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<31 August 1917> |

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A volume of especial interest at the moment is R. | D. Gillman's translation of Erckmann - Chatrian's | novel "The History | of a Conscript of 1813," with its sequel | | "Waterloo," published in the | "Everyman's | Library" series. The work is, as it were, the | complement to Zola's | "Downfall."

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The latter deals with the direct effect of war | operations upon the devastated region, the anguish | and despair of the defeated army, the humiliation of | the occupied town of Sedan. It looks upon things from | the point of view of the army. | | "The Conscript," on the other | hand, although largely dealing with battlefield | incident, is essentially a study from the point of | view of the citizen.

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For twenty long years the country had been | incessantly at war. First were the Wars of the | Revolution. France, having driven anointed tyrants | from her own domain, declared war upon the monarchs | of the world, who had rallied their forces to restore | the Bourbons. For twenty years the scales of France | were almost universally victorious; but during those | years they gradually changed their character.

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The Armies of Liberation of 1793, which were | received with open arms by the common people of the | invaded lands as the | became, under Napoleon, the subservient | tools of Imperial "glory," accepted by the conquered | with a forced smile and a hating heart.

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Meanwhile the people of France, at first fired by | the flames of freedom, had allowed themselves to be | seduced by the glimmer of "glory," and finally had | sunk into the despair of war-weariness. Conscription | after conscription had come to city and village. For | twenty long years the young men had systematically | been withdrawn to replenish the thinning ranks, to | provide new holocausts for the altars of glory.

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Then came 1812. The great army of half-a-million | men, veterans of many a successful campaign, together | with the latest levies of the youth of France, | perished miserably in the snows of Russia.

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Here it is that the story commences. The hero | Joseph Bertha, a watchmaker's apprentice in a small | Alsation town, is betrothed to his cousin Catherine. | But after Moscow the kings took heart, and the | people, tired enough of Napoleon to have forgotten | the even worse old regime, rallied to their | standards.

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France could not have peace now, even if she | would. Napoleon's dreams of glory were, however, as | green as ever. Another conscription must be taken, | and this time Joseph, despite his lame foot, is | called up with the rest, and marched off through | Germany to Leipsic. There he sees his first battle - | not the great Battle of Leipsic, but one which | enabled Napoleon to occupy the city. He was wounded | in the struggle, and his description of the advance | of the Prussian artillery over the battlefield, upon | which he lay helpless, rivals in sheer horror even | Zola's account of the cannibal horses that devoured | dead and dying imprisoned on the island in the | Meuse.

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The campaign dragged on. Joseph suffered the | horrors of a hospital in pre-anaesthetic days, the | privations of an ill-provisioned army in hostile | country, and finally the terrible defeat of Leipsic | - the Battle of the Nations | - and the long drawn out agony | of the retreat to France.

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Peace is at last made - the kings | get their crowns again, the terrible Corsican was | banished to Elba, and Louis the Eighteenth was seated | upon the throne of France. Back flocked the exiled | aristocrats, to bide their time until they dared | impose once more their old feudal tyrannies; and | meanwhile the veterans of the Republic and the Empire | laid low. The sneaks, the sycophants, changed their | cockades and their politics, indulged in pious | processions, and attended "masses of expiation."

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One of them came into the watchmaker's shop, and | began to speak of Napoleon as "The Corsican ogre." | Old Father Goulden, the watchmaker, was a veteran of | the Republic, and himself no lover of the Empire. But | this sickened him.

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Joseph got married to his Catherine, assured of | peace and prosperity, having been made a partner in | Father Goulden's business. But meantime the | Aristocrats were plotting to regain their forests and | commons, their feudal dues and services, their | fishponds and their privileges.

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Slowly they felt their way, and stealthily the | fear of the old regime crept upon the people. And | over in Elba a mighty force was holding itself in | readiness.

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One day the storm burst. On the First of March, | 1815, Napoleon landed in France. His marshals and | veterans flocked to him from all sides. Even the old | Republicans, sensing danger in the new Monarchy, | hailed his return as gladly as the rest.

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In the throats of the sycophants the cries of | 'Vive de roi' sunk back un-uttered, but everywhere | the hoarse shouts of "Viva l'Empereur" filled the | air. The aristocrats fled for their lives, their new | King at their head, and by the end of March | Buonaparte was again enthroned in the Palace of the | Tuileries, at Paris.

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This news carried consternation to the diplomats | assembled in Vienna, who were peacefully engaged in | the interesting task of re-drawing the map of | Europe.

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Again to arms! Again the conscription throughout | France, then the brief campaign, and Waterloo. So | ended the Hundred Days, the brief but "glorious" | period of the return of Napoleon. The Kings got their | crowns again, the French got their King again, and | the Terror of Thrones passed the remainder of his | days on the rock of St. Helena.

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So much for war and "glory". The author concludes | his tale with the reflection: | This same reflection, no | doubt, it was that inspired H.W. Longfellow's poem, | "The Arsenal at | Springfield."

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