CHAPTER VI.

In sending word to Anton to fetch us from the inn at Nieder Olang that especial afternoon, we had not been aware that we had chosen a place and hour when most of the pious male Catholics were gathered thither to accord an unflinching, unequivocal assent to the Infallibility dogma, as well as to condemn from the bottom of their clerical or rustic souls the foul heresy of Old Catholicism, which was spreading far and wide in the adjoining kingdom of Bavaria. Most of the farmers and all the parish priests were assembled. The spacious _Widum_ or parsonage, in festal array, kept open house, the large church was full to overflowing, whilst the ample inn being still more crammed we preferred waiting for Anton in a shady nook opposite. Here we had ample leisure to observe the rows of clerical and bucolic backs ranged against the open inn windows, and to listen to the hum of serious voices, sounding as if a spiritual mass meeting were being held over seitels of wine. It was a curious sight a quarter of an hour later, the conclave being at an end, to watch the priests flocking forth, some so old and shabby, in such stained, rusty frockcoats, that their very assumption of dignity appeared painfully grotesque; others, more scrupulously clean, displayed with pride a blue silk ribbon bound as an order across their breasts; but whether shabby or decent, whether singly or in groups, they were invariably received bareheaded by the respectful villagers waiting outside, whilst a double salvo of homage was awarded by priest and layman to a tall, elegant Italian monsignor from Brixen, who, tucking up gracefully his rich violet garments, walked with infinite care from the inn to the Widum, disappearing from view under the gateway.

All the clergy now departing in various directions were complacently chuckling over the security of their position, their quiet, unquestioning sheep obediently following whithersoever they might lead them. It was not always so in the Tyrol. In former ages, especially at the time of the Reformation, the people had used their independent judgment, allowing themselves neither to be oppressed nor led astray. In these latter days, however, their freer, nobler instincts have been overpowered by the marvelous, almost incredible, influence of the Jesuits. In the last century, when this order was suppressed, the Tyrolese gymnasiums were immediately improved, schools for the people were opened, and such was the spirit of the age that the barons Sternbach, Turn, Taxis and other noblemen became Freemasons--an act which their descendants, now shackled with Jesuitical influences, regard with the deepest horror. After the revolution of 1848 a spirit of reaction arose in the Tyrol, which holds the people back, retards progress and keeps the country far behind other European lands.

A very embodiment of this retrograding subordination stood before us in the form of Seppl, who, dull, poor both in mind and pocket, still lingered entranced with wonder and amazement at a power which appeared to him capable of governing both earth and heaven.

Rich bauers and poor laborers in this peaceful, wealthy portion of the Tyrol become daily more blindly attached to the priests. Should there happen to be a thinker amongst them, he must keep his questionings to himself: he will find no sympathy in his neighbors. In towns such as Innsbruck, however, he will discover many fellows, for a feeling of reaction has awakened there a more liberal, independent spirit.

If Seppl might be taken as an extreme type of the provincial mode of thought, so might a young student with whom we shortly became acquainted be regarded as representing that of the town. Pursuing a long course of medical studies at the Innsbruck University, he implied rather by his actions than by any outward expressions that he regarded his worthy country relations as zealots, absented himself from Rosenkranz and long family graces, and spoke compassionately of his relatives as being "very naïve;" and these simple, unsophisticated people in their turn, though staggered by this spirit of quiet innovation and rebellion in their midst, made their minds easy on the score that a man of the world, such as he was, and honorably providing for himself, could not be expected to be such as they were. He had not time for prayers and confessions: he must study, and then must enjoy relaxation; but some of their extra petitions might be put to his account. Not that this was ever expressed in so many words: it was rather from our own quiet observations that we drew these inferences. Nor did opportunities fail, seeing that our new acquaintance was in fact no other than the "Herr Student," the saintly personage whom we had imagined in long black Noah's Ark coat, wearing the orthodox clerical stock embroidered with blue and white beads, leading Rosenkranz, and, should we ever have the honor of his acquaintance, saying three Ave Marias before conversing with heretics.

Instead of this, behold a good-looking, cheerful young man in gold spectacles, wearing a suit the color of ripe chestnuts, who, whilst we began impatiently to look for Anton, appeared before us like a good genius from the inn, introduced himself and apologized that we should have been kept waiting. "I regret," he added, "that I was not aware of your arrival until the kellnerin pointed you out through the window; otherwise I should have taken the liberty to explain to you that my brother may be a little late. He brought me and two friends over earlier in the day, and had then to attend to a little business. _Mein compliment_;" and with a low bow he returned to the inn.

We no longer anxiously inquired of each other whether the ever-ready Anton had received our message, rather whether we had not put him to considerable inconvenience when there was business of the Hofbauer's to be attended to. And next, how in the world, if the Herr Student, who had so suddenly appeared on the scene, were here with two friends, we could all return in the gig?

Nor did this dilemma seem likely to decrease when we spied in the far distant windings of the road, dotted over with the receding black groups of priests and their supporters, a moving object approaching in our direction bearing unmistakable resemblance to the gig and broad-backed horse, but with a female figure seated behind Anton--a perplexity which grew greater when, the distance becoming less, the figure assumed a still more elegant form, holding a fashionable sunshade in her hand, which suddenly began to wave persistently in our direction.

Who could it be? We imagined, we hoped, we doubted, until ten minutes later our astonishment ended in a joyous reality as we clasped in our arms our dear, friend E----. She had arrived in our absence on a visit to us at the Hof, and the good family, desirous of affording us a joyful surprise, had proposed that Anton should drive her over to meet us at Nieder Olang. The Herr Student was in the secret. This had made him prudently cut our conversation short and return to his friends in the inn.

E---- brought bouquets of flowers for us from the aunt and Moidel, but there was no reason for us to hurry back: there were still several hours of daylight. The sturdy horse having already accomplished some eighteen or twenty miles since morning, made no objection to a rest and feed of hay in the stable, whilst Anton was content to sit with his brother and his two friends in the _stube_ before the trio started on foot for the Hof. It seemed rather a desire to show the strangers the neighborhood than any inclination to attend the clerical meeting which had brought the Herr Student to Nieder Olang this afternoon. And we, glad of an hour's delay, started immediately with E----, the sunny summer afternoon made brighter by this joyous meeting, to visit the adjoining hamlet of Mitter Olang.

The three small adjacent villages of Upper, Middle and Lower Olang, lying amongst monotonous fields and destitute themselves of any picturesque beauty, would be passed over by the stranger as totally devoid of interest; but, thanks to Dr. Staffler's topographical work, _Das deutsche Tirol und Voralberg_, the mention of Peter Sigmair of Mitter Olang had excited a strong desire in us to see the spot where he had lived and died.

After the battle of Austerlitz, in 1805, the defeated emperor of Austria signed a treaty with Napoleon ceding Venice to the French and the Tyrol to their ally, Bavaria. The Tyrolese thus found themselves suddenly separated from an empire the fortunes of which they had shared for some five hundred years. If the country had outwardly become Bavarian, the hearts of the people remained essentially Austrian, and bitterly did they resent having to obey a government in league with the French, the sworn foe of Austria. Thus they determined on the first opportunity to throw off the hated yoke. The Bavarians had promised by the treaty to leave intact the Tyrolese constitution. They soon, however, forced the young men into the army to fight their battles, dissolved the religious houses, and eventually dismissed both bishops and parish priests. This was more than these extremely religious people could brook. The Bavarians had broken faith in not preserving the constitution: now they were free from their oath, they declared. In this sentiment the emperor of Austria warmly seconded them, and secret plots of rebellion began speedily to ferment through the land. In 1809, the memorable, never-to-be-forgotten year _Nine_ of Tyrolese history, the earnestly longed-for opportunity arrived. In April of this year the Austrians declared war against France, and on the 8th of the same month the enthusiastic patriot Johann Maria von Kolb appeared in the market-place of Innichen, where he issued written proclamations, still preserved at Bruneck, bidding all the parish priests and the inhabitants of the Upper Pusterthal instantly to rise, throw off the Bavarian yoke and join the beloved Austrian troops, which were now marching in that direction.

Incited by Von Kolb and other leaders, the people rose and welcomed the Austrians. The Bavarian troops stationed at Bruneck hastily retreated to Brixen, and the Austrians entered the chief town of the Pusterthal on April 12. Peace now reigned in the district for several months. The rest of the Tyrol, however, was in commotion. In May the Bavarians were again back in the country, and the French coming to their assistance. The people rose under the leadership of the brave Hofer. They won a great victory at Iselberg, but in October the French had taken possession of Innsbruck, and the treaty of Schonbrunn immediately followed, in which the Tyrolese, again handed over to Bavaria, were ordered to lay down their arms.

The people disobeyed: they were incredulous, believing the official documents to be forged; and, although he knew better, Von Kolb strengthened them in this belief. He, together with Peter Kemenater, a wealthy wirth, and George Lantschner, the priest of Weitenthal, urged the people to rise and fight for their country, setting at naught any treaty of peace. Thus, though the French troops were allowed by the town authorities to enter Bruneck on November 5, the people remained in a state of turbulence, the men of Taufers immediately rising and fighting the French at Gaisz, the first village in their valley, and although defeated and driven back, the neighboring peasants of Aufhofen took up the attack, having in their turn their village plundered and some of the inhabitants killed by the enemy.

Von Kolb and his party next encouraged the Landsturm or people _en masse_ to assail the French general Moreau in Brixen, causing his friend, General Almeras, to leave Bruneck in charge of a small troop and to hurry to his rescue. The very same afternoon (November 30) the priest Lantschner, accompanied by the wirth of Mühlen in the Taufersthal, Johann Hofer, marched at the head of an army of peasants on Bruneck. In the mean time, Almeras, prevented by a general uprising from reaching Brixen, turned back with his troops dressed as a private, and made most of the way by mountain-paths on foot, fearing to remain in his carriage, as immediately after starting his cook had been shot dead on the coach-box. Approaching Bruneck, the general discovered the concourse of the armed peasants to be far greater than he had imagined, and a whole day elapsed before his entry into the town could be effected. On December 2 the insurgents advanced nearer and nearer, pouring down from the neighboring village of Percha, which they had chosen as their head-quarters. At one o'clock they pushed before them two sledges loaded with hay from Edelsheim, and one filled with straw from Percha, and, forming by this means a barricade in front of the Capuchin monastery, began firing, whilst troops of peasants still marched forward from other villages. More used to plough-shares than swords, however, the peasants, numbering ten thousand men, instead of surrounding the town, as they might easily have done, merely attacked it on the north side, thus enabling the French general with a handful of cavalry and infantry to surprise them in the rear. Confusion and a most ignominious defeat ensued, the peasants fleeing across the meadows and fields, some being killed and others taken prisoners. Although repulsed, they were not reduced, and animated by the rash, vindictive Von Kolb, made several fresh skirmishes. Standing up in the village street of Percha, this leader animated them still to fresh attacks, and sent special messengers north, south, east and west, vowing fire and vengeance to all who succumbed; but on December 6, fresh French troops having come to the aid of General Almeras, the peasants saw that their cause was lost and refused to listen. Thus ceased the peasant war.

The town of Bruneck, which had suffered greatly from the double siege, still venerates the memory of General Almeras, who exerted himself on its behalf, whilst his liberality toward the peasants, whom he regarded as ignorant and misguided, was equally praiseworthy, mitigating in many instances the severity of the council of war.

Although the insurgents were dispersed, most of the French officers, unlike General Almeras, condescended to the bitterest revenge against the disarmed people. All the leaders who had not concealed themselves were captured and summarily shot without trial. Von Kolb, however, escaped with his life: disguised as a seller of lemons, he fled over the Redensberg, and passing through Antholz managed to reach Stiermark. Another still more remarkable man, Father Joachim, known amongst the people as Red Beard, wading through deep snow managed to hide himself for many months in the castle of Goldrain. In August of 1810, disguised as an artisan, he reached Switzerland, Milan, and finally Vienna, where the emperor, as a reward for his valiant deeds, presented him with the living of Hietzing in the neighborhood of Vienna.

Our long but necessary preamble now brings us to Peter Sigmair. He too had a price set on his head, having acted as lieutenant in the popular cause, and had accordingly sought a safe retreat in the mountains. Soon, however, a friend brought him word that his old father, George Sigmair, the Tharer-wirth of Mitter Olang, when attending to some business in Bruneck on St. Thomas's Day, had been arrested by command of General Broussier, with orders that he should be shot if his son did not give himself up before three days. The son might have comforted himself with the thought that it would be impossible for the general to put so tyrannical a threat into execution, but the consciousness of his father in such danger conquered all other feelings. He immediately started for Bruneck, and gave himself up. His father was instantly liberated, whilst he, bound in chains, was sent to Bozen, but brought back to Bruneck at the beginning of January, 1810, when in his cell in the castle he quietly heard his sentence--that he should be shot before the door of his father's inn at Mitter Olang, and that his body should then be hung on a gallows as a solemn warning to refractory peasants. His young wife, maddened with grief, penetrated to the presence of the French general, clasped his knees and plead in vain for mercy. He remained perfectly impassive to her entreaties, but granted a favor to a young priest, Franz von Mörl, who accompanied the prisoner in his last moments--namely, that, instead of before the window, the execution should take place at a small wayside chapel on the confines of the village. And so Peter Sigmair was shot at the age of thirty-six, honored for his valor, but still more for his filial piety.

We were now standing on the very spot, before the humble, whitewashed chapel. Above the entrance, which was closed, a rude fresco, much injured by weather, commemorated the deed. Some soldiers in very high-waisted regimentals were taking aim at Peter Sigmair, who knelt blindfolded, wearing the full peasant costume, which, more ordinary in those days, is still used for marriages, and is consequently represented even now on mortuary tablets as indicative of the heavenly wedding-garment.

After seeing the now desolate, forsaken chapel, we bent our steps into the village to visit the Wirth-haus. A friendly, quiet peasant-woman met us in the dark passage, and showed us into a clean, comfortable wainscoted room, the _zechstube_. We ordered some wine for the good of the house, which was brought by an equally quiet peasant-man. Setting it on the table, he hovered about the room in an uncertain way, but confided to us eventually that he was the landlord. The woman then came and introduced herself as his sister, and they both stood silently before us in a house as silent as themselves, the great festival at the neighboring hamlet having probably thinned their custom. It was evident that they had plenty of leisure to answer any questions, and we had soon learned from them that the old Tharer-wirth was their grandfather.

"You must know," said the sister, "I have read in big printed letters that Onkel Peter's little children, holding up their little hands, prayed the cruel general with tears to spare their father. It is a pity that what is put in print can never be altered, because he had no children. He had only a young wife, who afterward married a bauer at Antholz, where their son is the priest."

"Yes," said the wirth. "If there had been children, they would have succeeded, not my mother. It was before either of us was born, but she often told us of it--how cold it was, in the depth of winter, on the Name of Jesus Day. Onkel Peter marched with a cross placed in his hands, which were bound behind him, from Bruneck, being led to a house near the inn at Nieder Olang, since burnt down, where he confessed. At the wayside chapel he next received the sacrament, and then the soldiers shot him."

Were there any mementoes of him in the house? we asked.

"Oh, not now. His belt used to lie about the house, but had been either carried off or lost." And then one of the good souls intimated that it was sad to have a relation publicly executed: he must pass as a criminal. It did their hearts good to find that strangers from other parts did not look upon him as such. It was natural that they and the villagers should think well of him, but they were poor ignorant people at the best. However, criminal or not, all the school-children in Tyrol read about him now. He was stuck in their primers and called a hero and a patriot; only, even in the lesson-book, the mistake had again been made of giving him children. The wirth thought it must be for effect--to make the tale more thrilling.

"We often puzzle ourselves about the rights and wrongs of Onkel Peter's death," concluded the simple man; "but this will always be clear to us, that three foreign ladies visiting the house out of respect to his memory speaks well for him."

Thus we left the staid brother and sister quietly gratified by our call, and returning to Nieder Olang found the kellnerin of the now deserted inn awaiting us with a nosegay of stately white lilies. The gig too was ready, and with our dear friend E---- at our side we drove homeward in the silent summer evening. We passed Percha, a small group of peaceful houses and a church, contrasting forcibly with the wild, tumultuous scenes which it must have witnessed when the enthusiast Von Kolb and his companions convulsed the peasantry;--and passed over the upland plains where the ten thousand peasants had been repulsed and scattered--a corn-giving land, affluent with myriad golden shocks, like a perpetual Joseph's dream.

* * * * *

The Hof proved too quiet and healthful a resting-place, and its inmates too genuinely good and honest, for us to bid it a lasting farewell in '71. Behold us, therefore, in the following summer again within its friendly walls, where we at first settled down to a harmonious, industrious routine of several weeks: then an extreme desire seizing upon some of us to see more of the glories of mountain and valley around, we set out one and all for six days of pure holiday enjoyment; part of the programme being for the more adventurous, attended by Moidel, to climb to the Olm on a visit to Jakob.

MARGARET HOWITT.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

WITH THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS AT PARIS.

We were sitting under the trees in the Champs Élysées, in sight of the ruined Tuileries, when my friend gave me the following reminiscences. In repeating what I can recall of them, as nearly as I can in his own language, I shall use names with almost as great freedom as he did--a fact for which I think I owe no apology.

"Restore that wreck of the Tuileries," said my friend--but I shall let him tell his story without quotation-marks, and without the interruption of my urging and questionings, that finally got him almost as much interested in his subject as I was myself--Restore that wreck of the Tuileries, and these gay equipages and these loiterers in the Avenue would repeat for you, very nearly, the scene of my first service with the American ambulance. That was before I was a regular member of the corps--in fact, before the corps which operated at the siege of Paris had been properly formed. Dr. Sims, Dr. Tom Pratt, Frank Hayden and others, with three ambulance-wagons, were going to the front: we heard a great deal of _"à Berlin!"_ in the streets in those days. I came down this way to the Palais d'Industrie to see them off, and when I did see the American ladies raising the colors to march through the crowd, I couldn't help taking part in the procession. So I put on the _brassard_ of Geneva--a red cross on a white band strapped on the arm, being the ambulance badge established in 1864 by the International Convention of Geneva--and seized one of the sticks with a sack on the end of it, and began asking contributions for the wounded as the cortege moved on.

It was one of the most exciting scenes I ever witnessed, our march for miles through the crowded boulevards to the station of the Northern Railway. Dr. Sims walked behind his own horses, which headed the procession, and the throng everywhere commented admiringly upon the _chic_ of the fine animals. The American ladies--there were three of them--marched beside the wagons, bearing the French and American colors and the red cross of the International ambulance. We filled and emptied and refilled our sacks with the Napoleons from the _monde_ in their flash barouches and from the loungers of the clubs, and with the greasy sous of the workingmen and grisettes. Many took out purses containing five sous and gave three: many took out purses containing silver and copper, and gave the silver. Old men with feeble sight and hearing would hobble up to us through the crowd and ask, "What is this?"

"For the wounded," we would say--"for France!"

And trembling hands would be thrust into pockets, and "God's blessing on you!" would go with their silver or sous.

Well, well, it was a great day. It was, I believe, the largest collection ever taken up in Paris for the wounded. We shouted ourselves hoarse when the train bore the corps away for Mézières. They served through the war, part of the time with the French, part of the time with the Prussians. Many of them have since been decorated by both governments.

It is to Dr. Evans that the American ambulance owes more perhaps than to any one man. It supported itself, our corps did, and Dr. Evans furnished the largest portion of the money. He had some American ambulance-wagons and the material for a field hospital brought over and exhibited at the Exposition of 1867, and these were still in his possession. They were early offered to the American corps, but a misunderstanding between Dr. Evans and Dr. Sims caused the latter to go to the field with wagons, etc. furnished by the International ambulance. So we who formed the American corps at Paris during the siege had the use of Dr. Evans's wagons and material. The doctor himself accompanied the empress in her flight; but from England he sent money whenever he could get it into Paris, and did all in his power for the ambulance.

Some time before the Prussians had closed in upon us it was ordered that the useless mouths (_bouches inutiles_) should leave the city. Of course thousands left. We who remained expected we should have to go into the ranks. I liked the excitement of the thing, and stayed through it all. Meanwhile, Dr. John Swinburne, who was formerly, I believe, a health officer of New York, had been invited to take charge of the American hospital at Paris. Dr. Evans's tents were pitched in the Avenue de l'Impératrice, in the place where the dog-show used to be. This was our headquarters all through the siege, though at last, as winter came on, the tents were not large or comfortable enough to hold the wounded, and so we built barracks there. George Kidder, Will Dreyer and I joined the corps together. My first service was to beg Bowles Brothers' American flag and hoist it over our tents. Then our duties consisted for a while in loafing about the grounds, driving tent pegs, greasing the wagons and drawing up rules for our own government, for there was no fighting just then. Those were the bright, sunny days of September. Montretout and Châtillon had been taken, the Zouaves had disgraced themselves, and we were utterly cut off from the world. We elected two captains. One was William B. Bowles, and the other Joseph K. Riggs of Washington. They were to serve on alternate days.

One morning we went down in our wagons, drawn by horses belonging to members of our corps, and reported to the "International Society for the Aid of the Wounded." We found them at the Palais d'Industrie. They did not think much of us, as we could not help perceiving, but they finally consented to let us go out at the first sortie--namely, that of Villejuif, when the French tried to take the villages of Thiais and L'Hay. We got upon the field just as the firing was over. The French had taken one village at the point of the bayonet, but at last they had retired so precipitately that they had left their wounded in the Prussian lines. There the poor fellows lay, in among the yellow wheat, with great well-fed Prussians prancing around them on horseback. It was a terrible scene, especially to me, being the first of the kind I had ever seen. But after a while I was so busy with the others, picking up the wounded and burying the dead, that somehow I lost my first overwhelming sense of the horror of the spectacle.

We smelt our first powder--that is, a few stray balls came among us--at Châtillon. Returning from this latter fight, we saw the burning of the palace of St. Cloud. It was a beautiful October sunset and evening, and the sight was indescribably grand.

You will, however, get a better idea of our share in a sortie if I tell you more particularly of the next one, that of Malmaison. It was there, in fact, that we began to make our reputation. This was the sortie fraught with most real danger to the Germans. They had not then had time to establish their lines, and if the attack had been followed up with more men, the French, it is thought, might have taken Versailles and cut the enemy's line of communication. As it was, the Prussians had everything packed and horses saddled, ready to leave Versailles at a moment's notice. Ur. Sarazin, chief surgeon of Ducrot's corps, had asked us to rendezvous at the Rond Point de Courbevoie, just behind Mont Valérien, where the French had a battery. On our way out there that beautiful October afternoon, as we were driving up the hill from Porte Maillot, the American flag and the colors of the International ambulance flying over our five wagons, we were met by the whole provisional government of France. Jules Ferry hailed us and asked a ride. They were going to see the fight. We took them all in: we had in our wagon Rochefort, Ferry and Favre; the others took seats as the wagons came up. We left them on a sort of platform which had been built for them upon the pedestal of the famous knee-breeches-and-cocked-hat statue of the First Napoleon, which was replaced by the Roman-togaed one upon the Column Venôdme. The first-mentioned statue had even then been toppled over and carted away. We went on to the top of the hill of Courbevoie, whence, however, we were promptly ordered back. From our station farther in the rear, lying down in our wagons, we watched the bombs and the smoke of the musketry rising over the hill. The French were beating the Prussians back with great slaughter, as we heard from couriers constantly sent in.

Suddenly, Dr. Sarazin rode into our midst and shouted, "Ambulance Américaine, en avant!" Putting spurs to his horse, he galloped down the road, we following at a brisk trot. Halfway to Rueil he drew up and said, "Pass that windmill, turn to the right, and you will be on the field." We plunged on through potato-patches and vineyards, our hearts in our mouths. As we drew past the windmill, which was on a knoll in the descent from Mont Valérien, we came upon the French reserves, massed by regiments behind the artillery and mitrailleuses which lined the crest of the hill we were on. Just behind them were Trochu and his staff. An aide-de-camp galloped toward us as we approached, and told us to take down our flags, shouting that we would draw fire. He had to tell us that only once: our flags came down like a shot. The fight was going on in the valley just beneath us. The sun was setting, the windows of Mont Valérien shimmered with its slanting rays, the green woods grew darker, and the blue smoke curled lazily over the combatants. Away in the distance the aqueduct of Marly ran in gray relief against the red of the evening sky. From this aqueduct, as we learned afterward, King William, the crown prince, Moltke and Bismarck were watching the struggle. Our little red-legged liners had pushed the Germans across the open space and were pressing them in the wood. We grew excited, and the boys began making for the crest of the hill among the artillery, when one of our party, a well-known American here in Paris, cried out, "Gentlemen, as a clergyman and father of a family, I forbid you to go any farther forward and risk your lives." Whereupon Mr. William Bowles, aroused, but in his usual manner in moments of excitement--namely, with his hands in his vest pockets and his eyes beaming through his gold spectacles--observed, "Gentlemen, oh that be d----d! As an American and your captain, I command you to follow me." And we followed him, singing at the tops of our voices, "While we were marching through Georgia."

What would have become of us, carried away as we were, no one knows, if we had not been marched back again by higher orders. We were straightway sent down to the right, toward Malmaison, to gather the wounded. We passed Trochu and staff, who saluted us, and we wound down the hill, with the infantry before us, and the cannon and mitrailleuses behind us bellowing over our heads. The French soldiery sent up cheer after cheer for "les Américains" as we made our way, still shouting, "While we were marching through Georgia." There were twenty or twenty-five of us, and we made some noise. In the streets of Rueil we found the dead and wounded very thick. We filled our wagons with the wounded, and started back for our hospital at Paris. In our wagon we had seven, so we had to walk along beside it. It was late in the night when we reached the city gate. There we were confronted by sentinels with glaring torches, challenged, asked the number of our wounded, and then allowed to rattle and creak over the draw-bridge. Just inside the walls we were met by a surging mass of anxious men, women and children.

"What regiment have you?" they would shout. "Has the Hundred-and-fifth been engaged? Have the Zouaves been in?"

"Yes," exclaimed one from our wagon, rising on his elbow, "they have been in, and many haven't come out again." Then snatching his fez from his head, he waved it in the glare of the torches, I and cried, "Vive la France! vive la République!"

That poor fellow was shot in the hip. We so far cured him at the hospital that I saw him hobbling into the fight upon a cane, his gun strapped across his back, at the last sortie of the besieged. I got very well acquainted with him, too, at the hospital, as I did with many another gallant fellow on both sides. He was an educated gentleman of Alsace: he had entered the Zouaves as a volunteer at the outbreak of the war, and had fought it all through in the ranks. He was sergeant when he was wounded. After the war and Commune were over I was touched on the shoulder by some one sitting upon the seat back of me at the Opéra Comique one night, and there was my brave friend the sergeant, safe and almost sound through all.

At the hospital, the night after the sortie I have just been telling you of, we worked with our wounded until nearly morning. Dr. Swinburne, I think, did not go to bed at all. And right here I ought to introduce you more particularly to the old doctor. Take the portrait of General Grant, run a good many streaks of gray through his hair and beard, a few more lines on his forehead and crows' feet around his eyes, and you have an idea of the doctor's looks. He is a man of great energy and few words--a surgical genius and a great lover of horses. He could or would explain nothing. At last we got to calling him "Old Compound Fracture," for he would say, when we were starting for a fight likely to be serious, "Boys, don't mind those slightly wounded fellows--let the Frenchmen pick them up: just bring me along the compound fractures." These latter were his hobby. He fairly doted on a man whom ordinary surgeons would have given up in despair; and I believe he was the happiest man in Paris when the first patient who had his leg shattered in a half dozen places began hobbling about the camp on crutches. The soldiers got to hear of him at last. More than one poor fellow lying on the field grievously wounded swore he would be taken to no place but to the American hospital.

Our next important sortie was at Champigny. That was the occasion when Ducrot was surely going to push through the German lines. In his proclamation he had announced that he would re-enter Paris victorious or dead. Of course he did not keep his promise. We were all to rendezvous at the Champs de Mars that morning at four o'clock. About three of the same morning Mont Valérien opened fire, and then Issy, then Vanves, then Mont Rouge, and so the flash and roar of cannon went round the whole city. That was our reveille. It was cold, very cold, that morning, and we waited at the rendezvous a long time in company with the French, Italian, Swiss and other ambulance corps. The great Doctor Ricord was there, and some of us heard then for the first time that he is an American from Baltimore. Chenu, Nellaton and several other famous surgeons were also there, shivering with us as we waited and waited for the push through the lines, which never came. Well, when at last the fight did occur, it made plenty of work for our wagons. For the next two days they were constantly going to and fro between the field and our hospital. Everywhere we went along the lines now we were recognized and made way for. One night, as one of our wagons was trying to cross the field, it was halted with the question, "What ambulance is that?"

"Is it necessary to ask?" shouted a French soldier out of the darkness. "It is the Americans', of course: they are everywhere."

At this sortie there rode with us a little French abbé, whom some of the boys had picked up weeks before roaming about the outposts among the trenches. He had won their hearts by his utter contempt of fire as he prayed with and confessed everybody he could lay hands on. At the sortie of Châtillon he had discovered one of our corps bringing in to the wagons at the risk of his life a huge pumpkin. The abbé imagined that Americans must set great value upon pumpkins if they were willing to secure them at such hazard, and he described the whole incident in _L'Univers_, the ultra-Catholic paper of Paris. In the course of a few days the ambulance Américaine received two or three polite notes from religious French maiden ladies, saying that they had a few pumpkins which were at the service of the gentlemen of the corps. We received the pumpkins, and skirmished for the ingredients of pumpkin-pie, which the matron of our hospital baked for us. This was an unknown use for pumpkins in France, and those pies cost about their weight in silver. Sugar we had--it was the eggs that cost. Horsemeat and pumpkin-pie! There was a wild extravagance in that dinner, but then it was patriotic--at least the dessert was.

We nearly froze to death at Bourget, but I have not time to tell you of it. I must pass on to the last sortie--toward Montretout and Malmaison. That was a dark, foggy, leaden morning, with a drizzling rain. We passed through the whole French army on our way out--line, National Guards, Mobiles, artillery, cavalry: we passed through them all, everywhere meeting with a grateful reception. Sometimes they cheered us and our wagons (now increased to eight) and our immense coffee-pot. This last was an institution: it consisted of three great boilers mounted on wheels. Before the meat gave out we used sometimes to put soup in our coffee-pot and take it to the field. Coffee by some means we still had. Even on the desolate morning I am now telling you of many a poor foot-soldier who had been upon the almost impassable roads all night had been cheered by a sly tin cupful of the precious liquid as we trudged on toward the field. Well, we were finally ordered to halt at the little village of Rueil, within a stone's throw of the church where Josephine and Hortense lie buried. I climbed a hill on the left, and saw the French pushing toward Buzenval. They could see nothing before them but a line of fire--not a Prussian above the low wall in front of the thick mass of wood. Though I could see these Frenchmen dropping down by hundreds, they went steadily on and on. Some of them were National Guards who had never before been under fire. It was here that young Henri Regnault fell, with many other Parisians known in literature and art. After a while the Germans began shelling the hill on which I was, and I scampered down to the open square where the wagons were. It was not long, however, till another German battery got to throwing shells into this square, each discharge bringing them nearer and nearer to us. Suddenly a shell struck the corner house in front of us. The door opened in a very deliberate way, and out came a man in a blouse, smoking a pipe, and followed by a woman with a baby in her arms. He leisurely locked the door behind him, and put the key into his pocket. Then he started slowly across the square, with his wife and baby still behind him. As he passed us I exclaimed, "For Heaven's sake, what are you doing here with that baby? Don't you see they are shelling all around us?"

"Yes, I see, I see: one of them struck our house just now. I've got another one up here, and we're moving to it." And without taking his hands out of his pockets or his pipe out of his mouth, he strolled on across the open square, followed by his wife, who seemed absorbed only in hushing the baby as it wailed in fright at the sound of the bursting shells.

The French line was soon thrown back, and we filled our wagons with wounded and started for the city, the shells still falling unpleasantly thick and near. One of them struck right under our coffee-pot, and, exploding, sent it in a hundred directions. The horses which drew it did not happen to be hit, but they took fright and dashed off, wrecking what was left of the coffee-pot wagon. We got back to town as fast as we knew how that day. We tried to go out again at night, but could make no headway against the crowd of wagons, artillery and the retreating army on the roads. It was an utterly demoralized mob. We barely escaped massacre by a regiment of Belleville National Guards, who were mad, raving mad, accusing everybody of incapacity and treason. The next day we went out with a burying-party, and found members of this same National Guard thickly strewn among the vines of Buzenval and Montretout, and we buried them. In their new knap-sacks we found crested note-paper and many such things, showing their owners' rank and want of military experience at the same time. Some of these articles were stained with blood. We saw out there the young lady who was soon to have married Henri Regnauit. She was looking for his body among the dead, and found it during the day. Young Regnault, it is claimed, was introducing a new school in French painting. He had made some remarkable studies in Algiers, one of the results of which was the well-known picture of Salomé in the Salon of 1870. I have said we saw his betrothed searching for his body among the dead; and the memory of that sweet, brave girl in that awful scene has lent a pathos to the story of his life and death which I do not get out of the writers and painters who have since dwelt so much and so lovingly upon the subject.

George McFarland of New York and two other fellows got lost from our wagons the night before, when we left the field. They took refuge in a tomb, where half a dozen poor wounded had crawled before them. They remained there for three long hours, hearing the shells burst around them from a tremendous cross-fire of the Germans. These three fellows, by the by, were the unlucky men of the ambulance. Whenever, by any chance, any of us were missing late at night, it was always they. When the wagons were full, the roads dusty or covered with sleet, it was they too who failed to get a seat, and had to walk to town. When our eatables had disappeared, or we had no wine or drink of any kind, they were sure to come in hungry, thirsty and foot-sore from some distant part of the field. At Champigny they slept on a billiard-table; upon the Plateau d'Avron they just happened around when the Prussians began the awful bombardment which obliged the French to scurry off, leaving guns and stores. This, they said, was their worst day out, for they half ran, half rolled down the hillside through a rain of shells, about a hundred guns, they maintained, having been concentrated upon that particular plateau. At Rueil one of them was just coming up to get a cup of coffee when the shell struck our coffee-pot. I witnessed the escape that time, and it did truly seem miraculous.

I think I may state it as a fact that if it had not been for the loss of that coffee-pot we should never have eaten the cook's dog. It came about in this natural--or perhaps I should say unnatural--way. In the early days of the siege, you see, some poor wretch who lived near our hospital possessed, as is almost always the case with a Frenchman removed a quarter of a degree, say, above abject poverty, a favorite dog. One day his beast and house were made glad by the appearance of two pups. They were tawny, bright-eyed little fellows, and the Frenchman loved them with a love that the Anglo-Saxon knows not of, especially in the matter of dogs. Well, provisions got scarcer and scarcer, and finally, with an anguish that I have no right to ridicule, and as the only thing left for him to do, the poor Frenchman brought his pups around and presented them to the cook of our hospital. Here the little fellows waxed fat and strong, and were soon great favorites, not only of the good-natured cook, but of all the fellows of the ambulance. Perhaps you never saw a pot of horse-soup boiling: if you have, you will never forget the great blotches of fat that float upon the surface of it. Many skimmings of this did John Cook, as we used to call our _chef_, put aside for the pups. In the course of time, however, famine began to invade the ambulance. The canned meat and the hams had long since disappeared; a horse belonging to one of our corps, found overtaken by mysterious death in his stall, had been devoured; but the two pups, fat and tender, no one ventured to attack. And they had the powerful protection of the cook. Still, it made our mouths water to see them gambol in their sleekness. At length came the memorable morning of the last sortie at Montretout. Then for the first time we mounted the cook upon our coffee-pot wagon, with an extra large _brassard_ around his arm, allowing him about three times the ordinary amount of linen to show how peacefully and culinarily he was neutral. Poor fellow! I am sorry to say he was soon demoralized that day. The coffee he had brewed was a success, but he could not stand Krupp shells. Long before one of them had exploded under his coffee-pot he had wanted to go home. At that fearful moment he completely lost his head and--his white cap. How he got back to the hospital not even himself ever knew. It was long after nightfall when he wandered in, weary, listless, sorrowful. One of the pups came up to greet him as he crossed the threshold of the kitchen. The _chef_ met that welcome with an unfeeling kick, he was so demoralized. The fate of the pup was sealed. Scarce had the cook found his way to a bed in one of the tents when the scullions made for the pup, and had his fat frizzing on the gridiron and his bones dancing in a seething soup-pot. We all had a feast that night. Even the cook himself had a greasy morsel brought to his bedside. But somehow thenceforth the name of that dog was never mentioned, and his brother led a more luxurious, a sleeker life than ever. We had learned, I think, the old moral of being moved by sorrow for the dead to be kinder to the living.

As I have said before, we became very well acquainted with many of the wounded men at our hospital. With some, indeed, we contracted strong friendships. We buried many by subscription, thus rescuing them from the _fosse commune_ to which soldiers, French or German, were as a rule consigned within the French lines. Among others was a fair-haired Saxon by the name of Bruno, almost a boy in years, who was brought in from Champigny. He won our hearts from the very first by asking that a suffering Frenchman who lay beside him might have his wounds dressed before his own. He was dangerously and painfully wounded himself, yet no one ever heard him complain. I shall never hear the "Wacht am Rhein" without thinking of him, for he was the first one that I ever heard sing it. He sang it to me one night in return for some old German songs I had tried to cheer him with; that is, he sang some of it: his voice was so feeble that I had to stop him. He seemed to expect death, and was prepared for it. His long, wavy blonde hair and his beardless boy face were always beautiful, but imagine them when his blue eyes were lit up by the sentiment of that song!

The next night, when I came to visit Bruno, a French National Guard was dying not far from him, with wife and family kneeling around the bed. The tent was hushed, and I hesitated a moment at the door. One or two American ladies, volunteer nurses of the ambulance, were grouped near the dying man back of the family. Suddenly, Lisette, an Alsatian nurse who worked devotedly night and day for friend or foe alike, and who in her neat white cap had been standing in a corner wiping her eyes, approached me and said in her broad German French, _"Partonn_, but I will pray for this poor unfortunate." And she dropped on her knees beside the bed and commenced aloud in German a simple, earnest, honest prayer to which the scene and the language gave an effect utterly indescribable. There were few dry eyes in the tent. Soon after that I could tell by the movements about the bed that the poor National Guard was dead. I turned to the bedside of the wounded Saxon, and found his hands clasped upon his breast and his lips muttering a prayer for his enemy.

It was near Christmas then, and to cheer Bruno after the foregoing