r
jump out of the window. No, no, but we need not listen to all he says,
for I insist that this procession is a good thing for us, that the
priest will get the permit for us, and that is the principal thing.
Catherine and I will go, and as Mr. Goulden will stay at home, you had
best stay too. But I am certain that three-fourths of the town and
country round will go, and whether it be for Moreau or Pichegru or
Cadoudal it is of no consequence. It will be very fine. You will see!"

"I believe you," I answered.

We had reached the German gate; I kissed her again, and went back quite
happy to my work.

III

I recollect this visit of Aunt Gredel because eight days after the
processions and atonements and sermons commenced, and did not end till
the return of the Emperor in 1815, and then they commenced again and
continued till the fall of Charles X. in 1830. Everybody who was then
alive knows there was no end to them. So when I think of Napoleon, I
hear the cannon of the arsenal thunder and the panes of our windows
rattle, and Father Goulden cries out from his bed: "Another victory,
Joseph! Ha! ha! ha! Always victories." And when I think of Louis
XVIII., I hear the bells ring and I imagine Father Brainstein and his
two big boys hanging to the ropes, and I hear Father Goulden laugh and
say: "That, Joseph, is for Saint Magloire or Saint Polycarp."

I cannot think of those days in any other way.

Under the Empire I see too at nightfall, Father Coiffe, Nicholas Rolfo,
and five or six other veterans, loading their cannon for the evening
salute of twenty-one guns, while half of Pfalzbourg stand on the
opposite bastion looking at the red light, and smoke, and watching the
wads as they fall into the moat; then the illuminations at night and
the crackers and rockets, I hear the children cry _Vive l'Empereur_,
and then some days after, the death notices and the conscription.
Under Louis XVIII. I see the altars and the peasants with their carts
full of moss and broom and young pines; the ladies coming out of their
houses with great vases of flowers; people carrying their chandeliers
and crucifixes, and then the processions--the priest and his vicars,
the choir boys and Jacob Cloutier, Purrhus, and Tribou, the singers;
the beadle Koekli, with his red robe and his banner which swept the
skies, the bells ringing their full peals; Mr. Jourdan, the new mayor,
with his great red face, his beautiful uniform with his cross