What a
misfortune to be poor, and unable to buy a man to march and take the
musket-shots in our place! After having gone through the rain, wind,
and snow, and mud, in Germany, the turn of the sun and dust had come.
And I saw too, that the destruction was approaching, you could hear the
sound of the drum and the bugle in every direction, and whenever the
battalion passed over an elevation long lines of helmets and lances and
bayonets were seen as far as the eye could reach.

Zebede, with his musket on his shoulder, would exclaim cheerfully,
"Well, Joseph! we are going to see the whites of the Prussians' eyes
again;" and I would force myself to reply, "Oh! yes, the weddings will
soon begin again." As if I wanted to risk my life and leave Catherine
a young widow for the sake of something which did not in the least
concern me.

That same day at seven o'clock we reached Roly. The hussars occupied
the town already, and we were obliged to bivouac in a deep road along
the side of the hill. We had hardly stacked our arms when several
general officers arrived. The Commandant Gemeau, who had just
dismounted, sprang upon his horse and hurried to meet them. They
conversed a moment together and came down into our road. Everybody
looked on and said, "Something has happened." One of the officers,
General Pechaux, whom we knew afterward, ordered the drums to beat, and
shouted, "Form a circle." The road was too narrow, and some of the
soldiers went up on the slope each side of the road, while the others
remained on the road. All the battalion looked on while the general
unrolled a paper, and said, "Proclamation from the Emperor."

When he had said that, the silence was so profound that you would have
thought yourself alone in the midst of these great fields. Every one,
from the last conscript to the Commandant Gemeau, listened, and, even
to-day, when I think of it, after fifty years, it moves my heart; it
was grand and terrible. This is what the general read:

"Soldiers! To-day is the anniversary of Marengo and of Friedland,
which twice decided the fate of Europe! Then, as after Austerlitz and
after Wagram, we were too generous, we believed the protestations and
the oaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. They have
combined to attack the independence and even the most sacred rights of
France. They have commenced the most unjust aggressions, let us meet
them! They and we,--are we no longer of the same race