 
 about them ; you translate all the words just as they 
 corne. Of course that plan won't do. If you want to 
 make a good translation of it, you must consider wbo 
 it is that is speaking ; is it a soldier, or a rustic, or a 
 philosopher? For they would all spoak differently 
 upon the same subject, because they have different 
 notions upon it ; and when you know who is speaking, 
 you get a better idea how he would speak. 
 
 " Then you must try to ascertain the subject, the 
 matter in question ; for if you don't take the trouble 
 to find out the subject, you translate at random, and 
 run the risk of writing great nonsense. 
 
 " Well, now, you can't get to know these two things 
 in the very first sentence you come to, nor in the second. 
 You will want to examine the whole page. Tou ought, 
 therefore, to read the Latin from beginning to end, 
 looking in a dictionary for the words you have not yeb 
 learnt ; and only then, after having caught in some 
 degree the general sense of the passage, you will begin 
 to translate each sentence separately ; and each of these 
 sentences must bear a proper relation to the whole." 
 
 This is the way in which I imagine that a genuine 
 teacher would address his class ; and this method of 
 referring to the general sense or idea, rather than to 
 the detached words and isolated phrases, would have 
 been both simpler and more scientific. But, uiifortu-
 
 130 The College-Life of Mailre Nablot. 
 
 nately, Monsieur Gradus proceeded in a very different 
 fashion : 
 
 " Look for your subject, your verb, and your governed 
 case. Then construct your sentence. The subject 
 answers to the question, who or what ? The direct com- 
 plement answers to the question, whom or what ? The 
 subject is the nominative case. The complement or 
 completion of the predicate is in the accusative case. 
 Active and deponent verbs are followed by a direct 
 object. Passive verbs have none." 
 
 To Japan with your rubbish ! Aren't your direct 
 and indirect objects, your deponent verbs, your attri- 
 butes, your nominatives, and your accusatives all a gi- 
 gantic practical j oke ? How is a child to understand this : 
 " The subject is in the nominative case, the direct ob- 
 ject in the accusative." Will all this jargon open out the 
 minds of our yoxith? With rules such as these the 
 veriest fools may dispense with the trouble of thinking. 
 You put an um instead of an us, you change is into ibus, 
 and that is what their science comes to. But why um 
 rather than us, why ibus rather than is ? Why ? why ? 
 Now those are our classical studies abstract rules 
 which are not explained, words instead of ideas. 
 Memory for words is of the first importance. Memory 
 alone is exercised and developed. Feeling, reasoning, 
 sound sense, and common sense are all buried alive 
 under mountains of words. 
 
 I return to my story with what patience I may. For 
 what is the use of arguing with men who refuse to 
 hear ? The doctrine of the day is, that to insure order, 
 our youth must first undergo seven or eight years' im- 
 prisonment at college, to be fashioned to bodily and 
 spiritual debasement. Where would our governments
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot, 131 
 
 be, if by gross mismanagement it should happen that 
 these boys, grown into men, should enter life with 
 notions of justice and liberty? And then those tradi- 
 tions, those legendary pictures, those compulsory 
 formulas, and those monkish revelations, what would 
 happen to those venerable and ancient follies, by means 
 of which impostors in high places have governed us for 
 ages ? Where would all these sublime inventions be 
 sent to ? Why, the abomination of desolation would 
 follow. Ah ! Bonaparte knew what he was about when 
 he restored the Jesuits. 
 
 Imagine the weariness, the disgust of children laid 
 hold of and subjected to treatment of this sort. Surely 
 the intellect of the majority must have struck roots deep 
 and strong to resist such onslaughts as these. 
 
 Every day I wept in secret ; and Monsieur Canard 
 poured no balm into my wounded spirit when he set 
 before me the loose crumby portions of bread, from 
 which the crust had been stolen for the benefit of the 
 rich. Injustice always made my blood boil. Woe to 
 him who comes into the world with a sense of justice ! 
 he will smart for it as long as he lives. 
 
 In this state of distress I made the acquaintance of 
 a boy named Charles Hoffmann, nicknamed G-oberlot, 
 the son of the wealthiest banker in Saarstadt. His 
 father, a very bigoted devotee, had discovered him read- 
 ing Moliere's Tartuffe, and had sent him to be shut up 
 in college to expiate his offence. 
 
 Goberlot thought upon most matters as I did ; and 
 even then, in the midst of our troubles, we were begin- 
 ning to speculate upon the Divine character, and to 
 wonder why we were doomed to live in a college whero 
 we became every day more inclined to curse the day we
 
 132 TU College-Life of MaUre Nabtot. 
 
 were born ; and we doubted whether there was such 
 a thing as Divine justice. 
 
 Every Thursday and Sunday, when we went out for 
 a walk, Goberlot and I used to wonder and argue upon 
 these questions, and I inquired 
 
 " Why is Monsieur Gradus such a fool, and Canard 
 so unjust ? Why should Monsieur Laperche, the pro- 
 fessor of the fourth class, look so extremely grave, if 
 it is a fact, as the world says, that he has not two ideas 
 in his head ? And why is Monsieur Perrot, the pro- 
 fessor of rhetoric, who knows more than all the rest put 
 together, both lame and very ugly ? Why do we suffer 
 from the folly of other people, incapable as we are of 
 resistance?" 
 
 I could not reconcile these things with what I knew 
 of the justice of God. 
 
 And then Goberlot, who had been taught by the 
 priests, answered 
 
 " That's for our perfecting. If they were not all so 
 stupid, so unfair, and so selfish, we should have no 
 merits, and we should not get to Paradise." 
 
 " And what is to become of them ?" said I. 
 
 " Oh ! I am sure I cannot tell," he replied ; " per- 
 haps their destruction is for our salvation." 
 
 Poor boys ! there was no one to help us out of our 
 difficulties, and so we got deeper and deeper into doubts 
 and perplexities. 
 
 On that day we were crossing through the town in 
 twos, under the oversight of Monsieur Wolframm. 
 Sometimes we used to come out of the town by the 
 gato that faces the Vosges, or eastern gate, sometimes 
 by the western. But now the sky was becoming dull 
 and grey in the rainy autumnal season, and we could
 
 Ilie College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 133 
 
 not walk far without exposing ourselves to the cold 
 showers. 
 
 As soon as we reached the country, all eyes were 
 directed towards the distant summits of the Vosges, 
 and we would say 
 
 " Do you see, down there, that little white chapel in 
 the midst of the fir-trees ? That's Dabo that's where 
 we live." 
 
 Then another 
 
 " Do you see the Altenberg between those two great 
 mountains ? Eichepierre is just behind that." 
 
 How our poor hearts throbbed before the distant 
 view, and how vividly our village, our small home, our 
 kind indulgent parents, rose to our aching memories ! 
 We could have cried, but for the fear of ridicule. And 
 so we trudged wearily on, until we reached the skirts 
 of the great forest stretching out its thousands of bare 
 and rugged branches. No more green foliage; the 
 birds are silent; there broods a mournful stillness, 
 while the giant pines uplift their tall dark spires as far 
 as sight can stretch, and the pathways through the 
 forest are strewn deep, by the stormy blast, with swirl- 
 ing heaps of fallen leaves. 
 
 Winter is drawing near, cold winter ! grey clouds 
 gather round in sluggish masses ; heavy drops begin 
 to plash upon the leaves ; we must run for it we mus t 
 go back to the college. Breathless we ' reach the ol & 
 ' monks' entrance and Vandenberg goes to look for his 
 key while we are shouting outside, " Make haste, let us 
 in," and kicking at the door. At last he shambles up, 
 lets us in at his leisure, and we rush under the old 
 archway, as wet as drowned rats. 
 
 Such were our autumn walks. 
 
 I
 
 134 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 And then in five or six weeks the winter is upon us. 
 In a single night a great white pall is spread over the 
 whole face of town and country. The roofs of the 
 houses are white, the courts are white, so are the ram- 
 parts, and the mountains, and the plain. White, white 
 everywhere as far as the eye can reach. 
 
 Oh, what a life we began to live then ! The falling 
 snow, falling, falling still : the creaking weathercocks ; 
 the long, damp, dirty corridors ! Oh, what a difference 
 between this and the pleasant cheerful winters at home, 
 in the corner of the hearth-place, your cotton cap 
 pulled over your ears, your feet comfortably dry, and 
 your careful mother saying, " Now, Jean Paul, don't 
 go out ; you might catcli cold, or you might get chil- 
 blains." 
 
 Aha ! Canard, and Miston, and Father Dominique 
 took no account of colds or chilblains ; what did they 
 care whether the son of a poor village lawyer, whose 
 gratuity to the servants was a paltry forty sous, had 
 colds and chilblains or not ? 
 
 Lessons on practical philosophy and experimental 
 physics came to you without much cost in those days ! 
 No fire in the dormitory ; the tall windows, thickly 
 covered with frost from November until February, 
 give a full passage to the north wind through their 
 chinks. There is no possibility of sleeping, on account 
 of the cold ; so you roll up into a little ball between 
 your scanty coverings, you hold your feet with both 
 hands ; and at last the power of sleep asserts itself. 
 The bed is a little bit warmer and you drop off. J>nt 
 all too soon old Vandenberg's bell wakes you up. Oh, 
 misery ! misery ! I don't believe there is anything 
 worse for a sleeping child than to be t uddcnly woke up
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 135 
 
 before daylight, in a dormitory of immense length, 
 where everything that is wet or damp is freezing, where 
 currents of ice-cold wind are blowing cruelly ; and to 
 be obliged to get up at once and dress, black your 
 shoes, break the ice in the washstand, and descend the 
 long cold staircase, shivering, only half rubbed dry on 
 account of the chilblains, and the numbness, and the 
 chapped hands. You sanguinely hope you may get a 
 warming by the schoolroom stove, and there you find, 
 to your anguish, all the big fellows, with whiskers 
 coming, in a dense circle round the stove, drawn close 
 up, laughing and grinning, and not one of them good- 
 natured enough to make room for you and say, " Come 
 along, young 'un, get yourself dry and warm here in 
 my place !" 
 
 No, not one. Poor human nature ! thou art a long 
 way from perfection ; greatly thou needest softening 
 and refining ! Unhappily, no one thinks of that in our 
 colleges Greek and Latin fill up the whole time. A 
 little of theoretical and practical morals, a course of 
 simple humanity, would not be altogether out of place. 
 But the chief business is to manufacture Bachelors 
 who shall afterwards make the best they can of their 
 Bachelorship. 
 
 Well, when the master on duty had made his ap- 
 pearance too, and had seated himself in his chair of 
 state, and inspected our hands and shoes, gaping 
 himself as if he had not had half his sleep, how was it 
 possible for a boy to study ? how could he retain his 
 lesson even after reading it a hundred times, as long as 
 he was asleep with his eyes open ? 
 
 I have often experienced this myself; the best of 
 good-will is not sufficient; you must also have the
 
 136 The College-Life of MaUre Nablot. 
 
 power. Children want sleep more than their elders* 
 no child ever sleeps too long. Let the big boys get up 
 if you will, but do let the poor little ones get an extra 
 hour. Nature requires it, and common sense teaches it. 
 
 " You don't know your lessons, Monsieur Nablot ? 
 You have been asleep in school hours. You don't go 
 out next Thursday, and you will write out the verb 
 dormir twenty times." 
 
 Why not a hundred times, fool ? Ah ! those weary 
 tasks, those pensums ; they weigh upon my memory 
 worse than all the other iniquities. Telling a child, 
 who does not know his lesson, that he shall write it out 
 twenty times the very same words twenty times over, 
 the same burdensome tax twice ten times, just like an 
 old blind mill-horse shambling round his wheel is not 
 this sure to make him hate his lessons? Is it not 
 grinding out of him everything that is pleasant and 
 amiable? I appeal to all reasonable creatures for an 
 answer. 
 
 However, such were our college punishments in my 
 time. 
 
 Then, on Thursdays and Sundays, by way of recrea- 
 tion, they treated us to an explication of the mysteries 
 of our Holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Eoman religion, 
 and we were indoctrinated with sacramental mysteries, 
 and told to ask no questions ; and we were carefully 
 taught the doctrine of papal indulgences namely, that 
 the Church has power to remit temporal penances, by 
 appropriating to us the superfluous merits of the 
 Blessed Virgin and all the saints. 
 
 All this was very clear, wasn't it ? 
 
 I remember that sometimes I presumed to hint to 
 Monsieur Rufin, when he had done explaining these
 
 The College-Life of Mattre Nablot. 137 
 
 wonderful things, that I could not understand him, and 
 then he would break out into a passion, crying 
 
 " It is a mystery ! If you understood it, it would 
 not be a mystery ! Now do you understand ?" 
 
 Then, for fear that he should get worse, and should 
 keep me in, and give me dry bread and water, I humbly 
 said 
 
 " Yes, monsieur le principal, now I understand." 
 
 " Ah !" he rejoined, " it is well for you ; but you have 
 been a long while about it. You are a reasoner, a free- 
 thinker, Monsieur Nablot. People who reason come to 
 a bad end. Faith alone can save. You must believe." 
 
 These words troubled me, and made me anxious, and 
 when I got a little time alone with Goberlot, I said to 
 him 
 
 ". God has given us legs to walk with, and eyes to see . 
 with ; and has He given us reason that we should not 
 reason with it?" 
 
 But Goberlot knew nothing about these matters. 
 His Latin wag of no use to him here. 
 
 When religious instruction was over, we had leave to 
 run in the corridors for an hour. Then we had dinner. 
 One of the older boys, perched up in the pulpit in the 
 dining-hall, used to read aloud to us the voyages and 
 travels of the Jesuit fathers in China, or other stories 
 of that kind, which we were obliged to listen to with 
 the greatest attention. For as soon as the meal was 
 over, monsieur le principal always examined a few of 
 the scholars upon what had been read, and those who 
 could not answer to his satisfaction had to go without 
 wine the next day. 
 
 I may be judging uncharitably ; but since that time, 
 thinking over those readings, I have often thought that
 
 138 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 the object of tliem was to take the attention of the 
 pupils away from the Lad food, arid the slightly reddened 
 water, that were set before us. 
 
 During the depth of winter, Monsieur Kufin, after 
 supper, used to send for some of the smaller boys to 
 visit him in. his room ; but only the Poitevins, the 
 Vaugiros, the Henriaz, sons of substantial people who 
 could pay well, My poor friend Goberlot and I stood 
 outside in the cold ; we were not invited in, and yet we 
 were as young as the rest, and quite as cold. 
 
 However, we did not die of it ; quite the contrary. 
 After five or six sharp frosts, having borne the severity 
 of the cold with such help as we could get by stamping 
 our heels and swinging our arms, we had grown ruddy 
 and strong, and able to stand wintry weather without 
 flinching. When we had snowball fights with the day- 
 boys, it was we who stood the brunt of the battle ; it 
 was we whom the enemy dreaded the most when they 
 came down upon us at the charge-step, but recoiled 
 from our heroic resistance when we stood firm and 
 shouted to the retreating " highly-connected" boys, 
 " Stand fast come on !" 
 
 At home, in spite of all my mother's tender care, I 
 was always catching cold ; but ever since that winter I 
 have hardly known what it was to have a cold ; and even 
 to this day, when I cough to try the strength of my 
 lungs, the window-panes rattle with the deep sound. 
 
 Habit is everything except in the case of injustice 
 and wrong. No amount of habit can make me used to 
 that! 
 
 January, February, and March passed away ; con- 
 jugations, declensions, and rules marked the flight of 
 time.
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 139 
 
 And then the fine days of spring came gently down 
 upon us. The deep snow slowly melted away ; in all 
 directions, during the tedious school hours, we could 
 hear the heaps of snow sliding off the roofs, and 
 falling in a curve in huge lumps into the courtyard 
 below, with a noise like distant thunder. The melting 
 snow was shovelled up in great dirty mounds, and 
 stood piled up against the walls. The temperature was 
 rising; the sun, the warm welcome sun, darted his 
 comforting rays into all the cold dark corners, and this 
 delicious warmth was felt to be removing the dampness 
 away from our dormitory. From the upper windows 
 we could see the trees that were planted within the 
 batteries, the fine tall limes, gradually changing to a 
 light and tender green, amidst which we knew we 
 should soon hear the bees and the cockchafers humming. 
 And the sparrows, too, but lately objects as pitiable as 
 ourselves, fluttering even about our feet in the snow, to 
 catch a crumb of bread, those poor house-sparrows were 
 already beginning to twitter and quarrel, to worry and 
 chase each other. 
 
 Yes, here was spring indeed ! Everybody, even 
 Canard himself, looked a little less ugly; we gazed 
 with a sense of comfort and happiness into each other's 
 faces, as we became conscious of the approach of the 
 Easter holidays. 
 
 Compositions were written twice a week. The big 
 Alsacians were the best hands at that ; they expected 
 to ride over the heads of all the class, and take the 
 highest places by storm, and so reach the fifth class. 
 Of course they had a right, having always worked so 
 strenuously. 
 
 Next to those fellows I came, on account of my good
 
 140 7 he College-Life of Mattre Nablot. 
 
 memory. I remembered even what I had never been 
 taught to understand ; and in spite of every disadvan- 
 tage, I stood higher than Poiteviu, Heuriaz, andVaugiro. 
 
 My friend Goberlot and I had excellent abilities ; 
 Monsieur Gradus himself confessed it ; but then we 
 were never incorrigible violators of all the rules of dis- 
 cipline. We shunned society, and loved only solitude ; 
 we were given to arguing, we were addicted to fighting, 
 we were most contumacious and refractory. Such was 
 the character we bore. 
 
 We had had more pensums, more imprisonments, 
 than all the rest of the class put together. What 
 would you have ? We have all our own way of seeing 
 things. If we had been asked for our opinion of Mon- 
 sieur Gradus, we could have supplied him with a 
 character which would perhaps have been worse than 
 ours, and on examination it might have been found 
 that we were the best justified in our sentence. 
 
 Day by day the holidays came closer and closer, 
 and now that I think of it, I fancy I can hear half a 
 dozen of the older boys the elder Leman, of Abreche- 
 villc ; Barabino, from the Harberg ; and Limon, the 
 brewer's son, and the rest marching up and down 
 arm in arm, and singing along the corridors the holiday 
 song, which they had learnt from the old boys before 
 them, and which descended from one generation of 
 schoolboys to another in Saarstadt College. The tears 
 rise as I hum it over to myself: 
 
 "Ah! ah! ah! 
 Valete studia, 
 Omiiia jam tscdia 
 Vertantur ill gaudia 
 Hi ! hi ! hi ! 
 Vale rnagistcr mi," &c. &c,
 
 ' Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! 
 Valete studia." 
 
 Campaign in Kabylia.'] 
 
 [Page 140
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 141 
 
 Yes, no doubt, if college years do seem the best in 
 our life to some few men, it must be because they have 
 forgotten everything but the approach of holiday 
 time. 
 
 Just for a moment, let us do the same. 
 
 Winter is past and gone. Compositions are over. 
 The first days of April are here. Palm Sunday and 
 Good Friday are gone. Easter is coming. From all 
 sides, friends and relations come to fetch us home. 
 Many scholars are already off. My father has written 
 the day before that he will come and fetch me, and I 
 am still sitting at morning lessons. Every now and 
 then the door opens, and a name is called. First one, 
 then another of my schoolfellows hears his name, and 
 trembles with joy and excitement as he shuts down his 
 desk, and runs to the door. His parents are outside, 
 waiting in the courtyard. 
 
 Every time the door opens my heart beats. Now it 
 will be my turn ! No, it is some one else. 
 
 At last, suddenly the name of Jean Paul Nablot 
 sounds through the room. I rise precipitately clear 
 at a bound a table that stands in my way I run, with 
 my knees almost failing me for joy, and in another 
 moment I am in my father's arms. Tears of emotion 
 fill the eyes of both. 
 
 " Well, Jean Paul, I am just come from the prin- 
 cipal's. He says your compositions are good, and that 
 you have a good memory, but that you don't Avork as 
 much as you might. He says you are too fond of being 
 alone, and that you want to argue. Surely you don't 
 want to give me pain ?" 
 
 I sobbed aloud. 
 
 <* Come, come !" said he, " you will work bettor after
 
 142 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 the holidays. Come along, and don't let us mention 
 that again." 
 
 And we pass out. Old Vandenberg looks at us ; he 
 lets us out, and, oh, joy! I am free again. Every 
 trouble is forgotten. There stands the well-known old 
 char-a-bancs before the college gate ; we take our seats, 
 and in a moment are rattling over the paved roads. 
 We reach the gate of the Vosges, and now Grisette is 
 galloping merrily along the sandy road which leads to 
 Richepierre. 
 
 My spirits are returning, and my father, observing 
 my ruddy cheeks and clear bright eyes, troubles himself 
 no more about my love of solitude. No doubt it occurs 
 to him 
 
 " Oh, the principal has made quite a mistake ; 
 whether the boy loves solitude or not is neither here 
 nor there." 
 
 In an hour we have crossed Hesse, and while Grisette 
 is trotting away under the long arches of beech, oak, 
 and birch, with green and swelling buds, I tell him 
 about the thousands of acts of injustice and tyranny 
 under which I had smarted; for, as I viewed the 
 matter, masters and professors were all leagued against 
 me. 
 
 My good father listened with interest ; he had a good 
 many comments to make upon my revelations, and 
 even by my own version that excellent man saw plainly 
 how matters stood ; he did not think I was altogether 
 in the wrong ; and after having listened to me some 
 time with a thoughtful interest he replied 
 
 " My son, it is quite possible that all you state 
 is true. I readily believe you. We are not rich; 
 we make great sacrifices for your sake. Try to
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 143 
 
 us for all our trouble and anxiety, and don't fret be- 
 cause of the wrongs you have to endure from others. 
 Your first duty is to do no wrong to them, to fulfil 
 your duties honestly, and to rise in the world by labour, 
 courage, and perseverance, in the teeth of all that bar 
 your way. Get this well into your mind, that you will 
 not rise by the help, but in spite, of the world. What- 
 ever other people can take from you, they will. Such 
 seeins to be the law of our existence. You are just 
 now beginning to open your eyes to the difficulties of 
 life ; but all this is nothing compared to what is to 
 come. Your experience as yet is but very small. By- 
 and-by, when you have to make yourself a name, and 
 gain a position, in the midst of thousands who will 
 form into close ranks, or if they cannot do that, spread 
 out their elbows to keep you out, then real difficulties 
 will begin. Therefore keep calm and cool ; don't get 
 uselessly angry. Your health is good ; your first trials 
 are over. That is enougli for one time. Your object 
 now is to get your Bachelor's degree. There is no 
 entrance into any profession without. Give your mind 
 to that object now, and work with that prospect before 
 you." 
 
 Such were the wise, kind words of that excellent 
 man, and I readily perceived that he was quite right. 
 I formed the resolution to follow his good advice, first 
 to give him pleasure, and my mother too ; but in the 
 second place, to annoy those who seemed to me to be 
 anxious to clog my wheels, and throw hindrances in my 
 way. 
 
 Hence it is plain that the first result of my college 
 experience was love for those who worked for my good, 
 and bitter hatred for those others who, as I believed,
 
 144 The College-Life of MaUre Nablot. . 
 
 purposely stood in my way, and to whom, of course, I 
 imputed every imaginable fault envy, injustice, bad 
 faith, greediness, and stupidity. To be fair and do 
 justice to our adversaries we want time ; to a child it is 
 scarcely possible. Unfortunately, the eagerness after 
 their profits exhibited by too many of our college prin- 
 cipals gives a child but a poor opinion of human nature ; 
 and soon he comes to see nothing but a group of greedy 
 speculators in those whom he ought to acknowledge to 
 be his best friends. 
 
 An additional reason for this blot in the reputation 
 of the men who are entrusted with the important charge 
 of education in our smaller colleges is their wretched 
 position. Is it fair to expect devotion to their profes- 
 sion from men who have not enough to live upon who 
 are unable to obtain from the State the means of main- 
 taining the superior social rank to which their learning 
 and the importance of their functions entitle them ? 
 But you may be sure that, at that early period in my 
 history, I did not trouble my head about such specula- 
 tions ; and if I put forward these views now, it is only 
 because I consider it the duty of every conscientious 
 man to think and express himself in this way. 
 
 In a couple of hours from our departure from Saar- 
 stadt we reached the foot of the rocky hill which lies 
 before Kichepierre. The pace slackened. Grisette was 
 panting, my father was encouraging her with his voice 
 " Hue ! hue !" I thoughtfully set my eyes again 
 upon our old village, with my heart stirred up with the 
 memories of childhood, and the pleasure of meeting 
 again those whom I loved best in the world. 
 
 At last the first house on the hill came in sight. 
 Grisette resumed her former pace, and we drove down
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 145 
 
 the long street, bordered on each side by barns, dung- 
 hills, and cart-sheds. My mother was waiting at the 
 door, my brothers and sisters were looking out for me. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! There he is ! I see him ! There's Jean 
 Paul !" 
 
 And all our neighbours were at their windows. 
 
 Before the conveyance stopped I had jumped down, 
 and kissed my mother over and over again. My 
 brothers and sisters hung upon my neck, and in we 
 went, all in a heap, into the large sitting-room, where 
 dinner was awaiting us. 
 
 What more can I say ? That fortnight passed away 
 as swiftly as one day. 
 
 All my old schoolfellows at Magnus's came to see me. 
 Gourdier and Dabsec passed night and morning, bare- 
 footed and bare-chested, with their burdens of wood 
 upon their shoulders ; they stopped, throwing back their 
 long ragged locks off their brown faces, and gazed upon 
 me without speaking. 
 
 "[How do you do, Gourdier ?" I cried one day to one 
 that Monsieur Magnus used to proclaim the best boy 
 in the school. 
 
 A flash of intelligence darted from his hazel eyes. 
 
 " How are you ?" he replied abruptly, pulling up his 
 burden, with the handle of his axe beneath it, and 
 recommencing his toilsome journey to the fort. 
 
 I had become less proud than I used to be ; but he 
 had not forgotten that I had once called him a beggar, 
 and he could not forgive me. 
 
 Perhaps he was thinking that if he had but had 
 money enough, he too might have carried on his educa- 
 tion; and he was feeling indignant at having been 
 obliged to stay his progress. I cannot tell ; but it is
 
 146 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 quite likely, for lie was very ambitious at school. Not 
 having oil for his lamp at home, he used to sit at night 
 before the mouth of the oven to read his books, with 
 his head down between his knees ; and when he came 
 to school in the morning, his eyes were red with the 
 heat of the fire. I believe, then, that he was angry 
 with me for having been more fortunate than he, and 
 being able to study at my ease. 
 
 Monsieur le cure also came once or twice to dine with 
 us during these holidays ; he examined me, and seemed 
 satisfied, especially with my improvement in sacred 
 history. 
 
 Then I had to leave home again, and return to join 
 my class at Monsieur Gradus's ; and I felt a great 
 depression. Still I kept up my spirits better than the 
 first time, and I said to myself, " After all, one does 
 get away." 
 
 On the 29th of April, my father took me back to 
 school, and the classes opened the very next morning. 
 
 m. 
 
 THE worst trouble at the small colleges in that day 
 was the perpetual traffic in school-books carried on by 
 the principals. 
 
 These conscientious workers did not content them- 
 selves with the legitimate profits which they derived 
 from the board of the pupils. Every year, and some- 
 times at intervals of only six months, immense heavy 
 parcels came full of French, Greek, and Latin gram- 
 mars, dictionaries, histories, sacred and Roman, on a 
 new plan, which the professors immediately adopted
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 147 
 
 in order to procure the principal a prompt sale of his 
 goods. 
 
 All the old grammars, arithmetics, and primers were 
 flung into the basket ; Lhomond being out of date, 
 Noel and Chapsal took his place. Noel and Chapsal 
 died in their turn, and Burnouf was ready to fill the 
 gap ; and so on. 
 
 And so it came to pass that, to enable the principal 
 to gain a profit of five sous, a crowd of boys never knew 
 their grammar nor their rules even after five or six 
 years of constant application, because they were put on 
 new books upon old subjects every year. I do not 
 believe that in any business the greed of gain displayed 
 itself more shamelessly. Under the pretext of perfect- 
 ing the method of teaching, the pupils learnt nothing 
 thoroughly. 
 
 This is exactly what happened that year. Before 
 Easter we had had the rudiments of Lhomond, his 
 grammar, and his catechism of history. On our return, 
 Monsieur G-radus put into all our hands the books of a 
 certain gentleman who refined and improved upon 
 Lhomond; and now we had to commit everything to 
 memory, always by heart : new rules, new examples, 
 new primitive and derivative tenses, &c., &c. Of course, 
 everything was left unexplained. Those who had 
 imagined they knew something, because they had 
 stuffed a lot of words into their memories, now found 
 that they knew nothing. The same thing had to be 
 begun over again with fresh words, and with a fresh 
 arrangement. For my part, I confess that those two 
 grammars never ceased to make war upon each other 
 in my poor brain, until my college days were over ; I 
 could never tell which to go to. But monsieur le prin-
 
 148 The College-Lije of MaUre Nablot. 
 
 cipal had got a profit of two or three francs out of 
 every scholar, the parents had paid fifteen or twenty, 
 and the transaction was closed. 
 
 Do let us pass on. 
 
 The old Alsacians having with their long strides 
 passed out of Monsieur Gradus's class, after Easter a 
 new batch of boarders and day-scholars, the best in 
 the seventh class, came to their places ; these were 
 Masse, Marchal, the brothers Martin, Baudouin, 
 Moll, &c. 
 
 This time we were all about the same age, a very 
 lucky circumstance, for the mind of a boy of fifteen is 
 not the same as that of a boy of ten or twelve ; the 
 professor who speaks to the one cannot be understood 
 by the other. The tail will in that case always be 
 sacrificed to the head. 
 
 I do not mean to tire you out by telling you about 
 our new grammar. I suffered enough from it myself, 
 and I will inflict none of it upon you. 
 
 But there was an odd circumstance at that time, 
 which used to puzzle me excessively during the first 
 few days of the term. In summer time our windows 
 stood open, on account of the overpowering heat which 
 prevailed between the walls of the old cloisters. 
 Whilst reciting conjugations, or the fables of La Fon- 
 taine, we used to hear a loud and singular voice rising 
 from time to time, giving out a most melancholy note, 
 with wonderful cadences 
 
 "Kai i i ! Ka'i i i ! Kai i i !" 
 
 From two o'clock till four we heard this cry at least 
 a hundred times, and I said to myself, " That's a 
 bird. But what bird is there with a note like that ? I 
 never heard such a strange cry for a bird as that."
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 149 
 
 Well would you believe it ? it was Greek ! It wag 
 tlie cry of Monsieur Laperche, professor in the fourth 
 class, in the next class-room, teaching his pupils Greek, 
 which he did not know himself ! I found that out by- 
 and-by, when I had the pleasure of entering his class. 
 He used gravely to pace up and down the room, care- 
 fully measuring his steps with his long heron's legs, 
 and with much importance followed the lesson of the 
 boy who was translating, by the help of an interlineal 
 translation; and when a boy stuck fast, hindered by 
 some word he did not know, then Monsieur Laperche's 
 full and sufficient explanation was as follows: He 
 would throw back his little flat bald head, with its thin 
 fringe of whisker, open his mouth until it reached his 
 ears, and in the gravest manner emit the cry, " Ka'i 
 i i ? Ka'i i i ?" which in Greek just means, "And 
 and ?" This much for the ladies who have not learnt 
 Greek. 
 
 That solitary cry, in the great courtyard, where the 
 midsummer heat glowed even in the depth of the dark 
 shades, that prolonged, dismal, monotonous cry used 
 at length to send us to sleep. All my unhappy school- 
 fellows and myself, leaning over the long table, stared 
 at each other with dim, dull eyes and drooping lids, 
 trying all we could to resist the sleepy influence of 
 that humming. And whilst one was repeating his page 
 of vocabularies or word-lists, and Monsieur Gradus, 
 with his legs crossed, was wearily yawning under cover 
 of his hands, or wiping his spectacles, dreaming about 
 some soiree in town, or some jolly picnic, without 
 thinking any more of the vocabulary than of the Great 
 Mogul, we poor lads, weighed down by that melancholy 
 cry, " Ka'i 'i Ka'i i," which arose as regularly as 
 
 X
 
 150 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 the dull tick of a kitchen clock, we could just know 
 that our heads were drop drop dropping down 
 gently, gently till at last the tip of the nose touched 
 the desk ; then we were happy oh, so comfortable and 
 so happy ! We slept soundly but not for long ! 
 
 In a very few minutes the sharp angry voice of 
 Monsieur Gradus, more terrible than the voice of 
 doom, awoke us from our happy unconsciousness : 
 
 "Monsieur Scheffler Monsieur Nablot write out 
 the verb dormir ten times. Stand up repeat your 
 lesson." 
 
 And we rose, and began to repeat as we had often 
 done before: " Agricola, farmer; asinus, ass," &c. 
 
 All those lists of words, I have them still before me, 
 with their blots of ink and stains of grease. They 
 never were of much use to me, but at that time they 
 worried me fearfully. 
 
 And I recollect that the following year I had to 
 begin the same story over again under another pro- 
 fessor ! It is awful to think of killing time for school- 
 boys in that ridiculous fashion, and disgusting them 
 for life with what it ought to have been a pleasure to 
 learn. How many useful things we might have been 
 taught, instead of those unmeaning strings of uncon- 
 nected words ! What sound principles might have 
 been instilled into our minds, leading us on to a 
 rational appreciation of the spirit of languages both 
 living and dead ! 
 
 All that we went through scarcely seemed to be 
 serious work. It was old-fashioned routine. It was a 
 farce ! They declared they were strengthening our 
 memories; but memory has something better to do 
 than to load itself with such lumber as long strings of
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 151 
 
 words, dry conjugations, and abstract rules. It is not 
 rules that make language, any more than rhetoric 
 eloquence, or school philosophy common sense. Words 
 are merely words, and cannot take the place of any- 
 thing else ideas least of all. 
 
 But let us proceed, and we will resiime this discus- 
 sion by-and-by. 
 
 What with all those words and words, those rules 
 and rules, and all those exercises for improving the 
 memory, we should have fallen into a state of down- 
 right stupidity but for the Thursday and Sunday walks 
 in the very pretty neighbourhood of Saarstadt. 
 
 How delightful it was to breathe the fresh air ! 
 
 We used to walk to the saw-mills, or to the Bonne 
 Fontaine, shaded by the leafy beech and fir trees. We 
 used to stay at the first village we came to ; and then 
 all the boys who had rich connections, les fils de bonne 
 famille, whose pockets had some lining to them, used 
 to order whipped cream, strawberries, fresh butter, 
 honey, bacon omelettes. 
 
 They were not allowed wine, lest these young gentle- 
 men should take more than they could conveniently 
 carry, the blame of which would assuredly have fallen 
 upon the unlucky master in charge. Therefore in 
 respect of drink they were limited to beer 
 
 My friend Goberlot and I never having a sou in our 
 pockets, used to roani a great deal further, right into 
 the depths of the woods, running like squirrels along 
 the shady by-paths, and climbing the tallest forest 
 trees, at the risk of our necks. And when we had 
 reached the very top, and could see nothing above us 
 but the immense expanse of heaven, and nothing below 
 us but the vast ocean of the masses of foliage, then,
 
 152 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 hearing no sound to disturb the profound silence, we 
 would again begin our discussions upon religion as it 
 was taught us, and upon the injustice and the follies 
 of the professors much delighted at being out of the 
 sight and hearing of Monsieur Gradus, Monsieur Wolf- 
 ramm, and Canard, and Monsieur Rufin glad at being 
 far away from the smoke- stained schoolroom, and as 
 happy as the birds of the air. 
 
 This happiness lasted until the rest, having finished 
 stuffing themselves, collected themselves in a body at 
 the skirts of the wood, and shouted all together, " He ! 
 hohu !" till the cries, penetrating and echoing up the 
 heights, at length reached us. 
 
 At this call, with one last fond look at the setting 
 sun, we descended our lofty watch-tower, and slowly 
 gained the village, very sorry that we had not been 
 able to stay balancing ourselves on our tree-top till the 
 stars were out. 
 
 As soon as we were in sight, all the fellows shouted, 
 " Here they come ! Here are the deserters !" And the 
 master immediately put us under arrest, for having 
 separated from the main body and delayed the return 
 home. 
 
 But what did we care ? 
 
 Had we not had the unspeakable enjoyment of a free 
 run through the green forest? Had we not breathed 
 the pure mountain air ? Had not our eyes gazed afar 
 beyond the wooded mountains, upon the distant blue 
 summits of Alsace and Lorraine ? 
 
 We had laid in a stock of happy thoughts for many 
 days to come. 
 
 The moment we reached our rat-hole we were packed 
 off to our cell, whilst *he rest, who had fared sump-
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 153 
 
 tuously already, walked into the dining-hall ; but 
 Goberlot and I, who had had nothing since morning, 
 were fain to content ourselves with dry bread. 
 
 In all candour, we must have been endowed with 
 admirable tempers not to have conceived a horror of 
 all our species. But Goberlot, who had been brought 
 up by a devout Catholic father, under the complete 
 influence of cures and Jesuits, who dined three or four 
 days in the week at their house, and in return made 
 unlimited promises of Paradise to the whole family 
 my friend Goberlot, winking and leering, had from his 
 childhood learnt to see the comic side of things. 
 
 But I was born a philosopher, and I held the unjust 
 in supreme contempt, and this sentiment, even against 
 my wish, betrayed itself continually in my countenance. 
 How many times Monsieur Gradus, and later on Mon- 
 sieur Laperche, felt insulted when they caught my eye 
 resting on them ! 
 
 " Monsieur Nablot," they cried, " what do you mean 
 by looking at me in that way ?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Two hours' close confinement for you 1" 
 - I smiled. 
 
 " Four !" 
 
 I smiled again. How could I help it ? I despised 
 th ) men ; they saw that, and could not forgive me. 
 
 Things went on much in the same way until the 
 [,nuual compositions came on. The notes on my cha- 
 racter were no improvement upon those made at Easter. 
 Yet I was at the top of my class. I translated and 
 recited better than all my schoolfellows. 
 
 The wish to humble the rich fellows in my class, aa 
 Gourdier had formerly humbled me, made mo work
 
 154 The College-Life of Maltre Nablot. 
 
 with extraordinary ardour. Several times I remained 
 in on the Thursdays, to go over my work whilst tho 
 rest were walking. 
 
 After the August compositions, which were to count 
 double, I was nothing but skin and bone ; but having 
 shown some of the elder boys my rough copies of exer- 
 cises and translations, they all declared that I should 
 get the first prizes. I therefore depended upon my 
 good success, and even wrote to my father to announce 
 my approaching triumph. 
 
 The old corridors had already echoed for the last 
 fortnight with the delightful air of the holiday song, 
 when the great day of the prize distribution arrived. 
 The gates were crowded with parents and relations, 
 friends, and municipal councillors, civic dignitaries and 
 military officials, all in the uniform of their respective 
 ranks; imposing cocked hats, red waistcoats, great 
 Alsacian bonnets, black coats, round hats, helmets, 
 plumes, and silk dresses began to defile down the ves- 
 tibule of the old cloister, ascending to the large hall 
 where the prizes were to be distributed, which was 
 splendidly decorated with festoons of flowers, a grand 
 Latin inscription over the door, and a raised platform 
 at one end covered with prize books, and prize wreaths 
 of leaves, according to our French custom. 
 
 We were drawn up in the court, when my father ran 
 to me full of the joy that was beaming out of his eyes 
 to tell me that my mother had come to crown me. He 
 embraced me, and I hardly had strength to answei 
 him, I was so overcome by my feelings. 
 
 In a few minutes, all the company being settled in 
 their places, we passed through that magnificent as- 
 sembly, and took our places on the two sides of the
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Ndblot. 155 
 
 platform; while the Cuirassiers' band, with its big 
 drum, its fifes, its chime of Chinese "bells, its trumpets, 
 and its clarionets, made the windows rattle with a 
 triumphal march which shook the very marrow in our 
 bones. 
 
 Next after this, monsieur le maire, with his official 
 sash over his shoulder, uttered a few well-selected 
 sentences about the happy meeting. Then Monsieur 
 Wilhelm, the master of the industrial school, read a 
 fine speech upon the origin of human knowledge, be- 
 ginning at the invention of the forge by Tubal Cain, 
 and ending with the invention of the steam-engine ; 
 passing from the Hebrews to the Phoenicians, the 
 Greeks, the Eomans, the barbarous Merovingians, who 
 had no glass to their windows ; the race of Capet, only 
 a little less ignorant than the Merovingians ; the Arabs, 
 the Turks, up to the taking of Constantinople by means 
 of enormous guns, &c., &c. 
 
 The ladies were inclined to faint ; there was a great 
 desire to cry out, " Stop ! stop !" but in such a dignified 
 assembly that would have been highly improper, and 
 we were compelled to wait until he should stop of his 
 own accord. 
 
 The speech had been going on more than an hour, 
 when at last he was seen turning over his last leaf, 
 and a sigh of relief and gratified expectation was heard 
 from the whole assembly. 
 
 But, alas ! he had not quite done yet. 
 
 With a self-satisfied smile, he then told us he should 
 forbear entering on the chapter of modern inventions, 
 and spare the sensitive modesty of his contemporaries, 
 and especially of His Majesty King Louis Philippe. 
 He took another quarter of an hour to explain the
 
 The College-Life of tiailre Nablot. 
 
 delicacy of Iris motives, and we were beginning to look 
 at one another with dismay, when at length he made a 
 very low bow, and sat down amidst the applause of 
 the company. 
 
 Immediately Monsieur Laperche began to call the 
 names of the successful competitors, beginning of 
 course with the hilosophers. These were his special 
 favourites, and the cause of immense self-gratulation. 
 
 Monsieur Laperche enjoyed the advantage of a very 
 tall person, which enabled him to see over the heads 
 of all the company. Besides this, he possessed an 
 unctuous and far-reaching though somewhat nasal 
 voice, which he practised every day over his Greek. 
 
 I was boiling with excitement during this calling 
 over of names ; the fire of hope and expectation kindled 
 in my cheeks. All my schoolfellows felt and looked 
 the same. 
 
 We could scarcely wait for our turn ; but as between 
 the announcements, whilst each prize-taker came down 
 the steps into the body to receive his crown from the 
 hands of his parents, the band played a little air, this 
 took up time, and it was therefore three o'clock before 
 our class was called up. 
 
 I had already distinguished my father and mother 
 seated together in the midst of the gazing brilliant 
 crowd, when Monsieur Laperche began to call the 
 names of the sixth class, and instead of my name, which 
 everybody fully expected would come first, the names 
 of Messieurs Louis and Claude Poitevin, Henriaz, 
 Vaugiro, were announced; and all these pupils were 
 the principal's personal friends ! 
 
 I turned as pale as ashes. 
 
 At last I heard my name called to receive the prize
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nabtot. 15? 
 
 for memoriter lessons, which, could not possibly bo re- 
 fused me, as I always knew my lessons the best in *he 
 class. 
 
 In a moment I recovered myself, and ran full of ex- 
 citement and happiness to be crowned by my father 
 and mother, who embraced me Avith tears in their eyes. 
 Then I returned to my place ; and in a few minutes, 
 the prize distribution being over, the croAvd slowly 
 passed out down the wooden staircase, with a loud 
 rolling sound of many footsteps. 
 
 I went down. My power of thought had returned, 
 and I shuddered. At the door, within the vestibule, 
 I found my father alone. He was waiting for me, 
 and embraced me again with the greatest affection, 
 saying 
 
 " I am. satisfied, Jean Paul, quite satisfied ; you have 
 done all that I could have expected. Come! your 
 mother is waiting for us at the Abondance. Your box 
 is already in ; we are going to start directly." 
 
 I followed him thoughtfully. 
 
 About ten we arrived at Eichepierre. The wholo 
 way, notwithstanding the praises of my parents, I had 
 not spoken a word. The wrong that had been done me 
 had stunned nic. 
 
 I could not believe it. It seemed horrible to me ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 I HAVE given you an account of my first year at college, 
 and I think you must have had enough of it. The 
 four following years were deplorably like that first one. 
 After Monsieur Gradus came Monsieur Laurent j after
 
 158 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 Monsieur Laurent, Monsieur Laperche ; after Monsieur 
 Laperche, Monsieur Damiens ; after Monsieur Damiens 
 Monsieur Fischer. After De Viris Ulustribus Romce canie 
 Cornelius Nepos, SelectceProfanis,'ViTgi]ii Eclogae and the 
 Georgics, De Senectute, Odes of Horace, Mcecenas atavis, 
 &c. , without reckoning in Greek Chrestoniathy , the Fables 
 of jEsop, Xenophon's Cyropsedia, and the first book of 
 the Iliad. Rudiments followed upon rudiments, primi- 
 tive tenses and primitive tenses, grammar and grammar, 
 rules and rules, and the whole without explanations ! 
 We were taught Latin and Greek just as Monsieur 
 Kufin taught us mysteries. And then physical sciences 
 without instruments, chemistry without a laboratory, 
 natural history without specimens, history without 
 criticism ! Words ! words ! words ! 
 
 Is it surprising that many people have their heads 
 filled with nothing but words ? For ten years together 
 we get nothing else. The general low condition of 
 intellectual power arises from this cause. The Jesuitical 
 training introduced by Bonaparte, under the name of 
 the University, is answerable for this ; memory is set 
 up above reasoning ; formulas and inviolable rules are 
 clapped over intelligence as an iron cage covers over a 
 bird. 
 
 The French are not naturally a race of fools and 
 monkeys. Our merchants, our engineers, our men of 
 science, and our artisans are quite up to the mark of 
 the English, Germans, and Americans. If there are 
 amongst us so many shallow wits, who mistake grand 
 and hollow phrases, loud-sounding words, extravagant 
 gesticulations in a word, play-acting for the very acme 
 of eloquence and of genius, there is no doubt of the 
 reason ; it is simply the natural result of the education
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot 159 
 
 which has for seventy years been forced upon us. The 
 bourgeois have aimed at filling the places of the ancient 
 nobility. Step by step they have followed the methods 
 taught us by the old royal colleges under the direction 
 of the priests, while other nations were following the 
 path of progress by the development of intelligence 
 through the demonstration and exposition of truth. A 
 man remembers what he has understood. Words and 
 phrases crammed into an overladen memory are quickly 
 forgotten. 
 
 It is a happy event when there is found in any of our 
 poor municipal colleges a professor endowed with good 
 common- sense, and \vho knows how to use his gift; 
 who aims at impressing upon his pupils the truth that 
 the beauty and perfection of a literary work are not 
 dependent upon the arrangement of words so much as 
 upon the precision of the thoughts, the depth of the 
 feeling, and the truth of the observations. Such a 
 man out of the most ordinary materials will turn out 
 first-rate scholars, upon the principle, perhaps, that 
 " amongst the blind a one-eyed man is king." 
 
 I had begun my education young, full of ardour, and 
 imagining that the most brilliant prospects lay before 
 me. But after five years of elementary instruction had 
 sufficiently lowered the tone of my mind, such was the 
 confusion surging up in my memory of chemical terms, 
 geography, natural science, Latin, Greek, mythology, 
 nouns proper, dates, rules, and even German, which 
 Monsieur Laperche taught after the same method as 
 his Greek such was the muddle in my head, that I 
 could not tell either what I did know or what I didn't 
 know. 
 
 I mistook words for things ! After having recited
 
 160 The College- Life of Maitre NaUot. 
 
 like a parrot the list of simple bodies, I thought I 
 knew them ; after repeating by rote a chapter of 
 physics, I believed myself as great a savant as Ampere, 
 Arago, or Gay-Lussac. And yet I had neither seen 
 what I talked about nor worked at one single ex- 
 periment. 
 
 Greek and Latin were treated in the same way ; and 
 when they talked to me of the beauty of an ode of 
 Horace, of a passage of Homer, of an oration of De- 
 mosthenes, I thought it was all a bad joke, and that 
 nothing could be more tedious and uninteresting. It 
 was my opinion that all those old writers wrote rubbish, 
 and that they tacked on words to words by the rules of 
 syntax, exactly as Monsieur Gradus did. Bossuet, 
 Corneille, Racine, and Boileau seemed to me no better. 
 Their very masterpieces made me break out in a cold 
 perspiration. All my schoolfellows viewed things in 
 the same light. But what could we do ? We wanted 
 to get our Bachelor's degree, and have done with it. 
 So we tried to look convinced, just as those unfortuuate 
 cures are obliged to do who are compelled for bread to 
 give their assent to mysteries and false creeds. Weari- 
 ness and discouragement laid hold of us all. Is this 
 the way to develop the taste and the appreciation of 
 youth for the beautiful and the true ? Is this the way 
 to inspire them with a love for modem literature, and 
 an admiration of the great poets and philosophers of 
 old? 
 
 In a word, we had been stupefied. And since we are 
 upon that topic, I maintain that a large proportion of 
 the young men who leave our colleges are no better ; 
 they have lost the free exercise of their rational faculties, 
 and they require two or three years of active life to
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 161 
 
 recover their proper tone. Many never do get over it, 
 and remain machines all their lives. After bowing to 
 the opinion of the professors, they bow to the opinion 
 of the gazette. Amongst themselves they pay each 
 other the compliment of styling one another serious- 
 minded men correct thinkers. They denounce every 
 movement that has a tendency to progress, and pay 
 implicit obedience to formulas alone. Whatever dis- 
 turbs the order or sequence of their formulas is not to 
 be endured ; they won't hear of it. They thrust it from 
 them as unfit to be dealt with. 
 
 Worse yet, many young men lose more than their 
 common-sense ; they sacrifice that feeling of natural 
 dignity which belongs to every civilised man. I am 
 not alluding to the vices bred by constant isolation 
 from the outer world, in those close establishments 
 where there is no refreshing time for mingling with 
 others besides those you see daily about you, a weari- 
 ness which brings some of them to the level of the 
 solitary brutes. I rather mean the sentiment of justice 
 and liberty, the spirit required to stand up for one's 
 rights against all adversaries, at the same time that one 
 learns to respect the rights of others. I am. alluding 
 to that baseness and degradation which assume the 
 place of the native pride of every right-minclcd man, 
 when, unhappily, all the days of his youth he has 
 before his eyes the spectacle of unfair preferences 
 yielded to fortune, to the detriment and loss of labour 
 and talent. What can result from such a system but 
 moral and intellectual degradation ? 
 
 I am thankful to say that I have always had an 
 abhorrence of injustice. It is to this feeling that I owe 
 niy deliverance from utter degradation.
 
 162 The College- Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 In the fourth year of ray residence, being now in tht 
 second class, there happened during the winter a singulai 
 occurrence. 
 
 I was then fifteen. I had been some months ill ill 
 of ennui, pale, hollow-eyed, and as thin as a lath ; my 
 long brown hair fell in a tangled mass over my forehead ; 
 a light down was beginning to shade my cheeks and 
 upper lip. I was sinking. I needed all the stock ot 
 health and strength which I had drawn from my happy 
 life at home and in the fields to back me up against 
 the unwholesome influences of that college life. During 
 play-hours I lay half reclining on the form behind my 
 desk, gazing with lazy indifference upon the games of 
 the other boys. I looked on the dark side of every- 
 thing. 
 
 The year before my friend Goberlot had left for 
 Fribourg, from which he returned a good deal changed 
 for the worse. But this forms no part of my history, 
 and I will not repeat anything to an old comrade's 
 discredit. 
 
 I scarcely ever laughed. I said to myself, " What a 
 misery it is to be living in this world ! What a mob 
 of Canards, of Graduses, and of Laperches beset us on 
 every side ! Life is a melancholy thing. What lies 
 are forced down our throats for truths ! Oh ! why are 
 we condemned to such a heap of miseries, without 
 knowing how or why ? Of what crime have we been 
 guilty that we were made out of the dust, in which we 
 lay so still ?" 
 
 There was no comfort in thoughts like these, but for 
 a long time I had been brooding over them ; and my 
 thoughts upon the providence of God made me more 
 unhappy still. I trembled and wept without any cause ;
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 163 
 
 I Lad become as weak as a girl. It was rudiments and 
 lists of words, and cramming, and injustice which had 
 reduced me to this state. 
 
 The flashes of good sense which from time to time 
 passed across my mind brought no comfort with them 
 at all. 
 
 Now at that critical time there were three or four big 
 fellows of eighteen to twenty, who had indulged them- 
 selves in the bad habit of annoying, and even beating, 
 the small boys, when the poor little creatures did not 
 choose to put up with their ill-usage with a good 
 grace. They were, of course, fils de bonne faniille 
 who sought amusement in this way, instead of prepar- 
 ing for their degree. But they had the advantage of 
 being taught by private tutors, and they were sure to 
 pass. 
 
 Bastien, the outdoor warden, shut his eyes upon 
 these proceedings ; and so those tyrants had an easy 
 life of it. 
 
 The most persistent of those ill-conditioned fellows 
 was Monsieur Charles Balet, the son of the Advocate 
 Balet of Saarbourg an indolent rascal, a drunkard, an 
 utterly good-for-nothing vagabond, whose vices did but 
 grow from day to day until, as life went on, having 
 ruined himself utterly, he became a vagrant tinker, 
 leading his skinny donkey by the bridle, and thrashing 
 his poor wife as if she had no feeling. All the country 
 round knows him. 
 
 But at that time he was rich ; he played vulgar 
 practical jokes, and put no restraint upon his insolence 
 and his brutality towards little boys who were unable 
 to resist him. 
 
 One evening, during one of the sharpest frosts of
 
 164 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 January, all the pupils were in the schoolroom, some 
 playing at main chaude, some at ninepins, others were 
 conversing round the stove, when all at once a loud 
 burst of laughter was heard. 
 
 Monsieur Charles Balet had just played a practical 
 joke upon one of the little ones, Lucien Marchal, a good 
 little boy of ten or eleven, remarkable for his gentleness 
 and his quietness, and even for a certain dreaminess, as 
 it sometimes happens with children who are for the first 
 time removed from their parents, and kept locked in 
 like malefactors. 
 
 Monsieur Charles Balet had just dragged at the little 
 fellow's inner clothing through a hole, and this was the 
 explanation of all that outbreak of merriment. 
 
 Little Marchal, red with shame, was putting back his 
 dress in all haste, when Charles Balet, encouraged by 
 the success of his first exploit, again pulled it out with 
 increased rudeness and violence, so that the rent was 
 becoming wider at every tug ; and Marchal, in the 
 mids-t of that mocking crowd, having no defender, burst 
 into tears. 
 
 From behind my desk I saw all this ; I felt my nerves 
 quivering with indignation. For a long time I had 
 borne a deep ill-will against that bully, who nevertheless 
 had never ventured upon attacking me, no doubt con- 
 cluding that if he did, although he was much taller and 
 stronger, the attempt might not be unaccompanied with 
 danger to his precious person, and danger was what ho 
 was always averse to. 
 
 And in mj own heart, aware that I was the weaker 
 of the two, I hesitated ; but the cries of poor Marchal 
 confirmed in me a settled purpose. 
 
 " I say, Balet," I cried out in a loud voice, " I will
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 165 
 
 thank you to stop that sort of joking. I tell you, you 
 shall not worry those little fellows any longer." 
 
 Amazed at niy audacity, the bully turned sharp round, 
 and glared at me from head to foot, in utter astonish- 
 nient that a Nabot, as he called me, should dare to call 
 his authority in question. 
 
 All the others, not less surprised, stood mute with 
 expectation, gazing and listening. 
 
 Feeling certain that a battle must be fought, I calmly 
 left my place at the desk, and resolved that if the great 
 bully should get victory, I would make him pay dearly for it. 
 
 First he turned red, then he turned pale. 
 
 " You won't let me !" he shouted, grinning at me 
 " you won't let me ! And who are you ?" 
 
 I coldly replied, but with teeth and lips tightly com 
 pressed 
 
 " No, I shall not allow you to bully the little ones." 
 
 Then he lifted his hand, but in a moment my pent- 
 up rage had its fill of satisfaction ; at a bound I was at 
 his throat like a tiger, with my nails fast clenched 
 behind his ears. 
 
 He howled with pain and rage. 
 
 At the same moment all the other fellows, especially 
 the little ones, delighted at the punishment their tyrant 
 was receiving, cried enthusiastically 
 
 " Well done, Nablot ! well done !" 
 
 But I needed no encouragement. The big brute 
 struck me on the face with both his fists, and made the 
 blood fly from my nose, but I never let go. I clutched 
 him, my nails went into his flesh deeper and deeper, 
 and I was laughing with delight, and kicking the 
 fellow's shins with all my might, and with such rage 
 and fury that presently he shouted out
 
 166 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 " Help ! help ! lie is throttling me !" 
 
 Not a boy moved a finger. 
 
 " Aha ! you big coward," I cried, redoubling my blows 
 "you are frightened, are you?" 
 
 And the thunders of applause, and the cries ot 
 " Bravo, Nablot ! well done, Nablot !" at last reached 
 the ears of the outdoor warden, who heard them from 
 the corridor, and of monsieur le principal, who heard 
 them from his study. 
 
 All at once the door burst open, and Monsieur Rufin, 
 Monsieur Wolframm, Canard, and Miston appeared at 
 the door of the schoolroom. 
 
 Balet, seeing help at hand, redoubled his blows upon 
 my face ; but he was staggering, he was suffocating, 
 and tears were running from his starting eyes, when I 
 was seized upon from all sides at once, and pulled from 
 my adversary. 
 
 "Monsieur Nablot, you are expelled!" cried the 
 principal " you are expelled ! What! in your position, 
 to maltreat Monsieur Balet ! it is abominable !" 
 
 I could hear nothing, and whilst they were pulling 
 me by the arms and by my collar to carry me away, I 
 cried to the bully, with a loud laugh 
 
 " Now, you big coward, there's a lesson for you ! you'll 
 know now that you mustn't worry the little boys. 
 Look out for yourself!" 
 
 And as he was for a moment regaining confidence, 
 seeing me held fast, and approaching me with a menacing 
 gesture, I shook off my captors with a violent effort, 
 sprang at the scoundrel, struck him on the face, and 
 spat on : t. 
 
 Then the principal, with great indignation, ordered 
 the bystanders to lay hold of me, and carry me to the cells.
 
 The College- Life of Maitre Nablot. 167 
 
 The prison windows were broken; only the bars 
 remained. The cold and the wind, the rain and the 
 snow, penetrated by turns into this dark and narrow 
 dungeon, where a ray of the sun was a very rare visitor. 
 There I was left upon the cold stones, and never moved 
 for four hours, while the blood was freezing upon my 
 face. I heard the bell ring for supper, then for play- 
 time, then for bed. 
 
 Everybody had been in bed more than an hour, and 
 it was freezing hard, when I heard a distant step in the 
 corridor. A key clinked in the door. It was the 
 principal, who alone seems to have remembered me. 
 Canard, Miston, Father Dominique, Father Vandenberg 
 had forgotten me, or perhaps they considered me un- 
 worthy to live, after such a monstrous crime as thrash- 
 ing Monsieiir Balet, the son of the richest lawyer in 
 Saarbourg. 
 
 Monsieur Rufin was holding his caudle, and keeping 
 it from the wind with one hand. He said 
 
 " Eise go to bed. I have sent to inform your father 
 he will come and fetch you away to-morrow." 
 
 I rose without a word of reply, and went up the long 
 dark staircase. In passing the lavatory I washed niy 
 bloodstained and bedabbled face, and then got into bed, 
 thankful to know that I should so soon be delivered 
 from this prison where I had suffered so much. The 
 thought was so delightful that I could not help laugh- 
 ing in bed. 
 
 I kept turning over in my mind the words, " In your 
 position, to strike Monsieur Balet !" "What could be 
 the meaning of that ? 
 
 At daybreak I was still fast asleep. Vandenberg's 
 ell had not awoke me ; and as my schoolfellows knew
 
 168 The College-Life of Mattre Nablot. 
 
 that I was expelled, and my face was black and blue, 
 and I was still asleep, nobody thought it worth while 
 to awake me. Monsieur Wolframm never gave a 
 thought to me. 
 
 I did not awaue until ten, and then I lay alone in the 
 great deserted dormitory, the windows of which were 
 white whn frost. The bell was ringing for school. I 
 rose in a most determined frame of mind. I washed, 
 and while I was dressing, seated upon my bed, and 
 feeling cheered at the prospect of liberty, and the effect 
 of the bright crisp-looking snow-light outside, I gave 
 way to my rising spirits, and began to whistle like a 
 blackbird. I was sick of canting hypocrites, aud come 
 what might, what could be worse than that degrading 
 state of existence called college-life ? and I thought 
 within myself 
 
 " I will be my father's clerk, I will work in the office, 
 until I am old enough to begin to serve my time." 
 
 My ideas became clearer and clearer in my mind, and I 
 was forming my resolutions in the most cheerful spirit, 
 when the door opened at the end of the long dormitory, 
 and there appeared Monsieur Canard in a coloured 
 neck-handkerchief, and a queer little cap over his left 
 ear, crying to me with a sneer 
 
 " Surely, Monsieur Nablot, you are not going to 
 leave us ? Your papa is downstairs waiting for you." 
 
 As I supposed my connection with this college was 
 now cut, I answered him snuffling through my nose just 
 with his own peculiar twang 
 
 " Presently, Monsieur Canard, presently." 
 
 He started back, much offended. 
 
 " Who gave you leave, sir, to mimic me ? You're a 
 cad."
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 169 
 
 " And you, Monsieur Canard, you are a cheat and a 
 toady ; for four years you have given mo nothing but 
 crumb, because my father didn't tip you to your 
 satisfaction." 
 
 Then he turned crimson, and as ho stood undecided 
 what to say or do, I passed him slowly, and went down- 
 stairs. 
 
 From the principal's room I could hear my father's 
 voice, and I knocked. 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 There stood my father indeed. Seeing me enter the 
 room with my face disfigured and all discoloured, he 
 Avas deeply affected, and in spite of the pain and 
 anxiety 1 had given him, he kissed me tenderly. 
 
 " My poor lad," said he, " how could you GO ill-treat 
 a schoolfellow ?--Yct it is not your way," 
 
 " Monsieur Nablot," interrupted the principal, " you 
 ire quite mistaken ; your son is an unmanageable boy. 
 He has the worst of tempers." 
 
 " That big Balct is three years older than I im," I 
 then replied. " For a long time he has been in the 
 habit of bullying the little boys. I told him I would 
 not stand it, and it was he who began. Ask anybody 
 you like if he did not begin." 
 
 " Monsieur Balet," said the principal, " is now iu 
 hospital. You beat him most infamously ; his legs are 
 black with bruises. You wanted to strangle him. You 
 are a violent and outrageous character." 
 
 "I have never hurt any one before," I replied, " but 
 I will not stand an insult. Balet thought I was the 
 weaker ; he was very much mistaken ! All the boys 
 were on my side ; ask them what took place. You 
 inust ask them, and not Balet, nor Monsieur Wolframm,
 
 170 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 who was not present. Send for all the little fellows. 
 Ask them ; you will soon see who was in the right ! " 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and my father, with 
 a trembling voice, said to me 
 
 " Listen, iny dear boy. I have interceded for you. 
 It is a disgrace it is the greatest possible disgrace 
 to be expelled from college. It sticks to a man through 
 life ! I have just begged of monsieur le principal to 
 forgive you, and he has yielded upon one condition, 
 and that is that you will apologise to Monsieur Balet, 
 who is one of the oldest boys at school one " 
 
 "Never!" I abruptly broke in, "never! When I 
 am in the right, I never make apologies. It would be 
 a disgraceful and mean act. You have always taught 
 me that it is better to bear anything rather than to do 
 a mean act !" 
 
 " You hear that ?" said the principal. 
 
 My father turned pale with grief and agitation. 
 He looked upon me a few seconds, his eyes filled with 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, Jean Paul !" he whispered to me. Then, turn- 
 ing round to the principal, he said in a hoarse voice, 
 " I will make the apology for him, monsieur le princi- 
 pal, if you will allow me." 
 
 Hearing this, I took up my cap off the chair, and 
 rushed out with my heart too full for utterance. The 
 principal cried out to me from his room 
 
 " Return to your place in the schoolroom ; for the 
 sake of the good man whose son you are, I will consent 
 to receive you still." 
 
 I stood for a couple of seconds in the anteroom, ask- 
 ing myself whether I should accept the proffered grace. 
 Never had I reflected so rapidly. Thoughts passed
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 171 
 
 through me like flashes of lightning. My love for my 
 father at last decided me. 
 
 " I will go on to the end of this year," I said, " and 
 then it will all be over. I have had enough and too 
 much of it." 
 
 And then, with a slower pace, crossing the court, I 
 re-entered the schoolroom. 
 
 All eyes were lifted. 
 
 I passed by the stove, stepped over my desk, and 
 took my seat. Monsieur Wolfraniin approached softly 
 as if to inquire ; but before he could speak, I said to 
 him in a low voice 
 
 " I have returned by order of the principal." 
 
 At the same moment my father and Monsieur Rufin 
 passed through the court before the windows without 
 stopping. The assistant master returned to his seat, 
 and I set quietly about my exercise as if nothing had 
 happened, until the bell rang for dinner. 
 
 Everything went on as usual. Nobody alluded to 
 the past. 
 
 In another week old Balet came and sat in his place 
 again. Sometimes, when I lifted my eyes, I caught his 
 watching me ; but he immediately looked in another 
 direction. He was still a nuisance to the small boys ; 
 but his prestige was gone. Some of the other big boys 
 took the part of the little ones, and kept him down 
 somewhat. 
 
 I became gloomier than I had been before these 
 occurrences. I felt deeply humbled that my father had 
 made apologies for me. Every time I thought of it 
 my blood boiled. It seemed unnatural ; and, if the 
 truth must be told, I felt angry with him. 
 
 Things went on in this unsatisfactory way until the
 
 172 The College-Life of Maitre Naltot. 
 
 end of the year. My schoolfellows stood aloof from 
 me to some extent ; but I cared very little, for their 
 friendship ; for since the departure of Goberlot I had 
 not cared to make any new friends. My studies inte- 
 rested me less and less. At last, as before, the holi- 
 days came round again. I did not get a single prize. 
 This time my disgust seemed incurable, and I felt 
 resolutely bent on not returning. 
 
 V. 
 
 THAT year the holidays were melancholy enough. I 
 had resolved not to return to college, and yet I dared 
 not tell my parents, knowing how grieved they would be. 
 
 Instead of walking, as I used to do formerly, in the 
 woods and the valleys in their beautiful autumnal dress 
 instead of bathing under the overhanging beeches, 
 and fishing beneath the great rocks, which used to 
 revive my spirits and refresh my body, I stayed moodily 
 at home. 
 
 There was no more pleasure in our pretty garden oil 
 the slope of the hill no more pride in its fruit walls 
 covered with espaliers its little arbour embowered in 
 vine, and sweet peas, and honeysuckle, and hop. I 
 gazed with a vacant eye upon the great beds of goose- 
 berries and raspberries, where my father and Babelo 
 used to be so busy gathering the ripe rich fruit. The 
 big golden pears, and the heavy crops of rosy apples, 
 bending down with their weight the branches of the old 
 orchard trees all these seemed to have nothing to say 
 to me. 
 
 I could hear my brothers' and sisters' loud cries of 
 joy in the street, as the heavily -laden waggons passed
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 173 
 
 from the field to the barn ; but I did not even look out 
 of the window ; and for long days I used to sit in the 
 office by the side of Monsieur Pierron, a nice old clerk, 
 grave and quiet, and rather eccentric, as lawyers' clerks 
 generally are, and fond of seeing everything in the 
 most methodical order his pen at his right hand, close 
 by the inkstand, his great birch-bark snuff-box at his 
 left just under his hand, so that he might never have 
 to look for anything, or to think more than was 
 necessary. 
 
 I used to see parties of peasant men and women, five 
 or six at a time, the women in dirty old gowns and 
 flannel petticoats, the men in blue smocks, looking care- 
 worn and suspicious, eyeing one another stealthily. I 
 used to see these unpleasant-looking folks come and 
 try to carry out their quarrels under our eyes over 
 their conditions of sale, or their leases. They would 
 try to overreach each other by the most transparent 
 and ridiculous devices, sci'atching their rough heads, or 
 laying their hands on their stomachs instead of their 
 hearts, to attest the truth of their statements ! 
 
 And my father was generally obliged to explain at 
 full length, point after point, just what they wanted, 
 for they were not always confident themselves as to 
 that; then what they could do legally, for on that 
 matter they were quite in the dark, and they thought 
 everything was fair, and everything allowed, even to 
 conspiring together against the public peace. 
 
 Their wicked intentions were often clearly written 
 upon their ill-favoured countenances, and manifested in 
 their words and their gestures. I used to feel angry 
 with them. My father often had some difficulty, too, 
 to contain himself; but he was advancing in years, and
 
 174 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 he found the maintenance and education of his family 
 a great expense, and heavy to meet ; and very often 
 Avhen these faithless and untrustworthy creatures could 
 not be brought to terms with each other, and it all 
 seemed over, he would go over the whole thing again 
 with the most admirable patience, and at last succeeded 
 by the mere power of his good sense, justice, and up- 
 rightness in bringing them to one mind, and getting 
 them to sign an amicable agreement. 
 
 Such is the life of a village notary ! Some might 
 imagine that he would not require to know so much as 
 town lawyers ; but that is a great mistake. In town 
 you have barristers and solicitors, land surveyors and 
 builders, experienced men in every profession, who can 
 enlighten you, and help you out of your difficulties. 
 But in the country the village lawyer has to be every- 
 thing, to do everything. He has only his own resources 
 to depend upon. In the town every man knows what 
 he wants, how he wants it, and what conditions he is 
 subject to ; but, for the most part, the peasants know 
 nothing about it. 
 
 Towards the end of the holidays my aversion to 
 returning to college became overwhelming, and I was 
 the more to be pitied because I felt I had not the 
 courage to refuse openly. No, no ; I dared not inflict 
 such suffering upon my loving parents, whose best 
 earthly hopes centred in me. 
 
 But at the end of the holidays I broke out. My 
 resolution burst from me unexpectedly. It was morn- 
 ing, before the appearance of our old clerk. I was 
 already sitting in my accustomed place in the study, 
 with my arm upon the window-seat, and dreamily 
 mourning over my fate. My poor father, who was
 
 7he College-Life of Mailre Nablot. 175 
 
 busy over a deed which he had been studying up to the 
 midnight before, was paying no attention to me ; he 
 was quite absorbed, when I suddenly exclaimed 
 
 " Sooner than return to that college, I'll go and 
 drown myself!" 
 
 The poor man turned round in surprise. He gazed 
 upon me a few seconds, pale with agitation ; then 
 raising a voice that trembled with alarm and fear, he 
 said 
 
 " Is this the return I deserve for so many years of 
 labour ? There go all my hopes ! And must I hear 
 this from a son in whom I had put all my trust ? I 
 have loved him too much !" He threw down his pen 
 in despair. " Yes, I have loved him too much. Per- 
 haps I have wronged his brothers. This is my 
 punishment." 
 
 He began to pace the room with agitated steps. 
 His words lacerated my heart. I felt that he was 
 right, and I was not making him a proper return for 
 his affection. I was unworthy of it, and I hung my 
 head down with shame and contrition. 
 
 " Well ! and what do you mean to do ?." said he, 
 after a painful pause, sitting down again, downcast and 
 distressed. "What shall you do for your living? 
 Everybody must work in this life." 
 
 " Whatever you like," I replied ; " make me a shoe- 
 maker, or a baker, or a tailor. I had rather do anything 
 than go back to Latin again." 
 
 At this moment my mother entered, and my father 
 said to her, in a voice choking with emotion 
 
 " Here is Jean Paul refusing to return to college !" 
 
 " No, no," I cried, " I have had enough of it ; I ain 
 only a fool ; I am always the last. The professors
 
 176 The College-Life of Maitre Nalkt. 
 
 always put me in the tail of the class, and, in spite of 
 all my work, I cannot get any forwarder. You were 
 mistaken about me ; you thought I had good abilities, 
 but I have not. I am good enough for a trade, but for 
 nothing else, and that is the truth." 
 
 " Who told you that ?" said my father, more and 
 more excited. 
 
 " I say so." 
 
 " Well," said he, " you are quite under a mistake. 
 You don't know the reason why you never got any 
 prizes, whilst you deserved them all ? Must I tell you 
 now ? It was because I " and he struck his breast 
 " I had not enough money to pay the whole of your 
 fees. From the first year I have only paid half ; you 
 have been excused the rest." 
 
 His voice failed, and he was unable to continue. 
 
 " I was obliged to educate and place your brothers 
 and sisters," he resumed with difficulty ; " I could not 
 do everything for you alone, and forget my other 
 children. I am not rich, and there are five of you." 
 
 He kept pacing the room, and hid his face in his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " That was the agreement with the principal. At 
 the end of the first year he said to me, ' Your son, by 
 virtue of his exercises, should have carried oft' all the 
 prizes, but his class would have been discouraged ; 
 besides, he works too easily, and his schoolfellows work 
 harder than he does.' And then when I asked time for 
 payment for the second half-year which I had been 
 unable to collect at once, having placed your sister 
 Marie Eeine at Molsheim in that year he said to me, 
 ' Df n't mention that. I know how you are situated. 
 Your family is large, so 1'Abbe Hugues told me. Your
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 177 
 
 son does you honour, but I hope you will not insist 
 upon his being crowned ; let it satisfy you to know that 
 he merits that distinction. There are in the same class 
 with himself sons of my own personal friends, and 
 these young people must be encouraged to work.' " 
 
 His agitation increased, and he wept as he said 
 
 " That has been all along the state of matters, as I 
 have never paid more than half-terms for you. I would 
 not tell you so ; I was determined that I would bear 
 that humiliation alone." 
 
 Then, seeing my father's tears and his great distress, 
 I rose from my seat, and cried 
 
 " My dear father, will you forgive me ? I will do 
 all that you wish. I will never again make such a 
 request." 
 
 He received me in his arms, and said with inexpres- 
 sible tenderness, gazing into my face 
 
 " Courage, my boy ! take courage ! Many worse 
 misfortunes may happen to you than the present. But 
 remember that the worst misfortune that can befall you, 
 though not an irreparable one, is failure in the per- 
 formance of your duty. I forgive you with all my 
 heart. And now ask your mother, too, to forgive you, 
 for she knew nothing about this cither, and you have 
 compelled me to disclose in her presence the fact I 
 wished to conceal from her that we are indebted to 
 strangers for half your education." 
 
 I knelt before my mother, who was weeping with her 
 face hidden between her hands ; she kissed me, and as 
 we seemed scarcely recovering yet from our emotion, 
 my father said, " Pierroii will soon bo here. Let us go 
 into the dining-rooni." We went out. 
 
 " At what time shall we start, father ?" said I.
 
 178 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 " Directly after breakfast, Jean Paul. I have told 
 Nicolas to put the horse to. At four o'clock I must be 
 home, for the Didiers have promised to come this even- 
 ing and sign their deed. Pierron is going to \vrite out 
 the fair copy." 
 
 " And your boxes are ready," said my good mother ; 
 " they are packed and corded." 
 
 Then, whatever might happen, even if my disgust 
 had been ten times greater, I should have considered 
 myself disgraced if I had made the smallest objection. 
 On the contrary, I was in a hurry to begin work, and to 
 have done with my last two years at college ; but I 
 would go through them bravely, not reckoning on prizes, 
 but quite determined on the next best thing, to deserve 
 them. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THAT year I got a little study to myself, looking out, 
 like all the others, upon the inner court ; it was an old 
 monk's cell, whitewashed, furnished with a small bed, 
 a chair, and a deal table. 
 
 I was now sixteen, and was placed in the class of the 
 older boys. I was more comfortable now ; I could 
 work a little independently at nights, and study my 
 lessons with more care. All this was satisfactory. 
 
 Moreover I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted 
 with a professor worthy of that name, for all the rest 
 at our college were mere routine men, who carried on 
 their trade of teaching just as shoes and stockings are 
 made, working always on the same lasts, and by the 
 same patterns a work which does not require much 
 thought.
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Ndblot. 179 
 
 Since my arrival at Saarstadt I had frequently seen 
 Monsieur Perrot crossing the court to his class-room, 
 morning and evening, with a limping step, and his hat 
 thrown back. He had nothing of the elegant de- 
 meanour of Monsieur Gradus, none of the majestic 
 conceit of Monsieur Laperche. He was lame in both 
 his legs, and had to walk with the help of a stick, some- 
 times in a rather laughable fashion, as he was hasten- 
 ing along to keep to his time. His shoulders were 
 unequal, his lips thick, his forehead high and bald. 
 Brass spectacles sat loosely upon his round and flat- 
 tened nose ; all his misshapen clothes seemed tossed on 
 him with a pitchfork, and hung uneasily upon him. In 
 fact, you could hardly set your eyes on a more un- 
 fashionable man. 
 
 But Monsieur Perrot had that which was altogether 
 wanting in his colleagues. He was an excellent Greek, 
 Latin, and French scholar. He was a well-lettered 
 man in the full meaning of the word ; and more than 
 this, he possessed the rare talent for communicating 
 both his knowledge and his love of learning to his 
 pupils, whom he loved sincerely and unaffectedly in 
 proportion as he found in them the love of study and 
 amiable natural dispositions. 
 
 I shall never forget his first lecture in rhetoric that 
 term, and my astonishment when, instead of beginning 
 at once to correct the bad grammar in our holiday 
 exercises, he quietly bundled all that heap of exercises 
 into his hinder pockets, saying to us 
 
 " Ah ! that will do. That's ancient history by this 
 time. Let us come to something more modern." 
 
 There were fifteen of us seated there in the long and 
 still half-deserted class-room ; our backs were to the
 
 180 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 windows at the end of the room, and he sat before us 
 upon a chair which he had placed not far from the 
 stove. First he took off one of his boots, which seemed 
 to trouble him, rubbed the place, put on his boot again 
 in a dreamy way, and then commenced 
 
 " Gentlemen, you will take notes of my lectures. 
 You will write out an abridgment of my course. This 
 is the only effectual way to impress things upon your 
 memory. You will leave wide margins in your note- 
 books, and in these margins you will briefly set down 
 the headings of the chapters, with short hints referring 
 to the matter contained opposite. Eunning your eye 
 down these headings, you will get at a glance a clear 
 idea of the subject-matter of the chapter before you ; 
 and if this is not always sufficient to recall the details 
 to your mind, why, then you will carefully re-peruse 
 that portion of the text. 
 
 " Use your time, gentlemen, to the best advantage. 
 As for me, I will spare no pains to form a good rhetoric 
 class. And rhetoric, or composition, remember, will 
 always be xiseful to you, into whatever profession you 
 may by-and-by enter. For though there are not many 
 who leave this college who are destined to become 
 authors, poets, and professional men of letters, yet you 
 will always find it useful to be able to take an enlight- 
 ened view of any literary work. This will contribute, 
 in the first place, to the development of your intelli- 
 gence, and in the next, to your appreciation of the 
 more serious and durable enjoyments of our life." 
 
 Such were the opening observations of this good 
 and sensible man made with a simplicity which took 
 me by surprise ; for until that time I had never met 
 with any professors but bunglers and helpless im
 
 The College-Life of Matire Nablot. 181 
 
 beciles, puffed up with conceit of their grammatical 
 Anowledge, whilst Monsieur Perrot spoke of the 
 straightforward reading of Greek and Latin authors 
 as a very simple thing. To me this seemed an im- 
 possible feat, being stiffly crusted over with the hard 
 shells left upon ine by four primers, which, far from 
 helping me in any difficulty whatever, confounded me 
 more and more. But I soon learnt to acknowledge 
 that under a real master difficulties vanish away like 
 smoke. 
 
 That year of composition, and the following year of 
 philosophy, were the only good time I had during my 
 college-life. It was a period of awakening after a long 
 and dismal nightmare. It was the season in which 
 a world of new and beautiful ideas seemed to 
 burst into life in my mind. Mental health returned ^ 
 iny nausea and disgust departed ; for I had now a 
 master who loved me, and I felt it and knew it. 
 
 What had I wanted all the previous time but a little 
 affection, a little visible interest, to give myself Avholly 
 to my work with all my heart ? But until then I htid 
 only met with cold, grasping creatures, flatterers to the 
 rich, and hard upon the poor. Yes, this is but too true. 
 Even now my indignation has scarcely cooled, after a 
 lapse of four-and-thirty years. I tingle to this day to 
 the very tips of my fingers. 
 
 Monsieur Perrot was really fond of his pupils. In 
 the depth of those severe winters, in the play-hour, 
 when the wind was howling through the long cloisters, 
 and the snow accumulating against the frosted panes, 
 and everybody was shivering along the corridors, ho 
 would come stumbling along in the evening upon his 
 poor weak legs ; he would prop himself up on a couple
 
 182 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 of big boys, and stir up the spirits of us all, singing 
 like one of us big boys that popular old glee, " Frere 
 Jacques, dorinez-vous ?" or else " Malbrouck s'en va-t-en 
 guerre! mironton, mironton, mirontain-e," and soon 
 the old convent was in a roar of merriment, and we 
 laughed as happy boys alone can laugh, till old Van- 
 denberg's bell sent us all off to bed. 
 
 At class-time we discoursed on the orations, the 
 speeches of the great men of Athens and of Rome. We 
 .compared Demosthenes the thunderer with Cicero the 
 Apathetic; the funeral oration spoken by Pericles in 
 Thucydides' history over the warriors who fell in the 
 : Peloponnesian war, with that delivered by Bossuet over 
 :the great Conde. We debated, we almost fought, so 
 ; great was our excitement, so deep our interest in the; 
 .utterances of those giants of old. Now it was Masse,' 
 now Scheffler, or Nablot, who maintained from the deskj 
 the superiority of this or that masterpiece against the 
 attack of his comrades. Monsieur Perrot, seated in 
 the midst, with his spectacles pushed up on his fore- 
 head, and his nose snuffing the battle, stimulated and 
 excited first one, then the other ; and when by chance 
 one of us made a palpable hit, struck out a novel argu- 
 ment, or threw out a crushing reply, he would spring 
 from his seat in a laughable tumult of enthusiasm, and 
 hobble along, limping and stumbling against the desks, 
 and uttering exclamations of delight. 
 
 At last, when the bell gave the signal to finish and 
 close the discussion, our good master summed up, and 
 all the class became unanimous in their praises of those 
 ancients, and agreed that they at least knew well the 
 art of writing and of speaking. The climaxes of De- 
 mosthenes, and the perorations of Cicero, especially won
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 183 
 
 our approbation, and we felt we should nave been 
 happy to have been allowed to be present at those 
 great assemblies, where the whole body of citizens 
 were listening from one end of the vast open space to 
 the other, crowding even the terraced roofs to listen to 
 the formidable orators standing face to face in mortal 
 conflict on the war with Philip, or discussing the 
 agrarian laws, the arrest of the Gracchi, and other 
 stirring controversies upon the great events of 
 antiquity. 
 
 The second part of our rhetoric course, after Easter, 
 was more interesting still, consisting of lectures on the 
 drama. Now Monsieur Perrot introduced us to the 
 Greek theatre, which was far more grand and imposing 
 than ours, being laid under the open sky, with all the 
 advantages of the accompaniments of natural scenery, 
 during the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, or 
 the Panathensea, in the presence of the multitudes who 
 had met together from the Ionian Islands, from Crete, 
 and the Asiatic colonies. 
 
 Before these vast assemblies were given representa- 
 tions of the BacchsD, the Supplices, (Edipus Rex, or 
 Hecuba, amidst the applause of the enraptured multi- 
 tude. The voice of the actors was carried to a greater 
 distance by great mouths of bronze. The choruses, 
 composed of women in white robes of linen, sang be- 
 tween the parts of hope, of enthusiasm, of fear ; and 
 sometimes they chanted invocations to the infernal 
 gods, or to fate. The play was acted out in the pre- 
 sence of all those thousands from all parts of Greece, 
 and tlie deep interest of tho crowd was in itself an 
 important part of the scene. 
 
 As for the comedies, they were played with a less
 
 184 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 imposing show in the agora or market-place, where the 
 spectators laughed at their ease. 
 
 There, too, Socrates showed himself in public, 
 amongst the tradesmen's stalls. Sometimes he would 
 add i r-B3 himself to a shoemaker, sometimes to a fish- 
 monger, sometimes to a market-keeper, raising a laugh 
 at their expense. He was a formidable rival to the 
 comedians, Monsieur Perrot informed us, on account of 
 which the writers of comedies conspired against him : 
 the sophist Auytus, the public orator Lycon, the 
 wretched poet Melitus, men with whom a poet of Aris- 
 tophanes' genius should never have leagued himself. 
 
 At the same time we learnt the laws of the Greek 
 accents, hexameters and iambics, Greek dialects, and all 
 these without any extraordinary difficulty, because now 
 we had a master who taught nothing but what he knew 
 himself. 
 
 "We still had time to read a few passages of Thucy- 
 dides' History of ilia Peloponnesutn War, the Hist or >/ nf 
 Masinissa from -Polylius, and the opening chapters of 
 the Annals of Tacitus. 
 
 Well, we made rapid progress ; and, strangest of all, 
 instead of being the last in the class, as under my late 
 masters, I was now at its head. It is true that Mon- 
 sieur Perrot now and then had to find fault with me for 
 an occasional barbarism in words or solecism in lan- 
 guage in my Latin exercises ; there were false quanti- 
 ties in the verses which I compounded with liberal 
 subsidies from my dictionary and my Gradus ad Par- 
 nassum. But he always maintained that I had a better 
 knowledge of the language than any of my school- 
 fellows; and as for French, I will say nothing upon 
 that score. They all held me to be a young Cicero. I
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Ndblot. 185 
 
 am thankful to say I had the good sense not to believe 
 them ! 
 
 Now, about that time, Monsieur Perrot, who was 
 very fond of reading our modern authors, having one 
 day accidentally left behind him in the school-room a 
 small volume bound in red morocco, I read it by the 
 light of my lamp. It was Les Orientales of Victor 
 Hugo, with his odes and ballads, which fairly drove me 
 into a frenzy of enthusiasm. I had never seen anything 
 like this before. That vivid and, luminous style in 
 painting the scenes of Eastern life, the originality of 
 that brilliant writer's genius, the picturesque descrip- 
 tions of life in the Middle Ages, astonished and de- 
 lighted me. 
 
 All that I had read until then seemed dim and insipid 
 in comparison, and the next day I was seen running 
 through the corridors, and crying that Eacine, Boileau, 
 Corncille, and even Lafontaine were wretched poets ; 
 that they never had true poetic inspiration, and that 
 they must be pulled down from their eminence. 
 
 The little book passed from hand to hand, and 
 my schoolfellows all voted by acclamation that I was 
 right. 
 
 A couple of days after, Monsieur Perrot, having long 
 searched in vain for his Orientales, remembered that he 
 had left it in the class-room, and addressing himself 
 first to me 
 
 " Monsieur Nablot," said he, " have you perchance 
 found a little book of mine, bound in red morocco ?" 
 
 I turned very red, for just now it was in other hands, 
 I did not know whose. 
 
 " Here it is," cried Scheffler ; " Monsieur Nablot lent 
 it me."
 
 186 The College-Life of Matire Nablot. 
 
 " Thank you," said Monsieur Perrot, receiving it 
 back again. " I am glad you have read nearly all your 
 authors now; for after reading this you will wiite 
 nothing naturally again. Down to the year's end you 
 will see nothing but giaours glittering with jewels, and 
 decapitated heads stuck upon the tops of minarets, 
 talking to each other like philosophers in arm-chairs. 
 I know all about it," he cried ; " I am quite distressed 
 at my own carelessness. I suppose you have read the 
 book, Monsieur Nablot, and all you others ?" 
 
 " Tes, sir, we have." 
 
 " Ah ! I was sure of it." 
 
 And 1 obbling upon his stick up and down the room, 
 he broke into loud complaints 
 
 " Where is the sense of it all ? Did he get his style 
 from the Greeks ? Did he get it from the Romans ? 
 Has it any correspondence with the genius of the French 
 people? What school does he belong to? Tell me 
 that ! Tell me if you can." 
 
 As we made no reply, he cried 
 
 " He has it straight from the barbarous nations 
 from the Moors, the Arabs nay, from the Germans 
 perhaps ; it is so muddy ! Can even I tell what school 
 of thought and composition it belongs to ? It is all 
 mad stuff! You can't reduce it to any known rule ! It 
 is not poetry. It is painting and what sort of paint- 
 ing ? Red upon white white upon red ; no delicate 
 hues no shading ; sharp lines which pain the eyes, 
 like the shrill horns at the fair which deafen your ears ! 
 Antithesis upon antithesis adjective upon adjective. 
 Everything is for effect everything ! It is a mere play 
 of imagination. There is no excuse for him. He is a 
 young man his health is good he moves in the best
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 187 
 
 society he has "been through college. I positively 
 cannot understand it." 
 
 And stopping short 
 
 " Monsieur Nablot, you find all that very fine ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And you, Masse Scheffler all of you ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, very fine." 
 
 Then Monsieur Perrot, in high indignation, cried 
 
 " You are all apes, every one of you. What was the 
 use of my teaching you the rules of Aristotle and Quin- 
 tilian ? Do you really admire all that rubbish, Mon- 
 sieur Nablot ?" 
 
 He fixed his large eager eyes upon me. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I replied, with some feeling. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It is quite new to me. It is dazzling." 
 
 " But that is no reason," cried he. " Suppose the 
 inspector were to ask you questions, do you suppose 
 that you would satisfy him ? What would you say to 
 him?" 
 
 " I should say that if the Greeks had always followed 
 2Eschylus they would never have had Sophocles, and if 
 they had always imitated Sophocles they would not 
 have known Euripides." 
 
 " No, no, that won't do sit down," said Monsieur 
 Perrot; "you are tainted with sophistry. We will 
 now read again the Ars Poetica of Horace to re- 
 cover our scattered senses. For, gentlemen," said he, 
 uplifting his little book, " this is the invasion of tho 
 barbarians. We are assaulted on the south by the 
 Numidians, on the north by the Scandinavians. These 
 people are not governed by our rules. They have 
 scarcely even a history. We we trace our origin from
 
 188 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 the Latins, and through the Latins from the Greeks, 
 nations renowned for their strong good sense, and their 
 pure simplicity. All these romancers are not French- 
 men at all. They do but upset all our traditions. I 
 don't dispute their possession of talent and genius ; 
 but they have employed their talent and their genius 
 to fight us with our own weapons. But their time is 
 short. A Marius will arise, and the classic writers will 
 be avenged. Let us hope and believe that it will be 
 so. If Marius should not appear, the national genius 
 will be ruined !" 
 
 Poor Monsieur Perrot was really very much troubled. 
 The rout of the classic writers would have been in his 
 eyes a national calamity. 
 
 During the summer time he often accompanied us in 
 our walks, leaning upon my shoulder with one hand, 
 and upon his stick with the other. He trotted along 
 like a kid. The pleasure of being surrounded by his 
 pupils quite transformed him, and he even became 
 almost handsome. 
 
 I never saw a more childlike, ingenuous enthusiast. 
 
 Our usual walk was in the direction of the old saw- 
 pits ; and when we got into the woods, under the deep 
 shadow of the beeches and tall dark fir-trees, the valley 
 spreading far beneath us, with its broad meadows 
 stretching to the horizon, yellow with buttercups and 
 dandelions, and the silver thread of- the river winding 
 in and out beneath the long herbage and the dense 
 foliage of the trees, whilst we were accelerating our 
 pace to reach the forest-house, Monsieur Perrot made 
 grand speeches and apostrophised nature, and helped 
 us to raise our hearts to the Giver of all good. We 
 answered our best ; the little fellows gathered round
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 189 
 
 us and listened with admiration ; and the new assistant- 
 master, Bastien, an old pupil of Monsieur Perrot's, 
 joined in the conversation. 
 
 The song of the thrush, the mournful cooing of the 
 ring-dove amongst the forest-trees, the scream of a 
 hawk high in the air, often would bring us to a stand 
 for a moment or two, and with head bent back, and 
 shaded eyes, we gazed at the rapacious bird describing 
 in the sky his wide-sweeping and slowly-contracting 
 circles. 
 
 Then, having recovered our breath, we started off 
 again along the sandy road. Then passing at a slower 
 pace the little high -arched bridge, where the women, 
 loaded with their sacks of dead leaves, and the chil- 
 dren with their bundles, take a rest and a breathing- 
 time, a little further o a I a winding in the valley, we 
 discovered the sawpit inn. 
 
 There our professor had put out his bees to board 
 and lodge, for he was a lover of bees, of gardening, of 
 agriculture, and, in a word, everything that belongs to 
 rural life. 
 
 Here we ate a crust of bread under the arbour, and 
 drank a glass of beer. Monsieur Perrot sent for butter 
 and a plate of his own honey; and we looked upon 
 each other like philosophers, wise men, something very 
 much above the common herd 
 
 " Learning from the idle worldling's vacant face, 
 That fortune's gifts are not without their settled price." 
 
 Such are my remembrances of the Thursdays and 
 Sundays in those two happy years. 
 
 There is indeed a wide difference between one pro- 
 fessor and another. We can hardly be too grateful 
 to the learned and sympathising tutor, who hasbe-
 
 190 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 stowed upon us the best of his time, the matured 
 fruits of his experience, and his labour, to develop in us 
 some of the best gifts of God, looking for no recom- 
 pense but a kindly remembrance perhaps a regret 
 after he has quitted this earthly scene. There are such 
 deserving men to be found in our small colleges ; and 
 do you know what reward they receive after thirty or 
 forty years of unremitting service after so much 
 labour, and such sacrifices ? A pension of one thou- 
 sand or eleven hundred francs ! 
 
 After a couple of hours' stay at the little inn, when 
 the declining sun began to warn us that we had stayed 
 out long enough, we returned home to Saarstadt. 
 
 To bring my belles-lettres year to an end, I must tell 
 you that at the close of the year, thanks to Monsieur 
 Perrot's good offices, and notwithstanding the private 
 arrangement between the principal and my father, I 
 obtained all the first prizes of my class. 
 
 That year, I remember, monsieur le maire in his 
 address alluded to Marshal Villars, who declared that 
 none of his victories had given him more pleasure than 
 the first prizes he won at college. He also quoted 
 Vauvenargues, who said that " the first blush of morn- 
 ing dawn is not lovelier than the early dawn of fame." 
 I acknowledged the truth of these sayings at the 
 moment when, on my return home, my mother, niy 
 brothers, my sisters, Monsieur le Cure Hugues, our 
 good kind old Babelo, all whom I loved, waiting for me 
 at the door, took me in their arms with cries of joy 
 when they saw the char-u-bancs loaded with crowns. 
 
 That was a glorious day ! 
 
 All those happy holidays I was trotting right and 
 left in th.e mountains, setting bird-traps, snaring
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 191 
 
 thrushes, fly-fishing in the river. All my indisposition 
 had passed away ; I had no thought of becoming a 
 shoemaker now. There is nothing like success to pro- 
 mote health and good spirits. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MANY years have passed away since the date of this 
 story, and almost all the good people of whom I have 
 spoken sleep in peace under the sod. Their souls, as 
 good Monsieur Perrot used to say, are reaping the 
 fruits of their labour. 
 
 Such, indeed, is my hope and belief of Monsieur 
 Perrot himself, for he was an excellent man. But to 
 my thinking, now that I have had four-and-twenty 
 years of practice as a village notary, and I am better 
 acquainted with the affairs of this world, it seems to 
 me that, instead of keeping close to generalities, our 
 professor would not have done amiss to introduce into 
 his course of philosophy the study of some of the 
 principles of the civil code, the penal code, and the 
 practice of law, which often turn out very useful to 
 know, when you have to defend your rights and your 
 property against the devices of conspirators who too 
 often practise upon the ignorance of youth and inex- 
 perience. 
 
 But this was not down in the programme for the 
 course ; and unfortunately, after seven years spent at 
 college, a young man finds he knows a multitude of 
 useless things, but remains in ignorance of some of the 
 most essential. Monsieur Perrot went, of course, by 
 the programme. 
 
 The first day we entered his philosophy class he
 
 192 The College-Life of Maitre Nabkt, 
 
 joyously announced that, now that he had taught us to 
 speak, he was going to teach us to think ; and that the 
 reflective faculty distinguished the man from the beast. 
 
 "The beasts cannot reflect," hecried; " those creatures 
 with their limited faculties never ask themselves, 
 ' What am I ? whence did I conic ? what shall I be 
 when this life is over ?' They don't even know what it 
 is to live and to die. Every day the poor labourer who 
 digs the soil, lifting his melancholy eyes to heaven, asks, 
 ' What shall I be when time has passed away when 
 my mouldering bones shall lie in the village cemetery, 
 or be heaped up with many others in the gravedigger's 
 hut ? What will happen to me then ? What will be- 
 come of my soul ?' For that we have an immortal soul 
 is the comfort of every miserable and down-trodden 
 peasant." 
 
 As he spoke, Monsieur Perrot became moved ; he 
 smote upon his breast, and delivered his arguments or 
 made his statements with increasing fervour. But I 
 must confess, now that I have long thought on these 
 matters for myself, and have escaped from the semi- 
 heathen philosophy of our schools, that our good pro- 
 fessor never brought any proofs, Scriptural or other- 
 wise, to bear upon his declarations concerning the 
 existence and the immortality of the soul. He was 
 quite content when he had appealed to the " universal 
 consent of mankind," and the " witness of conscience." 
 Yet there are other and far more convincing proofs, 
 and which lead much further into the truths of Divine 
 things. But none of these things are found in the 
 eclectic philosophy of Monsieur Cousin. 
 
 As for our friend Perrot's philosophy, even sacred 
 philosophy, it was only a rhetorical exercise. Whoever
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Naltot. 193 
 
 talked the loudest and fastest was always right ! When 
 he set us to dispute upon abstract questions we used 
 to demolish one another with the most crushing argu- 
 ments ; while Monsieur Perrot, in utter astonishment 
 at our wonderful skill, hobbled with his stick up and 
 down the class-room at an amazing pace, shouting to 
 us 
 
 " Good ! good ! That's right, Nablot ! Now you've 
 settled him ! Answer him, Masse, if you have an answer. 
 Capital ! first-rate ! famous ! Now, this is admirable ! 
 Now you, Blum, what have you to say ? Ah ! that is 
 a wonderful observation of yours. I have never had 
 such a class in my life. You all deserve to go up to 
 dispute at Paris. You say things which have never 
 been written anywhere. It is all new. You have ex- 
 hausted the subject." 
 
 His good opinion of us puffed us up not a little. 
 We thought ourselves the equals of Plato and of 
 Socrates. 
 
 But his own discourse on the soul was something in 
 this wise, borrowed almost exclusively from the ancient 
 classics : 
 
 " The soul is here. We feel it to be so. It gives us 
 life. It enables us to think. Is there a human being 
 degraded so low as not to acknowledge the existence of 
 the soul, nor feel any anxiety as to its future destiny ? 
 Our soul is imperishable. The earth holds only our 
 bones, but the soul has fled and lives in the celestial 
 spheres. The benefit conferred upon us by philosophy 
 and Christianity is an acknowledged fact, demonstrated 
 by the universal consent of all civilised nations. The 
 r incient Egyptians, ignorant of the existence of the 
 boul, embalmed the body to preserve it. They built
 
 194 The College-Life of Maitre Nciblot. 
 
 great pyramids to hold it and secure it against destruc- 
 tion, -which illustrates the longing desire of man to 
 prolong his existence after death non omnis mortar. 
 And so it was for many ages, until Plato, a true philo- 
 sopher, made the discovery of the soul. All his prede- 
 cessors had seen nothing but matter ; but to this sublime 
 genius, spirit, thought, and soul became manifest. 
 
 " The body decays, but the spirit survives the mortal 
 wreck. Such was this grand discovery, the most 
 splendid made in historic times, and which forms the 
 true basis of all religion, the secure foundation of 
 modern society. 
 
 " Since the discoveiy of the immortality of the soul, 
 the body is no longer embalmed. The body is despised ; 
 it is delivered over to destruction. 
 
 " Formerly the monarchs of the East alone had the 
 prospect of existing beyond death by means of their 
 spices and their pyramids. But now the poorest 
 peasant has the comfort of knowing that he will live 
 through his immortal soul. With this hope he may 
 sweat, and toil, and suffer without a complaint ; and if 
 we must acknowledge that our holy religion alone gives 
 him this assurance, it is right also to acknowledge that 
 philosophy caught the first idea of it a kind of super- 
 natural revelation, of which Plato himself could not 
 foresee all the consequences." 
 
 So it was that our classic-fed professor handed over 
 to heathen philosophy the credit of discovering that 
 which Divine revelation alone had given to the heathen, 
 by the many channels now unknown, but which doubt- 
 less did exist, and by which the knowledge of truth in 
 the highest things became dimly perceptible to some of 
 the more inquiring and enlightened heathen.
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 195 
 
 And then lie pursued 
 
 " We will together analyse the PJicedo of Plato, 
 and you will see that the immortality of the soul was 
 made known by him. 
 
 " Let us, therefore, be convinced that we have souls, 
 and then all will go on well. 
 
 " Not a peasant would plough the soil for another, 
 not a soldier would lay down his life for his king and 
 his country to defend the property of the rich, if they 
 were not assured of a life in a better world. And I, 
 my dear scholars, do you suppose that I would so 
 willingly sacrifice my natural tastes ? Do you not see 
 that I would much rather go and look after my bees, 
 and run in the woods, and read poetry, and keep a little 
 diary of all the fancies in my imagination, than shut 
 myself up in a dark room, cold in winter, hot in 
 summer ? Do you imagine that I would have sacrificed 
 my youth for a wretched annual stipend of fifteen hundred 
 francs, if I had not a better world to look forward to, 
 in which I should reap the benefit of my toil ? No ! I 
 should have applied myself to something else. 
 
 " The conviction of the immortality of my soul alone 
 sustains me. All the injustice, all the abominations, all 
 the hypocrisy, and the lies which often wound our 
 feelings, fail to rouse us to resist legitimate power. I 
 say to myself, ' There is the more merit in enduring 
 them courageously, and in submitting to the will of 
 God, who will amply recompense us.' " 
 
 The poor man's eyes filled with tears in uttering 
 these things, especially in paying his devoted homage 
 to legitimate authority, however iniquitously exercised. 
 And as we all loved him, we felt it to the bottom of our 
 hearts.
 
 196 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " all Christian civilisation rests on 
 this principle that the soul survives the destruction 
 of the body. 
 
 " Never have any legislators devised anything more 
 consummately wise or more useful. For people with- 
 out number workmen, peasants, soldiers, school- 
 masters, professors have nothing that they can call 
 their own ; and therefore the guarantee of a property 
 in a soul which cannot be taken from them, and which 
 shall inherit all the compensations that the body must 
 not claim, either before or after it is turned into dust, 
 is of the utmost value to them. 
 
 "This wonderful conception secures order in this 
 world, and the dispensation of justice in the next. 
 
 " Materialistic philosophers alone deny the existence 
 of the soul. But materialists are worldly, carnal beings, 
 who cling close to the good things of this life men 
 corrupted and cankered by ambition, envy, and covetous- 
 ness, who would deprive an unhappy people of their 
 only comfort, to excite them to rebellion against 
 society. 
 
 " They have not a single proof to allege against the 
 existence of the soul, which is demonstrated to us by 
 the universal consent of all mankind, and the testimony 
 of our inner consciousness. 
 
 " Now let this be sufficient. The soul is a fact which 
 each of us can observe and verify for otirselves by the 
 mere power of reflection. 
 
 " We will begin our course of philosophy with the 
 study of the soul, which possesses three faculties 
 perception, understanding, and activity." 
 
 Such was, word for word, our first lesson in philosophy, 
 which I have just copied from an old exercise-book
 
 The College-Life of Maitre NaUot. 197 
 
 lying on a bookshelf along with those belonging to my 
 law studies. 
 
 The deficiency which will strike every one is the 
 absence of any reference to even the first principles of 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 After such teaching as this, and after the kind of 
 intellectual discipline which he made us go through, I 
 suppose Monsieur Perrot was not far wrong, according 
 to his own views, in condemning the eclectic philosophy 
 invented by Monsieur Cousin. To discuss ideas with- 
 out presenting any positive fact in support is a mere 
 waste of time. 
 
 At any rate, this kind of exercise gave us supple 
 tongues, and several of my schoolfellows became excel- 
 lent advocates. 
 
 I could now tell you of the visit of Monsieur Ozana, 
 the inspector from Paris, who was astonished at our 
 wonderful fluency, our forensic fervour, and the 
 novelty of our arguments. I fancy I can still see 
 him coming and going in a thoughtful, dreamy mood, 
 perhaps asking himself if he was really to believe 
 his own ears. I remember that he spoke to one 
 of us, whose voice was not quite so strong nor his 
 manner so forward as the rest, and asked him good- 
 humouredly 
 
 " Come, come ! that is not bad at all. Your course 
 is nearly over now. What profession have you chosen 
 for yourself?" 
 
 " I should like to become an advocate, monsieur 
 1'inspecteur." 
 
 " An advocate !" he cried ; " then, my friend, you 
 must do as the others do you must shout. When a 
 man shouts loudly enough, he cannot hear his own 
 
 S
 
 198 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 
 
 voice, and lie drowns the voices of his opponents, and 
 this is an immense advantage." 
 
 Monsieur 1'inspecteur soon found out what sort of 
 philosophy we favoured. No doubt his own opinions 
 squared with those of Monsieur Perrot in philosophy, 
 and he wound up by paying him a compliment upon 
 his method of instruction. 
 
 But it is time that I should finish the history of 
 my college-life, for I find that the interest I take in it 
 has caused me to neglect more important matters. 
 
 I should have a great deal more to tell you about 
 my degree examination ; and it would be easy to point 
 out the absurdities and anomalies of this system of 
 examinations. It leaves to chance the selection of those 
 questions by which each scholar is to be examined, so 
 that if you are in luck, if you stumble by chance upon 
 a passage in Virgil, or the Cyropcedia, and if in history 
 you happen to be taken in the reign of Louis the 
 Fourteenth, or in geography upon the straits in Europe, 
 and in composition upon something equally easy, your 
 examination is a farce, and a boy in the fourth class 
 might very easily get through it. If, on the other 
 hand, you get the choruses in Sophocles, or the prin- 
 ciples of reasoning by Doctor Kant of Konigsberg, you 
 are safe to be plucked without loss of time. 
 
 I had this terrible misfortune. All my class-fellows 
 passed as easily as a letter through the post, but I had 
 to return at the end of the holidays for six weeks 
 more. 
 
 Ah! if you had but seen my distress, and how 1 
 cried on my return home that night at eleven o'clock ! 
 I had walked all the way from Saarstadt to Riche- 
 pierre. My father opened the door to me. He had
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 199 
 
 risen in haste, on hearing me tap at the shutter, ex- 
 pecting to hear none but good news. 
 
 " Well," he cried, " you have passed ?" 
 
 I could only answer with broken exclamations. 
 
 And so I was obliged to set to work again during 
 the holidays. Monsieur Perrot, when he heard the 
 fatal news, raised his hands to heaven. He declared I 
 was his best pupil, and he could not understand this 
 unexpected catastrophe at all. 
 
 On my supplemental examination I passed with the 
 comment Valde bene, the only one of all the candidates 
 who was honoured with such a distinction. And yet 
 surely I could never have acquired all this ability in 
 six weeks after having been pronounced an incapable ! 
 What would you have ? I had been unlucky. 
 
 Luck or no luck, it is all the same for young men of 
 means. For poor lads ill-luck means the failure of all 
 their expectations. 
 
 Never should the responsibility of such important 
 issues be left to mere chance. An examination, to be 
 satisfactory, ought to cover a very large extent of 
 ground, and be, in fact, searching and decisive. The 
 most serious and the best concerted measures ought to 
 be taken. Written and competitive examinations seem 
 to me far preferable to the viva voce, although they 
 occupy more time. 
 
 The further I go, the more I wish to say ; but, as 
 the rules of rhetoric say, limits must be laid down, and 
 we must be on our guard against the influence of ex- 
 citement. I therefore proceed to sum up. 
 
 It was not to please myself that I have undertaken 
 to relate to you the events of my college-life ; on the 
 contrary, I have done so in much bitterness of spirit.
 
 200 The College-Life of Maitre Nallot. 
 
 But it is my opinion that, in the present melancholy 
 state of things, it is the duty of every good citizen to 
 enlighten the representatives of the people with the 
 fruits of his experience, and with such observations as 
 he has been able to gather together on so important a 
 subject as Popular Education. 
 
 The habits of mind and of body acquired during the 
 years of childhood and youth cleave to the man through 
 life. Into whatever mental attitude you throw a child 
 of seven, he will hardly alter it through life. Now 
 the college course puts us all into an attitude which I 
 cannot but condemn, inasmuch as it aims in a dispro- 
 portionate measure at the development of mere memory, 
 at the expense of the powers of active thought and 
 will. It tends to educate men into functionaries, and 
 crushes independence of thought and action ; it deprives 
 the individual of the faculties required to initiate enter- 
 prises, and subjugates his mind to the dominion of 
 Rule. In a word, it makes men into machines, and 
 does this of set purpose. The whole system is devised 
 with that object in view, and has no other end. Here 
 is the method invented by the old royal colleges, 
 formerly brought to perfection by the Jesuits, to gain 
 the possession of our fair country ; it is simple enough 
 it consists in losing a great deal of time over useless 
 matters, and in leaving men in ignorance of whatever 
 might be suspected of leading to their emancipation, 
 by supplying them with information which would give 
 them an assured means of livelihood. 
 
 Under such a system originality of character is put 
 out of countenance, and men are all shaped upon one 
 mould. Every man having his little square marked 
 out for him, and not having an idea how to live outside
 
 The College-Life of Maitre Nablot. 201 
 
 of it, stays in it, and submissively bows to any govern- 
 ment which may present itself. In forty years I have 
 beheld the successive falls of Charles the Tenth, Louis 
 Philippe, the Eepublic of '48, and Napoleon the Third, 
 and the day following each of these frightful catastro- 
 phes the machine still worked on just the same as evei*. 
 The ruins of Paris, the volleys of musketry, the deporta- 
 tions, the acts of violence and flagrant injustice in all 
 directions, made no perceptible difference. Every 
 functionary sat quietly at his desk, making notes of 
 the new measures, the new laws, and the new autho- 
 rities, and taking special care not to express any 
 sympathy for those who were removed by any cause 
 whatever. 
 
 All these revolutions which are allowed to take place 
 for fear of losing situations are the natural result of 
 our system of education. 
 
 But this famous system not only gives birth to 
 functionaries who readily accept every change of 
 government ; it also engenders in considerable abun- 
 dance the very movers of revolutions. The State can- 
 not give employment to all the Bachelors that the 
 university turns out every year. Not a few are left out 
 in the cold. What can these unfortunate individuals 
 do, with their Greek, their Latin, and their rhetoric and 
 philosophy ? Nothing whatever. They are not wanted 
 for clerks either in arts or in commerce. They are un- 
 classed ; they are sore and irritated, and naturally find 
 fault with everything. 
 
 If, instead of cramming them with Greek and Latin, 
 they had been taught something of modern languages, 
 of chemistry, mechanics, commercial geography, politi- 
 cal economy, these very malcontents would only be too
 
 202 The College-Life of Maltre Nallot. 
 
 happy to go off like the English and the Germans, to 
 seek fortune in other lands, and would not stay at home 
 in useless crowds to criticise, find fault with, and upset 
 everything. 
 
 Many others, hearing of their success, would follow 
 their example. The grand but terrible question of rich 
 and poor, which seems to open a wider breach after 
 each social convulsion, would lose its most dreaded 
 agitators, and the example of emigration once fairly set, 
 who knows if, with time and fair treatment, the whole 
 body politic and social might not rise to a state of calm 
 peace and regularity ? 
 
 Again, instead of drawing a hard and fast line be- 
 tween elementary and higher education, it seems to me 
 that it would be wiser to give all the elasticity possible 
 to the work of popular and elementary instruction, in 
 order to efface the sharp line which separates the people 
 from the bourgeoisie, and to destroy to its foundations 
 that mistrust and defiance which now keeps them 
 asunder. This would enable those to walk in harmony 
 who now never will work cordially together. 
 
 Napoleon the Third, during the twenty years of his 
 reign, had but one invariable object in view to divide 
 the people from the bourgeois. All his measures bore 
 the complexion of this fixed resolution. And let it be 
 well known, for it is a fact to which men shut their 
 eyes, he only succeeded too well. Bonapartism has 
 grown and fed upon the division and separation of the 
 two great classes of Frenchmen. It may grow again 
 with fresh life, unless the bourgeois will hasten to 
 bridge over that gap by educating the people, and by 
 yielding to them their just rights. 
 
 I am not saying this to please the Bonapartists. I
 
 The College-Life of Matire Nablot. 203 
 
 am only pointing out what is an undoubted fact, clear 
 as daylight. All the Jesuitry and all the refining in 
 the world will have no effect in altering this fact. The 
 fusion so much talked of should be the fusion of the 
 two great divisions in our nation. This alone will 
 destroy Bonapartism, and regenerate our unhappy 
 country. Let the bourgeois reflect on my words.
 
 THE SECRET OF REACTION.
 
 THE SECRET OF REACTION. 
 
 [T was the month of February, 1848. For 
 several days the newspapers had been 
 speaking about a banquet which was to be 
 held at the Champs-Elysces, under the 
 presidency of M. Odilon Barrot ; the 
 members of the Opposition, the journalists, and the 
 youth of the public schools had received invitations en 
 masse. Maitre Gaspare! Fix, Mayor of Tiefenbach, with 
 his spectacles on his nose, and his feet in his warm 
 slippers, read these news every morning, until the 
 entrance of his usher Frionnet, a little carroty-headed 
 lame man, who never failed to limp in at the stroke of 
 eight every morning. 
 
 " See," he cried, handing him the paper " see the 
 folly of those Parisians. Just look at that Ledru- 
 KolKn, that Odilon Barrot, that fellow Lamartine, and 
 all that revolutionary mob conspiring together to 
 unsettle the public peace. If I were Louis Philippe I
 
 208 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 would sweep away every one of that disorderly lot! 
 Boom ! boom ! Hear the cannon ! Not a man would 
 I let off." 
 
 " But what do these people mean, the idiots ?" cried 
 Frionnet. " What do they mean by their joint liabili- 
 ties ? Is a man worth your notice who is unable to pay 
 two hundred francs a year in direct taxes upon doors 
 and windows, on real and personal property, and on 
 licences ? Before meddling with public affairs a man 
 ought to know how to manage his own." 
 
 " Quite clear and manifest," replied Maitre Gaspard ; 
 " it is plain as the daylight. But don't let us get angry, 
 Frionnet. What can a banquet more or a banquet less 
 prove ? When they have eaten their fill, and got well 
 drunk, and spent all their money, the fools will be satis- 
 fied. In another fortnight or three weeks they will 
 begin somewhere else, and we shall go on all the same. 
 Come, sit down, and let us mind our business." 
 
 Then they opened Maitre G-aspard's great portfolio, 
 and began to take hard measures against debtors in 
 arrears ; and this serious work kept their thoughts away 
 from the political troubles that were looming, as they 
 supposed, only in the distance. 
 
 But one fine morning, when it had happened that 
 they had had no papers for three days which was 
 accounted for by the difficulty of the roads during the 
 melting of the snow whilst these two wise men were 
 engaged upon their favourite occupation, all at once 
 they saw hurrying past their windows, and jumping 
 over the puddles, M. le Controleur Couleaux, usually a 
 very g a :e and solemn personage. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" cried Maitre Gaspard; "surely 
 eomething is going on ?"
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 209 
 
 " Yes, that is not his natural way," remarked 
 Frionnet, rising. 
 
 Both opened the office door. M. Couleaux was already 
 coming up the stairs two at a time, and crying out in 
 the passage 
 
 " Monsieur le maire, has the Moniteur arrived ?" 
 
 " No," said Maitre Gaspard, " you know very well 
 that the walking postman has not been for three 
 days on account of the bad roads across the moun- 
 tain." 
 
 "Ah!" cried Couleaux, rushing in as pale as ashes, 
 and dropping into an armchair. " Ah ! a great misfor- 
 tune has happened ! An express from Sarrebourg has 
 just brought in this letter from Paris, from my nephew, 
 the young barrister. Do read it read it for yourself! 
 Was there ever worse news?" 
 
 Frionnet took the letter, and drawing near to the 
 window, read aloud 
 
 "My DEAR UNCLE, A revolution has broken out 
 in Paris. The king has fled. A provisional govern- 
 ment is established. The names are : Ledru-Rollin, 
 Lamartine, Arago, Marie, Cremieux, &c., &c." 
 
 While Frionnet was reading, all the colour left his 
 face, but Maitre Gaspard reddened up to his ears. 
 
 " Well, my poor, poor friends, what do you think of 
 all that?" stammered the controlcur. 
 
 " We are lost and ruined !" cried Frionnet ; " our 
 debtors are now our masters, and they will cut our 
 throats, every one." 
 
 Hearing this opinion, Maitre Gaspard ^ as seized with 
 a fit of coughing ; then he rose, and opened a window 
 to let in a little air. Couleaux, with eyes staring before
 
 210 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 him, evidently saw the guillotine already gaping wide 
 for him. 
 
 Docteur Hornus, whom Maitre Gaspard called a 
 Jacobin, for no better reason than that he wore a tuft 
 of beard and long hair, was just passing down the 
 street to visit his patients, and monsieur le niaire, sud- 
 denly rousing himself, cried 
 
 " Hallo ! good morning, doctor. You have heard 
 the great news?" 
 
 " Yes, the Republic is proclaimed," replied M. Hornus 
 with great satisfaction ; " it is rather quick work, but 
 as we have got it, we will do our best to keep it." 
 
 And he laughed, passing his fingers through his 
 beard. 
 
 "Ah, doctor!" cried Couleaux, "you are no doubt 
 right. A Republic ! Why, we all want it it is the 
 most admirable form of government ; but, unfortunately, 
 the people " 
 
 When he heard these doleful anticipations, Hornus 
 turned on his heel and went his way. 
 
 Then M. le Controleur, turning as yellow as a ripe 
 quince, went out without another word ; and the two 
 colleagues, staring at each other in the window-recess, 
 cried together 
 
 " What is to be done now ?" 
 
 " I will go to Mayenthal," said Maitre Gaspard, 
 after an anxious pause ; " M. Thomassin, our deputy, 
 must have come home ; he is a prudent, sensible man ; 
 you may be sure he knows a way to get out of this mess." 
 
 " Yes, yes, do make haste ; he is the man to give the 
 word of command. The first thing is to get the right 
 password the cry. You write and tell me, M. lo 
 Maire, when you return ; I shall expect you."
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 21] 
 
 "All right!" cried Maitre Gaspard, running to the 
 back of the house into the yard, shouting 
 
 " Faxland ! Faxland ! harness the pair of greys, 
 quick ; we are going to Mayenthal." 
 
 Faxland, an old hussar of the First Empire, had just 
 been rubbing down his horses. Outside a peasant wag 
 shouting " Vive la Ecpublique !" 
 
 " You hoar, monsieur le niaire ?" said he ; " what is 
 that they are shouting down there ?" 
 
 " Never you mind, only make haste ; it is no busi- 
 ness of ours what they are shouting." 
 
 Then Faxland got the horses out, and M. G-aspard 
 himself, drawing the char-a-bancs out of the coach- 
 house, flung into it a truss of straw, and said to his 
 groom 
 
 " Go and put on your big boots. Hi ! don't forget 
 my cloak." 
 
 He finished harnessing the horses himself, and tight- 
 ened the straps ; and when his wife canie out to see 
 what was the matter, he was already stepping over the 
 seat, and wrapping himself in the cloak that Faxland 
 had brought him, and told his wife in the tone of a 
 man who is determined to be master 
 
 " I shall come back to-night, Simonne, between six 
 and seven ; let the supper wait. Now, you, jump up 
 and let us start." 
 
 " Hue !" cried Faxland, and the horses, under the 
 influence of a smart touch of the whip, darted off like 
 arrows. 
 
 Faxland having had no time for his breakfast, had 
 just swallowed in the kitchen a glass of eati-de-vie to 
 open out his ideas, and as he galloped furiously along 
 he avoided ruts, stones, and other obstacles with perfect
 
 212 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 skill. But at the end of the village, as cries of " Vive 
 la Republique !" were bursting out from the Three 
 Pigeons Inn, a thought flashed across his mind, and he 
 said to himself " The Emperor has come back," and 
 with a voice of thunder, waving his fur cap with one 
 hand, a.nd flourishing his whip with the other, he began 
 to cry 
 
 " Vive 1'Euiperour !" 
 
 Maitre Gaspard uttered no sound ; seated low down, 
 with his back in the straw, and the broad brim of his hat 
 pulled over his eyes, his mind was wandering dreamily 
 over diminished salaries, descents of mountaineers down 
 into the villages when they should hear of the procla- 
 mation of the Republic, and all the other calamities 
 which he felt must happen. He did not try and stop 
 Faxland, well knowing that on the first order to stop 
 shouting "Vive 1'Empereur!" the old soldier would, 
 almost to a certainty, spill the vehicle into the nearest 
 ditch, at the risk of breaking the bones of both. 
 
 At every village they passed it was the same story ; 
 Faxland rose from his seat and lashed his horses to the 
 same tune of " Vive 1'Empereur ! Vive la Republique ! 
 hue ! on with ye !" 
 
 The folks gazed in astonishment, saying " Why, 
 that's the Mayor of Tiefenbach, a tremendously rich 
 fellow. What's the matter ? what does it all mean ?" 
 
 In other villages, whither the news had already 
 penetrated, swarms of people filled the streets ; the inns 
 and public-houses were humming like beehives ; men, 
 women, and children were standing on their door-steps 
 singing and crying incessantly 
 
 " Vive la Ecpublique !" 
 
 Faxland's loud voice repeating " Vive 1'Empereur I"
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 213 
 
 brought their faces round upon us; and a few old 
 soldiers in blouses and in cotton caps waved them over 
 their heads with the same cry, which redoubled the 
 worthy man's joy and enthusiasm. 
 
 " I was sure he wasn't dead ! I knew he would come 
 back !" he cried.. " Jle was sure to come; I knew it 
 all along !" 
 
 Maitre Gaspard was still deep in thought. What 
 a confusion of ideas was racking the poor man's 
 brain! and how impatient he was to get to Mayen- 
 thal! 
 
 About noon they came in sight of M. Thomassin's 
 country house at the end of the valley. 
 
 A great number of vehicles had already left the 
 tracks of their wheels down the long white avenue. 
 The tall chimneys of the works were smoking as usual ; 
 but the dwelling-house, with all its extensive ranges of 
 outbuildings, looked lonely; only the dogs, at the 
 sound of the horses' bells, began to bark. M. Claude, 
 an old servant who did duty as butler, appeared at 
 the door as the char-a-bancs stopped a few yards from 
 the porch. 
 
 " I wish to see M. Thomassin immediately," cried 
 Maitre Gaspard, leaping down and shaking the dust 
 from his clothes. 
 
 M. Claude had recognised him as a frequent visitor, 
 and said, as he ran off 
 
 " Li a minute, monsieur only a minute." 
 
 Presently he reappeared, saying 
 
 " Will M. le Maire have the goodness to step this 
 way ?" 
 
 At the same time he gave orders to take out the 
 horses, and politely invited Faxland into the kitchen,
 
 214 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 which the old hussar seemed to consider quite as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 Then Maitre Gaspard crossed the hall, and hearing 
 on his left the buzz of many voices, he saw in the vesti- 
 bule and antechamber a great number of hats, both 
 round and three-cornered, and o^ cloaks hanging on 
 the wall. He was listening when the door at the 
 oottom opened, and M. Thomassin himself, in a long 
 travelling cape, and wearing a long, wearied, and anxious 
 countenance, met him, and held out his haud to him. 
 
 " Ah ! M. le Maire, I was sure you would come to 
 me in this very serious aspect of affairs." 
 
 " Yes, monsieur le depute," replied M. Gaspard, un- 
 covering ; " as soon as I heard it I came to know what 
 I was to do." 
 
 " Well, come in, then," said M. Thomassin, walking 
 before him into a long room, at the other end of which 
 a large fire was blazing on the hearth. 
 
 Many people were there, sitting or standing round a 
 table covered with newspapers. There were ladies and 
 gentlemen; there were black coats and long clerical 
 coats. 
 
 As soon as the door opened, all eyes turned to see 
 who was the new arrival. Maitre Gaspard, at the first 
 glance, observed that there was a visible alarm in every 
 countenance ; they all looked anxious, preoccupied with 
 their own thoughts, and watching one another with 
 trembling. 
 
 " Gentlemen and ladies, I have the honour," said 
 the deputy, with much gravity, " to introduce to you 
 M. Gaspard Fix, Mayor of Tiefenbach, a safe man, one 
 of ourselves, and sharing our views exactly." 
 
 Immediately four or five voices asked excitedly
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 215 
 
 " Well, M. le Maire, what is going on in your parts ? 
 How has the news been received ?" 
 
 He stood gazing upon those panic-stricken faces, with 
 his broad-brimmed hat in his hands. There sat or 
 stood Madame Eeine Thoniassin, the mistress of tho 
 house ; M. the sous-prefet Thibert, M. le prefet Mathis, 
 M. the vicar of Vieille-Ville, M. Jacob, the cure of his 
 own village, young men nioustached and decorated, and 
 all the big hats of the neighbourhood, driven into a 
 heap by the scare they were in, just like frightened 
 partridges in a bush. 
 
 M. Gaspard, a peasant of the old stock, a man of 
 independent spirit, felt a movement of pity come over 
 him. 
 
 " They are terribly frightened," he thought, " and 
 yet they have more to spare than I have." 
 
 Madame Eeine Thoniassin having repeated with a 
 voice, trembling with fear 
 
 " Pray do speak, monsieur le maire ! What are they 
 doing in your neighbourhood ? What is the state of 
 people's minds ?" 
 
 He coughed and answered 
 
 " To-day, not much ; but to-morrow dreadful things 
 may be expected." 
 
 " Dreadful things ! Do you really think so ?" 
 
 " Yes, the bad news is spreading everywhere. All 
 the rascals are getting together in the public-houses ; 
 they are plotting and conspiring together; they are all 
 astir, they are swarming like bees ; they are all on the 
 look-out for honest men's goods that don't belong to 
 them." 
 
 Seeing the effect his speech was producing, he be- 
 came bolder, and added
 
 216 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 " The worst of it is that they have no religion ; they 
 all want a slice of the cake, and are all crying ' Vive 
 la Bepublique !' I saw all this clearly enough as I was 
 coming along." 
 
 " Are they crying ' Vive la Eepublique !' monsieur le 
 maire ?" asked several agitated voices at once. 
 
 "Yes, of course they are! What else would you 
 have them cry ? They have always been taught from 
 the pulpit that the Eepublic meant the right to go 
 into the woods and cut down trees, to knock down the 
 keepers who informed against them, to go and worry 
 the Jews who have fleeced them. The cures have told 
 them this so often that they firmly believe it now. Old 
 soldiers are crying, ' Vive 1'Empereur !' They believe 
 the Emperor is coming back with_his Mamelukes. We 
 can be sure of nothing. I can only hope that to- 
 morrow or the next day the men from the Dagsberg 
 mountains won't fall upon us, as old men tell us .they 
 did in '891 hope they will not." 
 
 This speech so excited the terrors of his hearers, 
 that ladies and gentlemen were crying to each other in 
 all directions 
 
 ' There, you hear that, Monsieur Thomassin ? Mon- 
 sieur Maleroy, do you hear ? Didn't we tell you so ? 
 We knew it all !" 
 
 Messieurs the cures talked in whispers of getting 
 away into Switzerland, and the fine young gentlemen 
 in decorations seemed in no less haste to be away from 
 these impending disasters. 
 
 M. Gaspard himself stood calm and collected, listen- 
 ing to these remarks, and surprised at the confusion 
 that prevailed. 
 
 " My dear," stammered Monsieur Thomassin to his
 
 The Secret of Reaction: 
 
 wife, " nothing is ready, we cannot go yet. We must 
 take time to reflect. We cannot decide in such a 
 violent hurry." 
 
 All the others were chattering and gesticulating 
 without being able to make each other understand their 
 meaning. 
 
 At last, Madame Eeine having approached Maitre 
 Gaspard, asked him 
 
 " Monsieur le maire, do you see anything else to be 
 done ?" 
 
 " What do you mean, madame ?" 
 
 "To fly." 
 
 Maitre Gaspard fell back a couple of paces. His 
 big round face was purple. 
 
 " ISTo, no, madame," he cried in a rude voice. " Why 
 should I fly ? What ! run away and leave my house, 
 my fields, my meadows, my fields of hemp everything 
 that I have been working so hard for these forty years 
 one sou after another ! Oh, oh, gentlemen and ladies, 
 at what a rate you are going ! It is plain enough that 
 what you have got never cost you much labour. No, 
 no ! Gaspard Fix is not made of the stuff that runs 
 away !" 
 
 And his candid speech having put some of these 
 people to the blush, he added slowly, with his hands 
 uplifted, his hat in one and his suspended stick in tho 
 other 
 
 " My good friends, we can die no more than once. 
 In Rome we must do as Romans do ! If we must howl 
 with the wolves, let us howl with the wolves, and shout 
 with the rest ' Vive la Rcpublique !' Sooner than let 
 my property go and run away like Louis Philippe, I 
 will shout louder than anybody louder than all the
 
 218 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 rest put together. The men that run away are always 
 in the wrong ; people say ' Oh, if their consciences had 
 not been bad the scoundrels would never have made 
 off.' " 
 
 Then consternation appeared in every haggard face. 
 But, just then, the gentleman who had been addressed 
 as " M. de Maleroy," a little old foxy -looking fellow, 
 who had never moved from his place duiing all this 
 excitement, rising now from his place, went and stood 
 with his back to the fire, and said decisively 
 
 " M. le Maire has hit the right nail on the head ; it 
 is the people who fly who are always in the wrong. We 
 must howl along with the wolves. You are quite right, 
 monsieur le maire, very right." 
 
 And as the company began to resume their seats, 
 he, after besmutching his nose with snuff, went on 
 
 " Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we must cry ' Vive la 
 Republique !' louder than anybody. What would 
 happen next, if we were to fly into neighbouring 
 countries ? Of course, the Repiiblic would treat us as 
 enemies ; they would revive the laws against ' suspected 
 persons,' as they did against the old noblesse of France 
 in '92 ; we should be summoned to return on very 
 short notice, failing which our property would be con- 
 fiscated to the nation, divided into small lots, and it 
 would be sold to those who could defend it against its 
 rightful owners. Europe would never interfere ; Europe 
 regards us already as usurpers, and we should be 
 reduced to utter misery, without the ghost of a chance 
 of a Conde, or a Noailles, or a Richelieu to repair our 
 disasters. Such is the account of what would happen 
 *D us after we had been a short time in Germany, in 
 Russia, or in England! M. le Maire has given us
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 219 
 
 discreet counsel. Let us all cry ' Vive la Bepublique !' 
 And above all," added he, turning to the prefet, " don't 
 let any of our functionaries send in their resignations ; 
 such an act would be contemptible. Let us all keep 
 our places ! Among all the faults we have been guilty 
 of at least we have not committed that of educating the 
 people ; thanks to their ignorance, we continue to be 
 necessary and indispensable. It is impossible to admi- 
 nister the law, to collect taxes, to try offenders, to 
 legislate without prefets, tax-collectors, magistrates, 
 deputies, and generals. You must have gone through 
 certain studies to fill these offices, and fortunately the 
 common people don't know so much as the alphabet. 
 It is in the sacred ignorance of the masses that our 
 safety lies, and always will lie ; our first duty is to 
 keep them there. Now, if we run away, what is to 
 prevent the Republicans from passing decrees to make 
 elementary education gratuitous and compulsory? 
 Nothing can hinder it. It is the first thing they 
 would do, you may be sure of that ; and they woxtld 
 never rest till they had put the people in a position to 
 exercise, with some sort of wisdom, the franchise they 
 will have granted them. Then the Republic might 
 defy any attack, the governing power of the bourgeoisie 
 would be destroyed, and the democracy would triumph ! 
 Let us all stand by one another to resist such a catas- 
 trophe ; let us face the storm, it will soon be over ! All 
 our friends, preserving their situations, will find them- 
 selves in a position to calm, to direct, and after a while 
 entirely to quell the evil instincts of the mob. The 
 clergy will back us ; their interests are one with ours. 
 United action is essential to attain a favourable result 
 in the end. Therefore let us stand fast, I repeat, and
 
 220 The Secret of Reaction 
 
 raise the cry ' Vive la Republique !' ' Vive universal 
 suffrage!' ' Vive liberty, equality, and fraternity !' Our 
 friends, scattered for a short space, will soon reunite, 
 reform the administration, the police, the army, 
 foolishly humbled by the Republicans of Paris. Believe 
 in my long experience. In four or five months we shall 
 be on the offensive again !" 
 
 At that moment the folding doors were thrown open, 
 and Maitre Guspard saw a magnificent dejeuner served 
 up in the adjoining room, for even in the midst of the 
 extraordinary confusion in people's minds, there was no 
 departure from the usual habits of the family. 
 
 "Business by-and-by," said H. Thomassin, in a 
 livelier tone ; " things are not looking so bad after 
 all." 
 
 The ladies looked easier, but the careful and thrifty 
 old peasant, M. Gaspard, remarked that this was not a 
 time to eat dainties ; his business was to return to 
 Tiefenbach, and have an eye upon his goods ; there- 
 fore when M. Thomassin entreated him to stay and 
 take some breakfast with the company, he answered 
 aloud 
 
 " Oh, monsieur le depute, it is too much honour. I 
 am in a hurry to get home. What do I want but just 
 a glass of wine and a bit of meat standing? I will go 
 quietly down into the kitchen that will be a better place 
 for me." 
 
 The company coloured at hearing these coarse senti- 
 ments, and he, guessing their thoughts, added 
 
 " At a time like the present it is best to be on good 
 terms with everybody ; you must be ' hail, fellow ! well 
 met!' with every one ; who can tell what to-morrow may 
 bring forth ? Perhaps I shall want my servant to run
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 221 
 
 bis life into danger for me, and no doubt ho will be 
 pleased to drink a glass with his master." 
 
 And without waiting for a reply, he bowed to 
 M. Thomassin and the company and withdrew, think- 
 ing to himself, " These people have right ideas, but 
 they sadly want courage." 
 M. de Maleroy, pointing at him as he went out, said 
 
 " Look at that man : he came out of the mud and 
 clay that the people are made of ; his father wheeled a 
 barrow for his living ; he has no education, and yet he 
 is already a politician. By that specimen you may 
 judge what remarkable men would arise from the ranks 
 of the people, if, unhappily for us, they were taught. 
 We should never be able to stand against them. The 
 least we could do would be to share along with them 
 places, honour, and power, and all the benefits which 
 the monopoly of knowledge secures to ourselves. Let 
 us act accordingly." 
 
 And giving his arm to Madame Thomassin, he passed 
 into the dining-room, between the heavy hangings of 
 silk ; the rest followed him in pairs. 
 
 During this time Maitre Guspard was entering the 
 kitchen, where the fires in the stoves were burning 
 brightly, lighting up with ruddy hues the saucepans, 
 the kettles, and the great dresser loaded with fish and 
 rich viands. He discovered Faxland in a cosy corner, 
 his legs stretched out under a massive oak table with 
 half-a-dozen empty bottles before him, and the ruins of 
 an enormous venison pasty. Three or four servants 
 were keeping him company, discussing politics together, 
 and the old hussar was confidently predicting the return 
 of the Emperor, when the sudden appearance of the 
 niaire threw a little dismay amongst them.
 
 222 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 " Monsieur lo maire !" they cried, rising respectfully. 
 But Monsieur Gaspard, with a jovial air, cried out to 
 them 
 
 " Eemain seated ! don't disturb yourselves. I hope 
 you are comfortable ! I have only just come in to take 
 a glass of wine with you and eat a crust of bread before 
 I start." 
 
 Then they all sat down again, and Faxland thought 
 
 " The master is a good fellow after all ! He might 
 have stayed with the swells upstairs, but he liked us 
 better." 
 
 The major-domo Claude, quite ashamed, ran for a 
 chair for . le Maire, but Maitre Gaspard remained 
 standing ; he poured out a glass for himself, and said 
 merrily, after having emptied it 
 
 " Come now, this is the very best Burgundy ! some 
 of the deputy's wine. You get all you want here ! Ha ! 
 ha ! ha !" 
 
 And they all laughed in chorus. 
 
 Then, without any further ceremony, he cut himself 
 a huge slice out of the pasty, which he ate with an ex- 
 cellent appetite, examining at the same time the fine 
 kitchen with admiration, and saying 
 
 " Here is a first-rate kitchen ! I never saw a finer 
 one." 
 
 The company, notwithstanding all the good wino 
 they had imbibed, made no answer, for they felt a little 
 constraint. 
 
 Maitre Gaspard walked up and down ; he once more 
 filled his glass, and at last said to his old hussar 
 
 " Come on, Faxland, it is time for us to start if we 
 mean to get home before night." 
 
 " I am going. I will put the horses in aminute,'in ',
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 223 
 
 cried Faxland, running out to obey his master's 
 orders. 
 
 No doubt he had help in getting the horses out of 
 the stable, for five minutes after Maitre Gaspard had 
 gone out the conveyance was ready, and the old soldier 
 in his seat ; and the master behind him with his cloak 
 carefully drawn round his shoulders. M. Claude, from 
 the top of the steps of the porch, was wishing him a 
 safe and pleasant journey, and off they started at a 
 very rapid pace, clearing out of the gate at a smart 
 gallop. 
 
 Faxland, whose sight was always the clearer when 
 he had drunk plenty, whipped his horses to keep up 
 the pace ; the heaps of broken stone, the tall fir-trees, 
 the mossy rocks overhanging the road, the long lanes 
 cut up with deep ruts, all vanished behind them at an 
 extraordinary rate. 
 
 From time to time the old veteran tried to raise his 
 old cry of " Vive 1'Empereur !" but he had got rid of 
 his voice in the morning, and had none left to shout now, 
 so that his attempts resulted in nothing but a croak like 
 a raven's. 
 
 Five o'clock came, and darkness with it ; the" low 
 houses, half-concealed in the snow, were lighting up, 
 one or two at a time, as they entered Tiefenbach. In 
 spite of the cold that was benumbing his feet, Maitre 
 Gaspard did not forget his promise to his colleague. 
 
 " Halt !" he cried out as they reached Frionnet's. 
 
 The conveyance stopped, and in a moment the little 
 officer came out of his passage, his fox-skin cap drawn 
 closely over ^his poll. He came near limping, and with 
 a smile in his red beard. 
 
 " Well ?" said he in a whisper.
 
 224 The Secret of Reaction. 
 
 Maitre Gaspard stopped to speak in his eat 
 
 " Howl along with, the wolves cry louder than any- 
 body ' Vive la Republique !' " 
 
 " Ah ! ah !" answered Frionnet in the same low voice, 
 and with eyes twinkling with intelligence ; " I under- 
 stand once we " 
 
 " Exactly so !" interrupted Maitre Gaspard ; " but 
 it is dreadfully cold. I cannot feel iny feet ; conic in 
 this evening, and I will tell you all about it. Now then, 
 Faxland !" 
 
 Next day, Maitre Gaspard, in his official scarf, was 
 proclaiming the provisional government from the steps 
 of the niairie of Tiefenbach ; Gouleaux and Frionnet and 
 all his friends shouting " Vive la Republique !" a 
 good deal louder than Doctor Hornus. Monsieur le 
 cure was blessing the tree of liberty ; and after a few 
 days more it was heard that all France had done the 
 same from one end to the other. All the Legitimists, 
 all the Orlcanists, all the Bonapartists had rallied 
 round the Republic, under the title of " Republicans of 
 the morrow." Everybody professed loudly that they 
 were combining for the improvement of the condition 
 of the people, for their moral condition, for their 
 education. Oh! it was quite affecting, all this 
 unanimity ! 
 
 Well, the results of the farce are but too well known: 
 Civil war, exile without a trial, executions by volleys of 
 musketry, political corruption, the invasion, Alsace and 
 Lorraine torn from the living body of the mother 
 country ! no need to mention the milliards of indemnity, 
 and all the rest of it. 
 
 But the reactionnaires have all kept their snug berths. 
 Thanks to the privileges of education they enjoy, they
 
 The Secret of Reaction. 225 
 
 reckon upon handing them down from father to son for 
 ever. 
 
 And yet did not the last war come upon them and 
 find them blind and incapable in the administration, 
 in the chambers, in the foreign courts, and in the field ? 
 They commanded us; upon them falls the blame of 
 our defeats. 
 
 Unhappy men ! Had they but taught the people 
 knowledge, what geniuses might have sprung from 
 that yet virgin mass the French nation, in the depths of 
 which have lain dormant for ages inexhaustible riches 
 of power ! The Prussians would have met with their 
 match, and their master too, in them ! 
 
 The secret of the success of reaction lies in the 
 ignorance of the people. This is the true cause of all 
 our misfortunes ! And this is the field over which 
 egotists and Jesuits will fight their last battle. 
 
 Farewell now till better times !
 
 VILLAGE TALK ABOUT 1814.
 
 VILLAGE TALK ABOUT 1814. 
 
 HE pass of the Zinzell, in the Vosges, 
 extends from Dosenheim, in Alsace, to 
 Wechem, in Lorraine. 
 
 There is not a fairer, greener spot in 
 the world. Oak, beech, and fir ; ivy and 
 honeysuckles hanging from the rocks; the mountain- 
 ash with its crimson clusters, and the tall, slender 
 white stems of the birch, rising among the precipices 
 all these rich varieties of woodland scenery lie spread 
 in endless profusion the whole length of this defile of 
 eighteen miles in extent. 
 
 Morning and evening thrushes and jays, blackbirds 
 and titmice, sing to one another and merrily flutter 
 under the leafy arches and amongst the columned trunks 
 as in an immense aviary. And the Zinzell flows peace- 
 fully down this lovely vale.
 
 230 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 You would think that nothing could ever disturb 
 this calm, and that the forest dwellings in the hollows 
 had never been frequented by any but their peaceful 
 inmates, the old keeper and his dogs, the housewife, 
 who is up there busy hanging out her clothes to dry 
 upon the hedges around the little garden, the chil- 
 dren watching their goats upon the rocks ; the angler, 
 with his lines or his nets, slowly wending his way 
 amongst the decaying willows that fringe the peaceful 
 stream. 
 
 You would declare it impossible that there should 
 have been anything but unbroken peace in this remote 
 vale since the world began. And yet it is through this 
 open gate in the middle of the Vosges that the northern 
 hordes have ever penetrated to ravage and pillage our 
 ill-fated country, from the Tribocks down to Bismarck's 
 Prussians. 
 
 In the autumn of 1848 the dike at the water-mill at 
 Kritzmiihle, about the middle of the pass, having been 
 burst through after the heavy rains, I was sent for tc 
 repair it. The water, in falling down into the deep 
 ravine, had carried a mass of ruin with it consisting of 
 earth and timber. Arrangements had to be made with 
 the inhabitants on the banks of the river above and 
 below the scene of the disaster ; the meadows had to 
 be ti'enched, rocks to be removed, new materials fetched. 
 
 It took me six weeks to find and engage workmen 
 and to begin the work. 
 
 Every evening I used to go and rest at Ykel's. 
 
 Amongst the cottages that made a ragged fringe 
 around the ruined convent stood an old dilapidated 
 house, with a barn, a stable, and a cart-shed. Right 
 under this shed there are nets hanging from the beams
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 231 
 
 and drying, fowls asleep with their heads under their 
 wings, and rabbits running about in the shade. 
 
 The house is entered by the kitchen ; at the right 
 is the wooden staircase ; on the left the low inn parlour 
 is so crowded with its long table, its benches, its 
 cupboard, its stove, and its big armchair, that one 
 hardly knows how to move in it. 
 
 Every evening after my return, and after having sent 
 home the workmen, I used to find at my end of the 
 table my plate and its pewter cover facing an immense 
 dish either of fricasseed chicken or squirrel, or of fried 
 trout, by the side of which stood the bottle of white 
 wine and the great loaf. 
 
 I lived like a lord. All the rest, father, mother, and 
 children, besides the pretty cook Charlotte, had potatoes 
 in their jackets and curds and whey. 
 
 No doubt the children would have been glad to have 
 tasted the trout or the squirrel ; every .time they sat 
 down they would twist themselves round upon their 
 seats and peep slily at niy plate, rubbing their moist 
 little noses with their sleeves. I used to invite them 
 to come, but Father Ykel stopped them with a " Halt !" 
 promising that they should have squirrel and trout 
 when they could catch them themselves. 
 
 It grieved me, but the old fellow was in earnest, and 
 was not to be shaken from his resolution. 
 
 Therefore we ate our meal in silence. The fire 
 crackled in the stove, the forks went up and down, the 
 smoky lamp lighted up faces young and old, grave and 
 gay, eyes dim with age or sparkling with the light of 
 youth. It also threw its dull light upon the skeins of 
 flax hanging from the ceiling to dry, and the great lean 
 hound sitting on his haunches, his nose pointed straight
 
 232 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 at my plate, looking out for bones which he always 
 caught flying, and crushed in a couple of snaps. 
 
 Outside there was no other noise besides the flow of 
 the river ; the darkness was so deep under the shade of 
 the cliffs and crags, that not even the glancing of a 
 light could be noticed upon the pools of water after 
 rain. 
 
 Not a soul passed by. 
 
 Nobody went out for his own pleasure, and when our 
 meal was over, the cloth removed, and we were begin- 
 ning to feel sleepy, a distant clatter of clogs was heard 
 over the stony roads. It was the old smuggler, Jean 
 Hurel, a one-armed man, coming in with his goatskin 
 cap and his iron-pointed stick. The poor fellow had 
 lost his arm in an encounter with the custom-house 
 officers ; but this was an old story. He sat down in a 
 corner and filled his pipe while Charlotte was bringing 
 him a flask of spirits. 
 
 A few minutes after there came Fix, a tall fellow, in 
 a short jacket and trousers of coarse blue stuff, a red 
 beard, and his wide-brimmed hat flattened upon the back 
 of his head. It was rumoured that he bore a bad character 
 with the gendarmerie, because he used to sell game at 
 all the inns in Saverne, Haguenau, and Sarrebourg ; he 
 had been watched by them for thirty years without 
 success. The whole brood of his children, brought up 
 beneath the shadow of the rocks, red-haired, sharp, and 
 bold, like himself, followed the same trade, and their 
 mother helped them. They were worse than a den of 
 foxes. Fix took his place quietly, and took off his two 
 or three glasses of eau-de-vie, dreaming all the Avhile 
 of what none could tell. 
 
 Sometimes other folks came too. Jerome the school
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 233 
 
 master, a tall, big-boned old man, very much bent, and with 
 a melancholy look ; then there were woodcutters, Jean 
 Claude Machette, Nicolas Eochart, Laurent Bastien, 
 men witL venerable-look b> heads, grave, thoughtful, 
 and severe, but who at the same time enjoyed only in- 
 different reputations, as it was known that they were 
 accustomed to sell the young fir-trees to the hop- 
 growers of Alsace, and bundles of green wood to every- 
 body who wished to buy. 
 
 These men maintained that wood, game, and fish 
 belonged to everybody who could lay hands on them. 
 They were men of few words, being naturally dreamy, 
 and for a quarter of an hour together one heard no 
 sound but Mother Catherine's wheel. 
 
 But one evening when the rain was pouring down in 
 torrents, and the wind was roaring among the rocks, 
 Ykel, awaking from his meditation, cried 
 
 " It was just such a night as this when the allied 
 armies passed through. They were inarching to 
 Wcchem, with their horses, their waggons, and theii 
 guns ; the officers were shouting on the road, ' This 
 way ! this way ! this way !' for you could not see 
 farther than the tip of your nose ; the pinewood torches 
 were going out one after another ; they would all have 
 been lost in the wood. What a wind and what a rain 
 there were !" 
 
 " Yes," said the one-armed man, after a short pause, 
 and drawing the lamp to him to light his lamp ; " but 
 it had been snowing for a fortnight, and the melting 
 snow was swelling the river." 
 
 After this reflection he relapsed into silence, with his 
 nose in the air, and puffing smoke up to the ceiling ; 
 and as the conversation seemed likely to drop, I asked
 
 S>34 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 " You remember that, do you, Hurel? yet it is a good 
 while since 1814 !" 
 
 " Do I remember the allies ?" said he, with a knowing 
 wink. " Indeed I do ! for they cost me dear enough. I 
 was just then at Sarrebruck with my cart full of 
 smuggled goods coffee, sugar, tobacco ; I was watch- 
 ing for a good opportunity to cross their last line. At 
 that time trade was good : sugar was three livres ten 
 sous, and West India produce was priceless. 
 
 "Our last regiments were arriving from Cobleiitz. 
 They had watched the line of the Khine until the first 
 of January ; a company here, a company there, on the 
 islands in the mists and the fogs. 
 
 " The enemy, the Saxons, Bavarians, Russians, and 
 Prussians were mustering strong at Frankfort. All at 
 once we are surprised with news that the Austrians 
 have passed through Switzerland and are already turn- 
 ing the flanks of the Vosges. That very day we could 
 hear from Sarrebruck the cannon at Mayence ; the allies 
 were putting themselves in movement from every 
 quarter to march past us ; our forces were falling back 
 upon the Sarre. 
 
 " Oh, if you had but seen those long files of men on 
 foot and on horseback, most of them sick or wounded, 
 coming down upon us covered half-way up with mud, 
 shouting, swearing, bawling out for bread, for eau-de- 
 vie, for everything ! And the Sarre was rolling by a 
 tremendous flood, full of floating masses of ice; and 
 the firing came nearer and nearer. 
 
 " Our soldiers in retiring before the enemy had blown 
 up the bridge between Saint-Jean and Sarrebruck ; 
 they had sunk every boat to prevent the Kaiserlicks. 
 from passing the river.
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 235 
 
 " That was a capital idea ! 
 
 " But at the moment when the enemy's skirmishers 
 were beginning to appear on the other side of the river, 
 our general began to storm and to imprecate ; he had 
 just made out with his field- glass a boat which had 
 been forgotten in a little bay under a clump of willows. 
 We had no artillery to destroy it. If the Kaiserlicks 
 found it out, nothing would prevent them from crossing 
 the Sarre in the night-time to fall upon us like hungry 
 wolves in our bivouacs. 
 
 " What was to be done to get at it ? 
 " A lieutenant of the 6th light, named Bretonville, 
 and three old soldiers devote their lives they rush into 
 the stream. 
 
 " I was looking on with my arms crossed. One of 
 the men disappears under the ice. He is floating down 
 towards Treves ! Another's strength fails, and he 
 struggles for life ; ho turns over. Good night ! The 
 last was returning, and they were fishing him out 
 with poles. The lieutenant alone was crossing the 
 stream. 
 
 " Then I said to myself, ' Hurel, if those scoundrels 
 get across here they will plunder your cart. Show that 
 you are a Frenchman !' At that time I had both my 
 arms. I took off my shoes, my blouse, my jacket, and 
 off I went ! The cold in that icy water was benumbing. 
 You could hardly believe how cold it was ! Looking 
 before me I could see nothing but flakes and floating 
 sheets of ice lapping over each other like tiles upon a 
 roof ; the cold wind was enough to blind you, and the 
 current was terribly strong. 
 
 " Darkness was coming on, and I could hardly see, 
 when I heard, five or six arm's lengths before me, a
 
 236 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 voice saying, ' Courage, courage !' and I saw the lieu- 
 tenant, with his hand upon the boat, pale and ghastly 
 like death ; he had no power left to climb into it. I 
 gave him a lift with my shoulder, and then he helped 
 me in, and we made all haste to lay hold of the oars 
 and return. 
 
 " The soldiers of the 6th were crying out , ' Vive 
 Lieutenant Breton ville !' Of course the Kaiserlicks, 
 who could see us carrying off their boat, began firing at 
 us from the windows ; the balls whizzed and splashed 
 all around us ; but we were sheltered along the banks 
 of the river, kept up a rapid fire, and prevented the 
 Germans from leaving their houses. 
 
 " On arriving at our side of the river I was as stiff and 
 as hard as ice. I snatched up my shoes, my blouse, 
 and my jacket, and rushed off half naked to the Mouton 
 d'Or, where old Meriane lent me some dry clothes. It 
 took a good glass of spirits to set me up again. Outside 
 the firing was kept up far into the night. 
 
 " About ten o'clock, after having dried and warmed 
 myself, just as I was going out to put my horse in and 
 to start off on my journey, old Meriaue ran up to tell 
 me that the custom-house officers had seized upon my 
 cart and my goods. I had been informed against ! 
 
 " The only thing left for me to do now was to make off 
 by cross-roads and byways, leaving everything behind, 
 cart, horse, goods, and all, for, of course, those fellows 
 would have been only too glad to get me, too, into their 
 clutches and sentence me to pay tremendous fines ! So 
 I started off, as you may think, very sad. I was 
 ruined, and had nothing left but my house, my cow, a 
 pig, my wife and five children ! 
 
 " When I arrived at the Graufthal the Cossacks, tho
 
 1 And then he helped me in." 
 
 Campaign in Kabylia.] 
 
 [rage 236.
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 237 
 
 Wurtemburgers, and all that abominable lot were 
 filling the whole valley. They had entered it by 
 Dosenheim, and if the commandant Meunier, at Phals- 
 boarg, had but had fifteen hundred men at his back, he 
 might have kept them all at bay and swept them off 
 with artillery like chaff before the wind. But ho had 
 no one. Old Paradis, a few gunners, Desniarets, who 
 had fought in Egypt, the barber Desplanches, and 
 fifteen or a score more of good fellows were all he had 
 to man his guns. They made little sorties to pick up 
 the cattle out of the neighbourhood, and rushed back 
 again in a hurry. Luckily old Eochart had driven 
 away my cow with others, under the rocks of the Bande 
 Noire, or I should have lost everything. Should I not, 
 Eochart ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the woodcutter, "our fathers saved the 
 cattle belonging to the commune ; but for all that people 
 perished by hundreds, in the following February and 
 March, with cold, hunger, and the disease that followed 
 upon the tracks of the Kaiserlicks, along with the packs 
 of wolves that also followed them close to devour the 
 dead that were not buried deep enough. It was in conse- 
 quence, too, of this miserable state of things that the 
 children born in the following years Avere a weak and 
 dwarfish race. 
 
 " And during the year of scarcity the cemetery behind 
 the church had to be enlarged, for all the old people 
 were perishing through their sufferings. We had 
 nothing left. The Germans had carried off everything 
 they could lay their hands upon, even to the door-locks 
 and the hinges of the window-sashes. The beasts were 
 dying for want of provender. We boiled nettles and 
 even thistles for vegetables ; when you have no cattlo
 
 238 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 you have no manure, and then weeds get the upper 
 hand of you, and you must live upon them. 
 
 "And with our sufferings the taxes increased, to 
 restore the emigres their property. The forest laws 
 became harder and more severe. The poor dared not 
 even gather the dead leaves for their bedding, nor the 
 acorns, nor the beech-mast ; you would have thought 
 that our legitimate kings wanted to extirpate the poor, 
 and that they were leagued with the allies to ruin us 
 entirely. The only things in vogue now were religious 
 processions, expiations, pilgrimages, and miracles. All 
 the cures worked miracles now ; all the saints in stone, 
 plaster, and wood dropped tears for our sins and for our 
 great rebellion of twenty-five years. The women, who 
 have no common sense, were all running off to see these 
 spectacles ; mine, too, wanted to go, but she remembers 
 to this day what she got when she returned home 
 again. Of course the missionaries preached abstinence 
 and fasting to poor wretches all skin and bone ; they, 
 with faces glistening with health and shining with 
 fatness, rebuked us for our gluttony. "Well, we did see 
 and hear strange things under the Bourbons." 
 
 There was silence then for a few minutes, while the 
 company reflected upon those unhappy times. 
 
 Out of doors the rain redoubled, dashing against the 
 small windows with a strange pattering ; and the wind 
 plunging down the pass between rocks and woods 
 howled and roared fearfully. 
 
 " Were there many, then, of those Kaiserlicks, to 
 drive us so far ?" I asked of Hurel. 
 He, raising his hand, replied 
 " Many ! They were by thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands ! armed with lances, sabres, huge pistols hanging
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 239 
 
 at the saddle-bow, and wearing bearskin caps ; others 
 were on foot, carrying muskets that required no ram- 
 rod ; the cartridge fell into its place by knocking the 
 butt-end on the ground. There were men in blue, men 
 in white uniforms, men in grey and in green, in shakoes 
 and flat caps. I cannot tell you how they were all 
 armed and dressed. There," said he, pointing down the 
 valley, " they were passing in such dense crowds that at 
 last they began to fall over each other, and their officers 
 made them lie down by the side of the road and in the 
 meadows, all the way from Dosenheim to Wechem, so 
 that you could not have moved a step without treading 
 on some one, for a distance of three leagues. 
 
 "And those poor creatures could not understand each 
 other's languages ; they were like animals of all kinds, 
 mewling, barking, bleating, neighing, and braying, 
 without being able to understand one another. But 
 there is no doubt that their kings knew each other's 
 meaning which was to move them against us. They 
 knew nothing about it ; they went on where tljpy were 
 kicked to ; they moved wherever the whip drove them. 
 I should never have thought there were so many people 
 in the world. Where did they all come from ? where 
 could they all come from ? that is what I want to 
 know." 
 
 " Yes," said Fix ; " but they left a good many behind 
 at Brienne, at La Eothiere, at Champaubert, and at 
 Montniirail ! If you had been in the 34th regiment of 
 the line you would have seen them lying in heaps of 
 all colours in the snow and in the mud, and all along 
 the roads. By Jove ! we had to march in those days ! 
 Now we were down upon one lot, then upon another, 
 going twelve or fifteen leagues in a day. If King
 
 240 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 Joseph had not run off along with the Empress and 
 the King of Eome, and if Paris had not surrendered, 
 we might have caught them all like fish in a net." 
 
 " No, no !" remarked the old schoolmaster, shaking 
 his head ; " all those battles were of no use whatever ; 
 we had lost them beforehand ; traitors had sold us " 
 
 These words surprised me. 
 
 "What traitors are you alluding to, Maitre Jerome ?" 
 said I. 
 
 " Why, the Royalists, of course ! There have been 
 no others in our country since '89." 
 
 And as I gazed on him with surprise, he went on 
 
 " Was it not Dumouriez who aimed at leading round 
 the Army of the North against the Convention, and to 
 proclaim Louis Philippe d'Orleans King of France? 
 wasn't he a Royalist ?" he replied, fixing upon me his 
 eyes dim with emotion ; " and the emigres who marched 
 in front of Brunswick in Champagne, and before Wurrn- 
 ser in Alsace, weren't they Eoyalists ? And I suppose 
 Pichegsu was a Eoyalist when he treated with the 
 Prince of Conde to restore the legitimate king, in 
 consideration of the title of Constable, and of millions 
 for himself and his family ? And Moreau, the great 
 Moreau ! had he not been converted to Royalism by his 
 wife before assuming the command of the Russian 
 army before Dresden ? and that abominable Bourmont, 
 who caused the failure of our campaign in Belgium by 
 informing Blucher of the approach of the French army, 
 he too was a Royalist, a ivhite as we used to say at that 
 time. And haven't the Bourbons rewarded him hand- 
 somely for his splendid conduct ? 
 
 " All those Frenchmen who have borne arms against 
 France, all those who have invited the enemy within our
 
 Village Talk about 1814. 241 
 
 borders since '89, and have opened him our gates, have 
 been Eoyalists ! Everybody knows that. The Boyalists 
 place the king above the patrie, because when a king is 
 over them they are masters ; they hold posts, honour, 
 gold, privileges, everything ! They are all kings in 
 their own towns or villages. If by chance there came 
 a patriotic king who set a higher estimation upon the 
 interests of the nation than upon those of nobles and 
 priests, the Eoyalists would be the first to take up arms 
 against him ; they would call him a Jacobin ! You 
 ought to know these things better than I can tell you, 
 since you are an engineer and you have studied." 
 
 So said the old schoolmaster; and the rest agreed 
 with him. I kneAv not what to object. 
 
 At last, just as I was going to set them talking 
 about 1815, the entry of the two Emperors and the 
 King of Prussia, Jerome interrupted me by knocking 
 the ashes out of his pipe on the edge of the table. 
 
 " It is all very well for you, monsieur, to talk at your 
 ease until to-morrow morning ; but it is quite another 
 thing with us ; we have to get home. Do listen to tne 
 rain how it is pouring down. Now, Fix, Eochart, are 
 you coming ?" 
 
 He has risen upon his feet ; his bald head touches 
 the rafters of the room. 
 
 Hurel emptied his glass, Fix and Eochart did the 
 same, and all four went out through the kitchen, whither 
 old Ykel followed them with his lamp in his hand ; and 
 as soon as the door was opened the trembling light fell 
 upon the four mountaineers running through this deluge 
 with arched backs and their hands pressing upon their 
 broad-brimmed hat or cap. 
 
 A gust of wind slammed the door, making the whole
 
 242 Village Talk about 1814. 
 
 building shake, and Ykel, returning with a broad grin 
 upon his countenance, says 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Won't they catch it from their -wives 
 when they get home ! Now, Catherine, it is our bed- 
 time. If monsieur would like to sit up a little 
 longer " 
 
 " No, no, Monsieur Ykel, like yourself I am sleepy." 
 
 " Well, take the lamp. We can find our bed very 
 well without." 
 
 I ascended the crazy old staircase. The wind was 
 howling without in the most dismal and melancholy 
 moans. Thoughts of the miseries of mankind, of war, 
 of pestilence, famine, treason, and wickedness, filled my 
 mind. I felt quite troubled. However, as soon as my 
 face lay on the pillow, with my cotton cap well pulled 
 down over my ears, and the coverings drawn up over my 
 shoulders, I was soon fast asleep. 
 
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