Phalsbourg is a little fortified place on the high road between Strasbourg and Paris. It commands the borders of Saverne, the defiles of the upper Barr, of Roche-Plate, of Bonne Fontaine, and of the Graufthal. Its bastions, its outworks, its half-moons, are carved in zig-zag on a rocky platform. At a distance, it seems as if you could clear the walls with a single stride; but, as you approach, you discover the ditch, which is a hundred feet broad and thirty feet deep, and the gloomy ramparts cut in the rock opposite. That brings you to a stand. For the rest, with the exception of the church, the commune hall, the two gates of France and Germany in form of a mitre, and the belfreys of the two powder-mills, all is hidden behind the glacis. Such is the little town of Phalsbourg, which is not wanting in a certain character of grandeur, especially when you cross its bridges, and enter beneath its low massive portals and bristling portcullises. In the interior, the houses are built at regular intervals; they are low, well-constructed buildings, built of hewn stone: everything about the place has a military look. Hullin, inclined, by his sturdy nature and jovial disposition, never to give himself unnecessary alarm about the future, considered all the reports of retreat and invasion that were flying about the country as so many lies spread by scandal. You may, therefore, judge his surprise when, on quitting the mountain, and arrived at the outskirts of the forests, he saw the suburbs of the town razed to the ground; not a garden, not an orchard, not a walk, not a tree, not a shrub was left: all had been levelled that was within reach of gun-shot. A few poor wretches were trying to collect the scattered fragments of their habitations, and were carrying them to the town. Nothing was visible on the horizon but the long, gloomy line of ramparts towering overhead. Jean-Claude felt as if struck by a thunderbolt; for a few minutes he could not utter a single word, or take a single step. "Oh, ho!" said he, at length, "this looks bad--this looks very bad! They are expecting the enemy!" And then his warlike instincts began quickly to get the upper hand of him, and his brown cheeks grew crimson. "And it is those beggars of Austrians, Prussians, and Russians, and all the scum collected from one end of Europe to the other, that are the cause of this," he exclaimed, flourishing his stick; "but let them beware! we will make them pay dearly for it!" He was in a sort of white rage, such as honest men feel when urged beyond bounds. Woe to any one who had thwarted him at that moment!