The Conscript's Ordeal

[…] Whilst we were dining in silence, the bells of the steeples of Rome began to ring. "The Emperor is dead in the city," said [...] Monsieur the Mayor [...] "I did not hear of it."

[...] Professor [...] the elder, came in to have a glass; this produced but little effect on the people, because every one was afraid of being [...]. More soldiers were needed. All were in terror.

[...] and I grew thinner day by day. In vain would Monsieur [...] Father [...] nothing [...] tried [...]. Confide, my [...] at the end of the road [...]. But all this did not lessen my uneasiness.

[...] as they often too, when we were alone at work, would say to me, "If those who are now masters, and who tell us that God [...] them here on earth to make us happy [...] the hapless mothers, whose hearts they tear away to satisfy [...]"

[...] one of which no one [...] glory [...] glory is for a man, but only [...] at the [...] days, in the year 1809, who by that age they had already [...] then one hundred thousand [...] drawn from 1809 to 1811, and so on to the end; so that [...] than before the Russian expedition.

When Father Foure, the glazier, came to me 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 quite full!

[To be Continued.]