the evening before, Monsieur le Sous-Pré-| became officers; those who knew somefet of Sarrebourg had come himself to ap- thing of war, like Mariet and Werner, point the officers of the National Guard. were privates, or at the most sergeants. This is what I had learnt at the Vacheron All this showed me that Cousin George brewery, where I had stopped, leaving my was right in saying that we should be drivcart outside at the corner of the 66 Trois en like beasts, and that our chiefs were void Pigeons." of common sense. Everybody was talking about our victory at Sarrebrück, especially those cuirassiers who were emptying bottles by the hundred, to allay the dust of the road. They looked quite pleased, and were saying that war on a large scale was beginning again, and that the heavy cavalry Iwould be in demand. It was quite a pleasure to look on them, with their red ears, and to hear them rejoic ng at the prospect of meeting the enemy soon. Looking at all these people coming and going, the time passed away. About eight o'clock, as we were hungry, and I wished to keep my boy with me as long as I could I sent for a good salad and sausages, and we were eating together, with full hearts to be sure, but with a good appetite. But a few moments after the retreat, just when the cuirassiers were going to camp out, and their officers, heavy and weary, were going to rest in their lodgings, a few bugle notes were sounded in the place d'armes, and we heard a cry-"To horse! to horse!" In the midst of all these swarms of people, of servants running, citizens coming and going, I could have wished to see Jacob; but where was I to look for him? Immediately all was excitement. A At last I recognized a lad of our village despatch had arrived the officers put on Nicolas Maisse-the son of the wood-their helmets, fastened on their swords, turner, our neighbour, who immediately and came out running through the gate undertook to find him. He went out, of Germany. Countenances changed; and in a quarter of an hour Jacob ap- every one asked, "What is the meaning peared. The poor fellow would embrace me. The tears came into my eyes. of this?" At the same time the police inspector came up; he had seen my cart, and cried, Strangers must leave the place — the gates are going to be closed." "Well now," said I," sit down. Are you" pretty well? "I had rather be at home," said he. "Yes, but that is impossible now; you must have patience." Then I had only just time to embrace my son, to press Nicolas' hand, and to start at a sharp gallop for the gate of France. I also invited young Maïsse to take a The drawbridge was just on the rise as I glass with us, and both complained bitter- passed it-five minutes after I was gally that Mathias Heitz, junior, had been loping along the white high-road by moonmade a lieutenant, who knew no more light, on the way to Metting. Outside of the science of war than they did, on the glacis, there was not a sound; and who now had ordered of Kuhn, the the pickets had been drawn, and the tailor, an officer's uniform, gold-laced two regiments of cavalry were on the road up to the shoulders. Yet Mathias was to Saverne. a friend of Jacob's. But justice is justice. This piece of news filled me with indignation: what should Mathias Heitz be made an officer for? He had never learnt anything at college; he would never have been able to earn a couple of liards whilst our Jacob was a good miller's apprentice. It was abominable. However, I made no remark, I only asked if Jean Baptiste Werner, who had a few days before joined the artillery of the national guard, was an officer too? Then they replied angrily that Jean Baptiste Werner, in spite of his African and Mexican campaigns, was only a gunner in the Mariet battery, behind the powder magazines. Those who knew nothing I arrived home late-everybody was asleep in our village; nobody suspected what was about to happen within a week. V. THE whole way I thought of nothing but the cuirassiers. This order to march immediately appeared to me to betoken no good; something serious must have occurred: and as, upon the stroke of eleven, I was putting my horses up, after having put my cart under its shed, the idea came into my head that it was time now to hide my money. I was bringing back from Saverne sixteen hundred livres: this heavy leathern purse in my pocket was perhaps what reminded me. I remembered what cousin George had said about Ualans and other scamps of that sort, and I felt a cold, I let down the box, and laid it down level, shiver come over me. Having, then, gone upstairs very softly, I awoke my wife: "Get up, Catherine." "What is the matter?' “Get up: it is time to hide our money." "But what is going on?" 66 Nothing. Be quiet- make no noiseGrédel is asleep. You will carry the basket: put into it your ring and your ear-rings, everything that we have got. You hear me! I am going to empty the ditch, and we will bury everything at the bottom of it." Then, without answering, she arose. I went down to the mill, opened the back-door softly, and listened. Nothing was stirring in the village; you might have heard a cat moving. The mill had stopped, and the water was pretty high. I lifted the milldam, the water began to rush, boiling, down the gulley; but our neighbours were used to this noise even in their sleep, so all remained quiet. Then I went in again, and I was busy emptying into a corner the little box of oak in which I keep my tools - the pincers, the hammer, the screwdriver, and the nails, when my wife, in her slippers, came downstairs. She had the basket under her arm, and was carrying the lighted lantern. I blew it out in a moment, thinking: "Never was a woman such a fool." Downstairs I asked Catherine if everything was in the basket. "Yes." "Right. But I have brought from Saverne sixteen hundred francs: the wheat and the flour sold well." I had put some bran into the box; everything was carefully laid in the bottom; and then I put on a padlock, and we went out, after having looked to see if all was quiet in the neighbourhood. The sluice was already almost empty; there were only one or two feet of water. I cleared away the few stones which kept the rest of the water from running out, and went into it with my spade and pickaxe as far as just beneath the dam, where I began to make a deep hole; the water was hindering me, but it was flowing still. Catherine, above, was keeping watch: sometimes she gave a low" Hush!" first stamping soil down upon it with my heavy shoes, then gravel, then large stones, then sand; the mud would cover all over of itself; there is always plenty of mud in a mill-stream. After this I came out again covered with mud. I shut down the dam, and the water began to rise. About three o'clock at the dawn of day the sluice was almost full. I could have begun grinding again; and nobody would ever have imagined that in this great whirling stream, nine feet under water and three feet under ground, lay a snug little square box of oak, mounted with iron, with a good padlock on it, and more than four thousand livres inside. I chuckled inwardly, and said: Now let the rascals come!" And Catherine was well pleased too. But about four, just as I was going up to bed again, comes Grédel, pale with alarm, crying: "Where is the money?" She had seen the cupboard open and the basket empty. Never had she had such a tright in her life before. Thinking that her marriage-portion was gone, her ragged hair stood upon end, she was as pale as a sheet. "Be quiet," I said, "the money is in a safe place." "Where?" "It is hidden." She looked as if she was going to seize me by the collar, but her mother said to her: "That is no business of yours." Then she become furious, and said, that if we came to die, she would not know where to find her marriage-portion. The quarrel annoyed me, and I said to her: "We are not going to die; on the contrary, we shall live a long while yet to prevent you and your Jean-Baptiste from inheriting our goods." And thereupon I went to bed, leaving Grédel and her mother to come to a settlement together. All I can say is that girls, when they have got anything into their heads, become too bold with their parents, and all the excellent training they have had ends in nothing. Thank God, I had nothing to reproach myself with on that score, nor mother either. Grédel had had four times Then we listened, but it was nothing. as many blows as Jacob, because she the mewing of a cat, the noise of the run- deserved it on account of her wanting to ning water and I went on digging. If keep everything, putting it all into her any one had had the misfortune to sur-own cupboard, and saying, "There, that's prise us, I should have been capable of mine!" doing him a mischief. Happily no one Yes, indeed, she had had plenty of corcame; and about two o'clock in the morn-rection of that kind: but you cannot beat ing the whole was three or four feet deep. a girl of twenty, you cannot correct girls at that age; and that was just my misfor- pleased them, everything that helped to tune. It ought to go on for ever! deceive people like that peaceful plébisWell, it can't be helped. She upset the house and the mill from top to bottom, she visited the garden, and her mother said to her, " You see, we have got it in a safe place; since you cannot find it the Uhlans won't." I remember that just as we were going up to sleep, that day, the 5th of August, early in the morning, Catherine and I had scen Cousin George in his char-à-bancs coming down the valley of Dosenheim, and it seemed to us that he was out very early. The village was waking up; other people too were going to work; I lay down, and about eight o'clock my wife woke me to tell me that the postman, Michel, was there. I came down, and I saw Michel standing in our parlour with his letter-bag under his arm. He was thoughtful, and told me that the worst reports were abroad; that they were speaking of a great battle near Wissembourg, where we had been defeated; that several maintained that we had lost ten thousand men, and the Germans seventeen thousand, but that there was nothing certain, because it was not known whence these rumours proceeded, only that the commanding officer of Phalsbourg, Taillant, had proclaimed that morning that the inhabitants would be obliged to lay in provisions for six weeks; and, naturally, such a proclamation set people a-thinking, and they said: "Have we a siege before us? Have we gone back to the times of the great retreat and downfall of the first Emperor ? Ought that for ever to end in the same fashion?" My wife, Grédel and I, stood listening to Michel with lips compressed, without interrupting him. "And you, Michel," said I, when he had done, "what do you think of it all?" "Monsieur le Maire, I am a poor postman; I want my place; and if my five hundred francs a year were taken from me, what would become of my wife and children?" Then I saw that he considered our prospects were not good. He handed me a letter from Monsieur le Sous-Préfet-it was the last telling me to watch false reports; that false news should be severely punished, by order of our préfet, Monsieur Podevin. We could have wished no better than that the news had been false! But at that time, everything that displeased the sous-préfets, the préfets, the ministers, and the Emperor, was false, and everything that cite was truth! Let us change the subject: the thought of these things turns me sick! Michel went away, and all that day might be noticed a stir of excitement in our village; men coming and going, women watching, people going into the wood each with a bag, spade and pickaxe; stables clearing out; a great movement with faces full of care, and I have always thought that at that moment, every one was hiding, burying anything he could hide or bury. I was sorry I had not begun to sell my corn sooner, when my cousin had cautioned me a week before; but my duties as mayor had prevented me; we must pay for our honours. I had still at least four cart-loads of corn in my barn now where could. I put them? And the cattle, and the furniture, the bedding, provisions of every sort? Never will our people forget those days, when every one was expecting, listening, and saying: "We are like the bird upon the twig. We have toiled, and sweated, and saved for fifty years, to get a little property of our own; to-morrow shall we have anything left? And next week, next month shall we not be starving to death? And in those days of distress, shall we be able to borrow a couple of liards upon our land, or our house? Who will lend to us? And all this on account of whom? Scoundrels who have taken us in. Ah! if there is any justice above, as every honest man believes, these abominable beings will have a heavy reckoning to pay. So many miserable men, women, children await them there; they are there to demand satisfaction for all their sufferings. Yes, I believe it. But they — oh! they believe in nothing! There are indeed dreadful brigands in this world! All that day was spent thus in weariness and anxiety. Nothing was known. We questioned the people who were coming from Dosenheim, Neuviller, or from further still, but they gave no answer but this: "Make your preparations! enemy is advancing! The And then my stupid fool of a deputy, Placiard, who for fifteen years did nothing but cry for tobacco licenses, stamp offices, promotion for his sons, for his son-in-law, and even for himself a sort of beggar who spent his life in drawing up petitions and denunciations - he came into the mill, saying, "Monsieur le Maire, every thing is going on well-ça marche - the enemy are being drawn into the plain; they are coming into the net. To-morrow we shall hear that they are all exterminated, every one!" And the municipal councillors, Arnold, Frantz Sépel, Baptiste Dida, the woodmonger, came crowding in, saying that the enemy must be exterminated, that fire must be set to the forest of Haguenau to roast them, and so on! Every one had his own plan. What louts men can be! But the worst of it was when my wife, having learnt from Michel the proclamations in the town, went up into our bacon stores, to send a few provisions to Jacob; and she perceived our two best hams were missing, with a cheek, and some sausages which had been smoked six weeks. Then you should have seen her flying down the stairs, declaring that the house was full of thieves; that there was no trusting anybody; and Grédel crying louder than she, that surely Frantz, that thief of a Badener, had made off with them. But mother had visited the baconroom a couple of days after Frantz had left; she had seen that everything was straight; and her wrath redoubled. bourg, and that they were there quietly bathing in the Lauter, and washing their clothes, right in front of fifty thousand Germans, hidden in the woods, without mentioning eighty thousand more on our right, who were only waiting for a good opportunity to cross the Rhine. They had been posted, as it were, in the very jaws of a wolf, which had only to give a snap to catch them every one and this had not failed to take place! The Germans had surprised our small army corps the morning before; fierce encounters had taken place in the vines around Wissembourg; our men were short of artillery; the Turcos, the light-armed men, and the line had fought like lions, one to six; they had even taken eight guns in the beginning of the action; but German supports coming up in heavy masses had at last cut them to pieces; they had bombarded Wissembourg, and set fire to the town; only a few of ours had been able to retreat to the cover of the woods of Bitche going up the Vosse. It was said that a general had been killed, and that villages were lying in ruins. It was at Bouxviller that my cousin had Then said Grédel that perhaps Jacob, heard of this disaster, some of the light before leaving home, had put the hams horsemen having arrived the same eveninto his bag with all the rest; but mother ing. There was also a talk of deserters, screamed, "It is a falsehood! I should as if soldiers, after being routed, without have seen it. Jacob has never taken any-knowledge of a woody country full of thing without asking for it. He is an mountains, going straight before them to honest lad." 66 "Is Very well. I have just heard fine news at Bouxviller. Our affairs are in splendid order! We have famous generals! Oh, yes! here is rather a queer beginning; and, if matters go on in this way, we shall come to a remarkable end." His wife, Marie Anne, was coming in from the kitchen; she laid upon the table a leg of mutton, bread, and wine. George sat down, and, whilst eating, told me that two regiments of the line, a regiment of Turcos, a battalion of light infantry, and a regiment of light horse, with three guns, had been posted in advance of Wissem escape from the enemy, should be denounced as deserters. This is one of the abominations that we have seen since that time. Many heartless people preferred crying out that these poor soldiers had deserted to giving them bread and wine: it was more convenient and cheaper. "Now," said George, "all the army of Strasbourg, and that of the interior, who should have been in perfect order, fresh, rested, and provided with everything at Haguenau, but the rear of which is still lagging behind on the railways as far as Luneville; all these are running down there, to check the invasion. Fourteen regiments of cavalry, principally cuirassiers and chasseurs, are assembling at Brumath. Something is expected there; MacMahon is already on the heights of Reichshoffen, with the commander of engineers, Mohl of Haguenau, and other staff officers, to select his position. As fast as the troops arrive they extend before Niederbronn. I heard this from some people who were flying with wives and children, their beds and other chattels on carts, as I was leaving Bouxviller about three o'clock. They wanted to reach the fort of Petite Pierre; but hearing that the fort is occupied by a company, they have moved towards Strasbourg. I think they were right. A great city, like Strasbourg, has always more resources than a small place, where they have only a few palisades stuck up to hide fifty men." This was what Cousin George had learnt that very day. Hearing him speak, my first thought was to run to the mill, load as much furniture as I could upon two waggons, and drive at once to Phalsbourg; but my cousin told me that the gates would be closed; that we should have to wait outside until the re-opening of the barriers; and that we must hope that it would be time enough to-morrow. worked up his materials so skilfully, that his book is quite as attractive to the general public, as to those who are within the veil of the temple of science. If we were to find any fault with these volumes, it would be that the connecting statements as to the matter showing Faraday's progress year by year are somewhat stiff and formal, although we must confess that they are given with great clearness and brevity, and very materially assist the reader in understanding the succession of events. For a fuller account of Faraday's discoveries we must refer to Dr. Tyndall's little book. This is written in his well-known style, which renders even the most abstruse things clear to those who have made but little advance in scientific attainments. However, the ordinary antipathy to exercising thought will, we fear, make this book "caviare to the general," although the personal reminiscences interspersed among the dry details of scientific pursuits are most interesting. Acording to him, the great battle would not be fought for two or three days yet, because a great number of Germans had yet to cross the river, and that they would, no doubt, be opposed. It is true that the fifty thousand men who had made themselves masters of Wissembourg might de- Michael Faraday was one of the four scend the Sauer; but then we should be children of a journeyman blacksmith, who nearly equal, and it was to the interest of lived for some time at Newington and the Germans only to fight when they were afterwards in rooms over a coachhouse three to one. George had heard some of in Jacob's Well Mews, near Manchester ficers discussing this point at the inn, in Square, in London. His education conthe presence of many listeners, and he sisted of little more than the rudiments of believed, according to this, that the 5th reading, writing, and arithmetic at a army corps, which was extending in the common day school. His hours out of direction of Metz, by Bitche and Sarre-school were passed at home and in the guemines, under the orders of General de streets. At the present day, when everyFailly, would have time to arrive and sup-body's attention is so much engrossed by port MacMahon. I thought so, too. It the subject of education, it is perhaps seemed a matter of course. From The Westminster Review. WE are much indebted to Dr. Bence Jones for his delightful volumes. Notwithstanding his modest disclaimer as to his fitness for the task, we think that no one could be more eminently qualified to write the life of Faraday, than one who was a most intimate friend of his, and who, moreover, is so thoroughly able to appreciate the great advances made by him in the region of science. And our expectation has not been disappointed. The life of a man of science is frequently of interest to men of science only. But Dr. Jones has been so fortunate in his subject and has 1. The Life and Letters of Faraday. By Dr. BENCE JONES. Second Edition. London: 1870. 2. Faraday as a Discoverer. By J. TYNDALL. New Edition. London: 1370. superfluous to notice what great results were produced by this simple instruction in the three R's. Still it is well to remember that but for this Faraday would never have been able to educate himself by reading the books in his master's shop, and would probably have remained a bookbinder all his life. "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air!". At the age of thirteen he was engaged as errand boy by a Mr. Riebau, a bookseller, of No. 2, Blandford Street. Here one of his duties was to carry round the papers that were lent out by his master. His kindness to newspaper boys throughout his life is a pleasing trait of his character. "I always feel," he said, "a tenderness for those boys, because I once carried newspapers myself." The next year, 1805, he was bound an apprentice without premium to Mr. Riebau for seven years. Faraday was not one to be contented with learning in this long time the arts of book |