ld levy, after a _senatus-consultus_, as
they said in those days, in the first place, one hundred and fifty
thousand conscripts of 1813; then one hundred _cohortes_ of the first
call of 1812 who thought they had already escaped; then one hundred
thousand conscripts of from 1809 to 1812, and so on to the end; so that
every loop-hole was closed, and we would have a larger army than before
the Russian expedition.

When Father Fouze, the glazier, came to us with this news, one morning,
I almost fell, through faintness, for I thought:

"Now they will take all, even fathers of families. I am lost!"

Monsieur Goulden poured some water on my neck; my arms hung useless by
my side; I was pale as a corpse.

But I was not the only one upon whom the placard had such an effect:
that year many young men refused to go; some broke their teeth off, so
as not to be able to tear the cartridge; others blew off their thumbs
with pistols, so as not to be able to hold a musket; others, again,
fled to the woods; they proclaimed them "refractories," but they had
not _gendarmes_ enough to capture them.

The mothers of families took courage to revolt after a manner, and to
encourage their sons not to obey the _gendarmes_. They aided them in
every way; they cried out against the Emperor, and the clergy of all
denominations sustained them in so doing. The cup was at last full!

The very day of the proclamation I went to Quatre-Vents; but it was not
now in the joy of my heart; it was as the most miserable of unhappy
wretches, about to be bereft of love and life. I could scarcely walk,
and when I reached there I did not know how to announce the evil
tidings; but I saw at a glance that they knew all, for Catharine was
weeping bitterly, and Aunt Gredel was pale with indignation.

We embraced in silence, and the first words Aunt Gredel said to me, as
in her anger she pushed her gray hair behind her ears, were:

"You shall not go! What have we to do with wars? The priest himself
told us it was at last too much, and that we ought to have peace! You
shall not go! Do not cry, Catharine; I say he shall not go!"

She was fairly green with anger, and rattled her kettles noisily
together, saying:

"This carnage has lasted long enough. Our two poor cousins, Kasper and
Yokel, are already going to lose their lives in Spain for this Emperor,
and now he comes to ask us for the younger ones. He is not satisfied
to have slain three hundred thousand