ng one's heart flutter. During the week following every family was
uneasy; poor mothers especially waited for letters, and the first that
came all the city knew of; "such an one had received a letter from
Jacques or Claude," and all ran to see if it spoke of their Joseph or
their Jean-Baptiste. I do not speak of promotions or the official
reports of deaths; as for the first, every one knew that the killed
must be replaced; and as for the reports of deaths, parents awaited
them weeping, for they did not come immediately; sometimes indeed they
never came, and the poor father and mother hoped on, saying, "Perhaps
our boy is a prisoner. When they make peace he will return. How many
have returned whom we thought dead!"

But they never made peace. When one war was finished, another was
begun. We always needed something, either from Russia or from Spain,
or some other country. The Emperor was never satisfied.

Often when regiments passed through the city, with their great coats
pulled back, their knapsacks on their backs, their great gaiters
reaching to the knee, and muskets carried at will; often when they
passed covered with mud or white with dust, would Father Melchior,
after gazing upon them, ask me dreamily:

"How many, Joseph, think you we have seen pass since 1804?"

"I cannot say, Monsieur Goulden," I would reply, "at least four or five
hundred thousand."

"Yes, at least!" he said, "and how many have returned?"

Then I understood his meaning, and answered:

"Perhaps they returned by Mayence or some other route. It cannot be
possible otherwise!"

But he only shook his head, and said:

"Those whom you have not seen return are dead, as hundreds and hundreds
of thousands more will die, if the good God does not take pity upon us,
for the Emperor loves only war. He has already spilt more blood to
give his brothers crowns than our great Revolution cost to win the
rights of man."

Then we set about our work again; but the reflections of Monsieur
Goulden gave me some terrible subjects for thought.

It was true that I was a little lame in the left leg; but how many
others with defects of body had received their orders to march
notwithstanding!

These ideas kept running through my head, and when I thought long over
them, I grew very melancholy. They seemed terrible to me, not only
because I had no love for war, but because I was going to marry
Catharine of Quatre-Vents. We had been in some sort reared to