On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after the battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a little, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head, then at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver sheen, I exclaimed, "It is winter!" At the same time I heard the crash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over on my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young woman, with her arms folded, and I recognized--Catharine! I recognized, too, the room where I had spent so many Sundays before going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who seemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, "Where is Aunt Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a dream!" At last I took courage and called softly: {36} "Catharine!" And she, turning her head, cried: "Joseph! Do you know me?" "Yes," I replied, holding out my hand. She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the cannon thundered. "What are those shots I hear?" I cried. "The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged." "Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!" I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone for nothing--ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the thought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since 1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of ten years of glory! But let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle, with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of France! But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one in the sad _cortége_ escaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and Catharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them for their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap of other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes--dying of hunger. She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried, "Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"