Chapter 6

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　THE CRIMP WAGGONMILITARY EPISODES.The covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, asI have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismalvehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filledwith a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me,had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and Icould see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me intothe straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horriblemoving prison where I was now to be confined. A scream and a cursefrom my opposite neighbour showed me that he was most likelywounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of the wretchednight, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar captivitykept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually prevented mygetting any relief from my ills in sleep. At midnight (as far as Icould judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the creakinglumbering machines were put in motion. A couple of soldiers,strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grimfaces peered in with their lanterns every now and then through thecanvas curtains, that they might count the number of theirprisoners. The brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and warsongs, such as 'O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, MeinKanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket,' 'Prinz Eugen der edleRitter.' and the like; their wild whoops and jodels making dolefuldiscord with the groans of us captives within the waggons. Many atime afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or inthe barrack-room, or round the fires as we lay out at night.I was not near so unhappy, in spite of all, as I had been on myfirst enlisting in Ireland. At least, thought I, if I am degraded tobe a private soldier there will be no one of my acquaintance whowill witness my shame; and that is the point which I have alwayscared for most. There will be no one to say, 'There is young RedmondBarry, the descendant or the Barrys, the fashionable young blood ofDublin, pipeclaying his belt and carrying his brown Bess.' Indeed,but for that opinion of the world, with which it is necessary thatevery man of spirit should keep upon equal terms, I, for my part,would have always been contented with the humblest portion. Nowhere, to all intents and purposes, one was as far removed from theworld as in the wilds of Siberia, or in Robinson Crusoe's Island.And I reasoned with myself thus:--'Now you are caught, there is nouse in repining: make the best of your situation, and get all thepleasure you can out of it. There are a thousand opportunities ofplunder, &c., offered to the soldier in war-time, out of which hecan get both pleasure and profit: make use of these, and be happy.Besides, you are extraordinarily brave, handsome, and clever: andwho knows but you may procure advancement in your new service?'In this philosophical way I looked at my misfortunes, determiningnot to be cast down by them; and bore woes and my broken head withperfect magnanimity. The latter was, for the moment, an evil againstwhich it required no small powers of endurance to contend; for thejolts of the waggon were dreadful, and every shake caused a throb inmy brain which I thought would have split my skull. As the morningdawned, I saw that the man next me, a gaunt yellow-haired creature,in black, had a cushion of straw under his head.'Are you wounded, comrade?' said I.'Praised be the Lord,' said he, 'I am sore hurt in spirit and body,and bruised in many members; wounded, however, am I not. And you,poor youth?''I am wounded in the head,' said I, 'and I want your pillow: give itme--I've a clasp-knife in my pocket!' and with this I gave him aterrible look, meaning to say (and mean it I did, for look you, laguerre c'est la guerre, and I am none of your milksops) that,unless he yielded me the accommodation, I would give him a taste ofmy steel.'I would give it thee without any threat, friend,' said the yellow-haired man meekly, and handed me over his little sack of straw.He then leaned himself back as comfortably as he could against thecart, and began repeating, 'Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,' bywhich I concluded that I had got into the company of a parson. Withthe jolts of the waggon, and accidents of the journey, various moreexclamations and movements of the passengers showed what a motleycompany we were. Every now and then a countryman would burst intotears; a French voice would be heard to say, 'O mon Dieu!--monDieu!' a couple more of the same nation were jabbering oaths andchattering incessantly; and a certain allusion to his own andeverybody else's eyes, which came from a stalwart figure at the farcorner, told me that there was certainly an Englishman in our crew.But I was spared soon the tedium and discomforts of the journey. Inspite of the clergyman's cushion, my head, which was throbbing withpain, was brought abruptly in contact with the side of the waggon;it began to bleed afresh: I became almost light-headed. I onlyrecollect having a draught of water here and there; once stopping ata fortified town, where an officer counted us:--all the rest of thejourney was passed in a drowsy stupor, from which, when I awoke, Ifound myself lying in a hospital bed, with a nun in a white hoodwatching over me.'They are in sad spiritual darkness,' said a voice from the bed nextto me, when the nun had finished her kind offices and retired: 'theyare in the night of error, and yet there is the light of faith inthose poor creatures.'It was my comrade of the crimp waggon, his huge broad face loomingout from under a white nightcap, and ensconced in the bed beside.'What! you there, Herr Pastor?' said I.'Only a candidate, sir,' answered the white nightcap. 'But, praisedbe Heaven! you have come to. You have had a wild time of it. Youhave been talking in the English language (with which I amacquainted) of Ireland, and a young lady, and Mick, and of anotheryoung lady, and of a house on fire, and of the British Grenadiers,concerning whom you sung us parts of a ballad, and of a number ofother matters appertaining, no doubt, to your personal history.''It has been a very strange one,' said I; 'and, perhaps, there is noman in the world, of my birth, whose misfortunes can at all becompared to mine.'I do not object to own that I am disposed to brag of my birth andother acquirements; for I have always found that if a man does notgive himself a good word, his friends will not do it for him.'Well,' said my fellow-patient, 'I have no doubt yours is a strangetale, and shall be glad to hear it anon; but at present you must notbe permitted to speak much, for your fever has been long, and yourexhaustion great.''Where are we?' I asked; and the candidate informed me that we werein the bishopric and town of Fulda, at present occupied by PrinceHenry's troops. There had been a skirmish with an out-party ofFrench near the town, in which a shot entering the waggon, the poorcandidate had been wounded.As the reader knows already my history, I will not take the troubleto repeat it here, or to give the additions with which I favoured mycomrade in misfortune. But I confess that I told him ours was thegreatest family and finest palace in Ireland, that we wereenormously wealthy, related to all the peerage descended from theancient kings, &c.; and, to my surprise, in the course of ourconversation, I found that my interlocutor knew a great deal moreabout Ireland than I did. When, for instance, I spoke of mydescent,--'From which race of kings?' said he.'Oh!' said I (for my memory for dates was never very accurate),'from the old ancient kings of all.''What! can you trace your origin to the sons Japhet?' said he.''Faith, I can,' answered I, 'and farther too,--Nebuchadnezzar, ifyou like.''I see,' said the candidate, smiling, 'that you look upon thoselegends with incredulity. These Partholans and Nemedians, of whomyour writers fondly make mention, cannot be authentically vouchedfor in history. Nor do I believe that we have any more foundationfor the tales concerning them, than for the legends relative toJoseph of Arimathea and King Bruce which prevailed two centuriesback in the sister island.And then he began a discourse about the Phoenicians, the Scyths orGoths, the Tuath de Danans, Tacitus, and King MacNeil; which was, tosay the truth, the very first news I had heard of those personages.As for English, he spoke it as well as I, and had seven morelanguages, he said, equally at his command; for, on my quoting theonly Latin line that I knew, that out of the poet Homer, whichsays,--'As in praesenti perfectum fumat in avi,'he began to speak to me in the Roman tongue; on which I was fain totell him that we pronounced it in a different way in Ireland, and sogot off the conversation.My honest friend's history was a curious one, and it may be toldhere in order to show of what motley materials our levies werecomposed:--'I am,' said he, 'a Saxon by birth, my father being pastor of thevillage of Pfannkuchen, where I imbibed the first rudiments ofknowledge. At sixteen (I am now twenty-three), having mastered theGreek and Latin tongues, with the French, English, Arabic, andHebrew; and having come into possession of a legacy of a hundredrixdalers, a sum amply sufficient to defray my University courses, Iwent to the famous academy of Gottingen, where I devoted four yearsto the exact sciences and theology. Also, I learned what worldlyaccomplishments I could command; taking a dancing-tutor at theexpense of a groschen a lesson, a course of fencing from a Frenchpractitioner, and attending lectures on the great horse and theequestrian science at the hippodrome of a celebrated cavalryprofessor. My opinion is, that a man should know everything as faras in his power lies: that he should complete his cycle ofexperience; and, one science being as necessary as another, itbehoves him.'I am not of a saving turn, hence my little fortune of a hundredrixdalers, which has served to keep many a prudent man for a scoreof years, barely sufficed for five years' studies; after which mystudies were interrupted, my pupils fell off, and I was obliged todevote much time to shoe-binding in order to save money, and, at afuture period, resume my academic course. During this period Icontracted an attachment' (here the candidate sighed a little) 'witha person, who, though not beautiful, and forty years of age, is yetlikely to sympathise with my existence; and, a month since, my kindfriend and patron, University Prorector Doctor Nasenbrumm, havinginformed me that the Pfarrer of Rumpelwitz was dead, asked whether Iwould like to have my name placed upon the candidate list, and if Iwere minded to preach a trial sermon? As the gaining of this livingwould further my union with my Amalia, I joyously consented, andprepared a discourse.'If you like I will recite it to you--No?--Well, I will give youextracts from it upon our line of march. To proceed, then, with mybiographical sketch, which is now very near a conclusion; or, as Ishould more correctly say, which has very nearly brought me to thepresent period of time: I preached that sermon at Rumpelwitz, inwhich I hope that the Babylonian question was pretty satisfactorilyset at rest. I preached it before the Herr Baron and his noblefamily, and some officers of distinction who were staying at hiscastle. Mr. Doctor Moser of Halle followed me in the eveningdiscourse; but, though his exercise was learned, and he disposed ofa passage of Ignatius, which he proved to be a manifestinterpolation, I do not think his sermon had the effect which mineproduced, and that the Rumpelwitzers much relished it. After thesermon, all the candidates walked out of church together, and suppedlovingly at the "Blue Stag" in Rumpelwitz.'While so occupied, a waiter came in and said that a person withoutwished to speak to one of the reverend candidates, "the tall one."This could only mean me, for I was a head and shoulders higher thanany other reverend gentleman present. I issued out to see who wasthe person desiring to hold converse with me, and found a man whom Ihad no difficulty in recognising as one of the Jewish persuasion.'"Sir," said this Hebrew, "I have heard from a friend, who was inyour church to-day, the heads of the admirable discourse youpronounced there. It has affected me deeply, most deeply. There areonly one or two points on which I am yet in doubt, and if yourhonour could but condescend to enlighten me on these, I think--Ithink Solomon Hirsch would be a convert to your eloquence."'"What are these points, my good friend?" said I; and I pointed outto him the twenty-four heads of my sermon, asking him in which ofthese his doubts lay.'We had been walking up and down before the inn while ourconversation took place, but the windows being open, and my comradeshaving heard the discourse in the morning, requested me, ratherpeevishly, not to resume it at that period. I, therefore, moved onwith my disciple, and, at his request, began at once the sermon; formy memory is good for anything, and I can repeat any book I haveread thrice.'I poured out, then, under the trees, and in the calm moonlight,that discourse which I had pronounced under the blazing sun of noon.My Israelite only interrupted me by exclamations indicative ofsurprise, assent, admiration, and increasing conviction."Prodigious!" said he;--"Wunderschon!" would he remark at theconclusion of some eloquent passage; in a word, he exhausted thecomplimentary interjections of our language: and to compliments whatman is averse? I think we must have walked two miles when I got tomy third head and my companion begged I would enter his house, whichwe now neared, and partake of a glass of beer; to which I was neveraverse.'That house, sir, was the inn at which you, too, if I judge aright,were taken. No sooner was I in the place, than three crimps rushedupon me, told me I was a deserter, and their prisoner, and calledupon me to deliver up my money and papers; which I did with a solemnprotest as to my sacred character. They consisted of my sermon inMS., Prorector Nasenbrumm's recommendatory letter, proving myidentity, and three groschen four pfennigs in bullion. I had alreadybeen in the cart twenty hours when you reached the house. The Frenchofficer, who lay opposite you (he who screamed when you trod on hisfoot, for he was wounded), was brought in shortly before yourarrival. He had been taken with his epaulets and regimentals, anddeclared his quality and rank; but he was alone (I believe it wassome affair of love with a Hessian lady which caused him to beunattended); and as the persons into whose hands he fell will makemore profit of him as a recruit than as a prisoner, he is made toshare our fate. He is not the first by many scores so captured. Oneof M. de Soubise's cooks, and three actors out of a troop in theFrench camp, several deserters from your English troops (the men areled away by being told that there is no flogging in the Prussianservice), and three Dutchmen were taken besides.''And you,' said I--'you who were just on the point of getting avaluable living,--you who have so much learning, are you notindignant at the outrage?''I am a Saxon,' said the candidate, 'and there is no use inindignation. Our government is crushed under Frederick's heel thesefive years, and I might as well hope for mercy from the Grand Mogul.Nor am I, in truth, discontented with my lot; I have lived on apenny bread for so many years, that a soldier's rations will be aluxury to me. I do not care about more or less blows of a cane; allsuch evils are passing, and therefore endurable. I will never, Godwilling, slay a man in combat; but I am not unanxious to experienceon myself the effect of the war-passion, which has had so great aninfluence on the human race. It was for the same reason that Idetermined to marry Amalia, for a man is not a complete Mensch untilhe is the father of a family; to be which is a condition of hisexistence, and therefore a duty of his education. Amalia must wait;she is out of the reach of want, being, indeed, cook to the FrauProrectorinn Nasenbrumm, my worthy patron's lady. I have one or twobooks with me, which no one is likely to take from me, and one in myheart which is the best of all. If it shall please Heaven to finishmy existence here, before I can prosecute my studies further, whatcause have I to repine? I pray God I may not be mistaken, but Ithink I have wronged no man, and committed no mortal sin. If I have,I know where to look for forgiveness; and if I die, as I have said,without knowing all that I would desire to learn, shall I not be ina situation to learn everything, and what can human soul ask formore?'Pardon me for putting so many I's in my discourse,' said thecandidate, 'but when a man is talking of himself, 'tis the briefestand simplest way of talking.'In which, perhaps, though I hate egotism, I think my friend wasright. Although he acknowledged himself to be a mean-spiritedfellow, with no more ambition than to know the contents of a fewmusty books, I think the man had some good in him; especially in theresolution with which he bore his calamities. Many a gallant man ofthe highest honour is often not proof against these, and has beenknown to despair over a bad dinner, or to be cast down at a ragged-elbowed coat. My maxim is to bear all, to put up with water if youcannot get Burgundy, and if you have no velvet to be content withfrieze. But Burgundy and velvet are the best, bien entendu, and theman is a fool who will not seize the best when the scramble is open.The heads of the sermon which my friend the theologian intended toimpart to me, were, however, never told; for, after our coming outof the hospital, he was drafted into a regiment quartered as far aspossible from his native country, in Pomerania; while I was put intothe Bulow regiment, of which the ordinary headquarters were Berlin.The Prussian regiments seldom change their garrisons as ours do, forthe fear of desertion is so great, that it becomes necessary to knowthe face of every individual in the service; and, in time of peace,men live and die in the same town. This does not add, as may beimagined, to the amusements of the soldier's life. It is lest anyyoung gentleman like myself should take a fancy to a militarycareer, and fancy that of a private soldier a tolerable one, that Iam giving these, I hope, moral descriptions of what we poor fellowsin the ranks really suffered.As soon as we recovered, we were dismissed from the nuns and thehospital to the town prison of Fulda, where we were kept like slavesand criminals, with artillerymen with lighted matches at the doorsof the courtyards and the huge black dormitory where some hundredsof us lay; until we were despatched to our different destinations.It was soon seen by the exercise which were the old soldiers amongstus, and which the recruits; and for the former, while we lay inprison, there was a little more leisure: though, if possible, astill more strict watch kept than over the broken-spirited yokelswho had been forced or coaxed into the service. To describe thecharacters here assembled would require Mr. Gilray's own pencil.There were men of all nations and callings. The Englishmen boxed andbullied; the Frenchmen played cards, and danced, and fenced; theheavy Germans smoked their pipes and drank beer, if they couldmanage to purchase it. Those who had anything to risk gambled, andat this sport I was pretty lucky, for, not having a penny when Ientered the depot (having been robbed of every farthing of myproperty by the rascally crimps), I won near a dollar in my veryfirst game at cards with one of the Frenchmen; who did not think ofasking whether I could pay or not upon losing. Such, at least, isthe advantage of having a gentlemanlike appearance; it has saved memany a time since by procuring me credit when my fortunes were attheir lowest ebb.Among the Frenchmen there was a splendid man and soldier, whose realname we never knew, but whose ultimate history created no smallsensation, when it came to be known in the Prussian army. If beautyand courage are proofs of nobility, as (although I have seen some ofthe ugliest dogs and the greatest cowards in the world in thenoblesse) I have no doubt courage and beauty are, this Frenchmanmust have been of the highest families in France, so grand and noblewas his manner, so superb his person. He was not quite so tall asmyself, fair, while I am dark, and, if possible, rather broader inthe shoulders. He was the only man I ever met who could master mewith the small-sword; with which he would pink me four times to mythree. As for the sabre, I could knock him to pieces with it; and Icould leap farther and carry more than he could. This, however, ismere egotism. This Frenchman, with whom I became pretty intimate--for we were the two cocks, as it were, of the depot, and neither hadany feeling of low jealousy--was called, for want of a better name,Le Blondin, on account of his complexion. He was not a deserter, buthad come in from the Lower Rhine and the bishoprics, as I fancy;fortune having proved unfavourable to him at play probably, andother means of existence being denied him. I suspect that theBastile was waiting for him in his own country, had he taken a fancyto return thither.He was passionately fond of play and liquor, and thus we had aconsiderable sympathy together: when excited by one or the other, hebecame frightful. I, for my part, can bear, without wincing, bothill luck and wine; hence my advantage over him was considerable inour bouts, and I won enough money from him to make my positiontenable. He had a wife outside (who, I take it, was the cause of hismisfortunes and separation from his family), and she used to beadmitted to see him twice or thrice a week, and never came empty-handed---a little brown bright-eyed creature, whose ogles had madethe greatest impression upon all the world.This man was drafted into a regiment that was quartered at Neiss inSilesia, which is only at a short distance from the Austrianfrontier; he maintained always the same character for daring andskill, and was, in the secret republic of the regiment--which alwaysexists as well as the regular military hierarchy--the acknowledgedleader. He was an admirable soldier, as I have said; but haughty,dissolute, and a drunkard. A man of this mark, unless he takes careto coax and flatter his officers (which I always did), is sure tofall out with them. Le Blondin's captain was his sworn enemy, andhis punishments were frequent and severe.His wife and the women of the regiment (this was after the peace)used to carry on a little commerce of smuggling across the Austrianfrontier, where their dealings were winked at by both parties; andin obedience to the instructions of her husband, this woman, fromevery one of her excursions, would bring in a little powder andball: commodities which are not to be procured by the Prussiansoldier, and which were stowed away in secret till wanted. They wereto be wanted, and that soon.Le Blondin had organised a great and extraordinary conspiracy. Wedon't know how far it went, how many hundreds or thousands itembraced; but strange were the stories told about the plot amongstus privates: for the news was spread from garrison to garrison, andtalked of by the army, in spite of all the Government efforts tohush it up--hush it up, indeed! I have been of the people myself; Ihave seen the Irish rebellion, and I know what is the free-masonryof the poor.He made himself the head of the plot. There were no writings norpapers. No single one of the conspirators communicated with anyother than the Frenchman; but personally he gave his orders to themall. He had arranged matters for a general rising of the garrison,at twelve o'clock on a certain day: the guard-houses in the townwere to be seized, the sentinels cut down, and--who knows the rest?Some of our people used to say that the conspiracy was spreadthrough all Silesia, and that Le Blondin was to be made a general inthe Austrian service.At twelve o'clock, and opposite the guard-house by the Bohmer-Thorof Neiss, some thirty men were lounging about in their undress, andthe Frenchman stood near the sentinel of the guard-house, sharpeninga wood hatchet on a stone. At the stroke of twelve, he got up, splitopen the sentinel's head with a blow of his axe, and the thirty men,rushing into the guard-house, took possession of the arms there, andmarched at once to the gate. The sentry there tried to drop the bar,but the Frenchman rushed up to him, and, with another blow of theaxe, cut off his right hand, with which he held the chain. Seeingthe men rushing out armed, the guard without the gate drew up acrossthe road to prevent their passage; but the Frenchman's thirty gavethem a volley, charged them with the bayonet, and brought downseveral, and the rest flying, the thirty rushed on. The frontier isonly a league from Neiss, and they made rapidly towards it.But the alarm was given in the town, and what saved it was that theclock by which the Frenchman went was a quarter of an hour fasterthan any of the clocks in the town. The generale was beat, thetroops called to arms, and thus the men who were to have attackedthe other guard-houses, were obliged to fall into the ranks, andtheir project was defeated. This, however, likewise rendered thediscovery of the conspirators impossible, for no man could betrayhis comrade, nor, of course, would he criminate himself.Cavalry was sent in pursuit of the Frenchman and his thirtyfugitives, who were, by this time, far on their way to the Bohemianfrontier. When the horse came up with them, they turned, receivedthem with a volley and the bayonet, and drove them back. TheAustrians were out at the barriers, looking eagerly on at theconflict. The women, who were on the look-out too, brought moreammunition to these intrepid deserters, and they engaged and droveback the dragoons several times. But in these gallant and fruitlesscombats much time was lost, and a battalion presently came up, andsurrounded the brave thirty; when the fate of the poor fellows wasdecided. They fought with the fury of despair: not one of them askedfor quarter. When their ammunition failed, they fought with thesteel, and were shot down or bayoneted where they stood. TheFrenchman was the very last man who was hit. He received a bullet inthe thigh, and fell, and in this state was overpowered, killing theofficer who first advanced to seize him.He and the very few of his comrades who survived were carried backto Neiss, and immediately, as the ringleader, he was brought beforea council of war. He refused all interrogations which were made asto his real name and family. 'What matters who I am?' said he; 'youhave me and will shoot me. My name would not save me were it ever sofamous.' In the same way he declined to make a single discoveryregarding the plot. 'It was all my doing,' he said; 'each manengaged in it only knew me, and is ignorant of every one of hiscomrades. The secret is mine alone, and the secret shall die withme.' When the officers asked him what was the reason which inducedhim to meditate a crime so horrible?--'It was your infernalbrutality and tyranny,' he said. 'You are all butchers, ruffians,tigers, and you owe it to the cowardice of your men that you werenot murdered long ago.'At this his captain burst into the most furious exclamations againstthe wounded man, and rushing up to him, struck him a blow with hisfist. But Le Blondin, wounded as he was, as quick as thought seizedthe bayonet of one of the soldiers who supported him, and plunged itinto the officer's breast. 'Scoundrel and monster,' said he, 'Ishall have the consolation of sending you out of the world before Idie.' He was shot that day. He offered to write to the King, if theofficers would agree to let his letter go sealed into the hands ofthe postmaster; but they feared, no doubt, that something might besaid to inculpate themselves, and refused him the permission. At thenext review Frederick treated them, it is said, with great severity,and rebuked them for not having granted the Frenchman his request.However, it was the King's interest to conceal the matter, and so itwas, as I have said before, hushed up--so well hushed up, that ahundred thousand soldiers in the army knew it; and many's the one ofus that has drunk to the Frenchman's memory over our wine, as amartyr for the cause of the soldier. I shall have, doubtless, somereaders who will cry out at this, that I am encouraginginsubordination and advocating murder. If these men had served asprivates in the Prussian army from 1760 to 1765, they would not beso apt to take objection. This man destroyed two sentinels to gethis liberty; how many hundreds of thousands of his own and theAustrian people did King Frederick kill because he took a fancy toSilesia? It was the accursed tyranny of the system that sharpenedthe axe which brained the two sentinels of Neiss: and so letofficers take warning, and think twice ere they visit poor fellowswith the cane.I could tell many more stories about the army; but as, from havingbeen a soldier myself, all my sympathies are in the ranks, no doubtmy tales would be pronounced to be of an immoral tendency, and I hadbest, therefore, be brief. Fancy my surprise while in this depot,when one day a well-known voice saluted my ear, and I heard a meagreyoung gentleman, who was brought in by a couple of troopers andreceived a few cuts across the shoulders from one of them, say inthe best English, 'You infernal wascal, I'll be wevenged for this.I'll wite to my ambassador, as sure as my name's Fakenham ofFakenham.' I burst out laughing at this: it was my old acquaintancein my corporal's coat. Lischen had sworn stoutly, that he was reallyand truly the private, and the poor fellow had been drafted off, andwas to be made one of us. But I bear no malice, and having made thewhole room roar with the story of the way in which I had tricked thepoor lad, I gave him a piece of advice, which procured him hisliberty. 'Go to the inspecting officer,' said I; 'if they once getyou into Prussia it is all over with you, and they will never giveyou up. Go now to the commandant of the depot, promise him ahundred--five hundred guineas to set you free; say that the crimpingcaptain has your papers and portfolio' (this was true); 'above all,show him that you have the means of paying him the promised money,and I will warrant you are set free.' He did as I advised, and whenwe were put on the march Mr. Fakenham found means to be allowed togo into hospital, and while in hospital the matter was arranged as Ihad recommended. He had nearly, however, missed his freedom by hisown stinginess in bargaining for it, and never showed the leastgratitude towards me his benefactor.I am not going to give any romantic narrative of the Seven Years'War. At the close of it, the Prussian army, so renowned for itsdisciplined valour, was officered and under-officered by nativePrussians, it is true; but was composed for the most part of menhired or stolen, like myself, from almost every nation in Europe.The deserting to and fro was prodigious. In my regiment (Bulow's)alone before the war, there had been no less than 600 Frenchmen, andas they marched out of Berlin for the campaign, one of the fellowshad an old fiddle on which he was flaying a French tune, and hiscomrades danced almost, rather than walked, after him, singing,'Nous allons en France.' Two years after, when they returned toBerlin, there were only six of these men left; the rest had fled orwere killed in action. The life the private soldier led was afrightful one to any but men of iron courage and endurance. Therewas a corporal to every three men, marching behind them, andpitilessly using the cane; so much so that it used to be said thatin action there was a front rank of privates and a second rank ofsergeants and corporals to drive them on. Many men would give way tothe most frightful acts of despair under these incessantpersecutions and tortures; and amongst several regiments of the armya horrible practice had sprung up, which for some time caused thegreatest alarm to the Government. This was a strange frightfulcustom of child murder. The men used to say that life wasunbearable, that suicide was a crime; in order to avert which, andto finish with the intolerable misery of their position, the bestplan was to kill a young child, which was innocent, and thereforesecure of heaven, and then to deliver themselves up as guilty of themurder. The King himself--the hero, sage, and philosopher, theprince who had always liberality on his lips and who affected ahorror of capital punishments--was frightened at this dreadfulprotest, on the part of the wretches whom he had kidnapped, againsthis monstrous tyranny; but his only means of remedying the evil wasstrictly to forbid that such criminals should be attended by anyecclesiastic whatever, and denied all religious consolation.The punishment was incessant. Every officer had the liberty toinflict it, and in peace it was more cruel than in war. For whenpeace came the King turned adrift such of his officers as were notnoble; whatever their services might have been. He would call acaptain to the front of his company and say, 'He is not noble, lethim go.' We were afraid of him somehow, and were cowed before himlike wild beasts before their keeper. I have seen the bravest men ofthe army cry like children at a cut of the cane; I have seen alittle ensign of fifteen call out a man of fifty from the ranks, aman who had been in a hundred battles, and he has stood presentingarms, and sobbing and howling like a baby, while the young wretchlashed him over the arms and thighs with the stick. In a day ofaction this man would dare anything. A button might be awry then andnobody touched him; but when they had made the brute fight, thenthey lashed him again into subordination. Almost all of us yieldedto the spell--scarce one could break it. The French officer I havespoken of as taken along with me, was in my company, and caned likea dog. I met him at Versailles twenty years afterwards, and heturned quite pale and sick when I spoke to him of old days. 'ForGod's sake,' said he, 'don't talk of that time: I wake up from mysleep trembling and crying even now.'As for me, after a very brief time (in which it must be confessed Itasted, like my comrades, of the cane) and after I had foundopportunities to show myself to be a brave and dexterous soldier, Itook the means I had adopted in the English army to prevent anyfurther personal degradation. I wore a bullet around my neck, whichI did not take the pains to conceal, and I gave out that it shouldbe for the man or officer who caused me to be chastised. And therewas something in my character which made my superiors believe me;for that bullet had already served me to kill an Austrian colonel,and I would have given it to a Prussian with as little remorse. Forwhat cared I for their quarrels, or whether the eagle under which Imarched had one head or two? All I said was, 'No man shall find metripping in my duty; but no man shall ever lay a hand upon me.' Andby this maxim I abided as long as I remained in the service.I do not intend to make a history of battles in the Prussian anymore than in the English service. I did my duty in them as well asanother, and by the time that my moustache had grown to a decentlength, which it did when I was twenty years of age, there was not abraver, cleverer, handsomer, and I must own, wickeder soldier in thePrussian army. I had formed myself to the condition of the properfighting beast; on a day of action I was savage and happy; out ofthe field I took all the pleasure I could get, and was by no meansdelicate as to its quality or the manner of procuring it. The truthis, however, that there was among our men a much higher tone ofsociety than among the clumsy louts in the English army, and ourservice was generally so strict that we had little time for doingmischief. I am very dark and swarthy in complexion, and was calledby our fellows the 'Black Englander,' the 'Schwartzer Englander,' orthe English Devil. If any service was to be done, I was sure to beput upon it. I got frequent gratifications of money, but nopromotion; and it was on the day after I had killed the Austriancolonel (a great officer of Uhlans, whom I engaged--singly and onfoot) that General Bulow, my colonel, gave me two Frederics-d'or infront of the regiment, and said, 'I reward thee now; but I fear Ishall have to hang thee one day or other.' I spent the money, andthat I had taken from the colonel's body, every groschen, that nightwith some jovial companions; but as long as war lasted was neverwithout a dollar in my purse.