But they soon found out that the Emperor had no time to lose in rejoicings. The gazette said that "his Majesty wished for peace, that he made no demands, that he was on good terms with his father-in-law the Emperor Francis, that Marie Louise and the King of Rome were to return, they were daily expected," etc. But meanwhile the order arrived to arm the place. Two years before Pfalzbourg was a hundred leagues from the frontier. The ramparts were in ruins, the ditches filled up, and there was nothing in the arsenal but miserable old muskets of the time of Louis XIV., which were discharged with matches; and the guns were so unwieldy on their heavy carriages, that horses were required to move them. The arsenals were really at Dresden and Hamburg and Erfurt; but though we had not stirred, we were ten leagues from Rhenish Bavaria, and it was upon us that the first shower of bombs and bullets would fall. So, day after day, we received orders to restore the earthworks and to clear out the ditches and to put the old ordnance in good condition. At the beginning of April a great workshop was established at the arsenal for repairing the arms, and skilful engineers and artillerists arrived from Metz to repair the earthworks of the bastions and make terraces around the embrasures. The activity was very great--greater than in 1805 and in 1813, and I thought more than once that these extensive frontiers had their good side, because we might in the interior live in peace, while they took the blows and bombardments. But we had great anxiety, for naturally when the palisades were newly planted on the glacis, and the half-moons filled with fascines, when cannon were placed in every nook and corner, we knew that there must be soldiers to guard and serve them. Often as we heard these decrees read at night, Catherine and I looked at each other in mute apprehension. I felt beforehand that instead of remaining quietly at home, cleaning and mending clocks, I would be obliged to be again on the march, and that always made me sad; and this melancholy increased from day to day. Sometimes Father Goulden, seeing this, would say cheerfully: "Come! Joseph, courage! all will come right at last." He wished to raise my spirits, but I thought: "Yes, he says that to encourage me, but any one who is not blind can see what turn affairs will take." Events followed each other so rapidly, that the decrees came like hail, always with sounding phrases and grand words to embellish them.