It
was the only way into Gerbeviller, so the chasseurs determined to fight.
They had torn up the street and thrown great earthworks across one end
of the bridge. Additional barricades were thrown up on the two
converging streets, part way up the hill, behind which they had
mitrailleuses which could sweep the road at the other end of the bridge.
About a half mile to the south a narrow footbridge crossed the river,
only wide enough for one man. It was a little rustic affair that ran
through the grounds of the Chateau de Gerbeviller that faced the river
only a few hundred yards below the main bridge. It was a very ancient
chateau, built in the twelfth century and restored in the seventeenth
century. It was a royal chateau of the Bourbons. In it once lived the
great Francois de Montmorency, Duc de Luxembourg and Marshal of France.
Now it belonged to the Marquise de Lamberty, a cousin of the King of
Spain.
I interrupted, for I wanted to hear about the chasseurs. I gave the
little old man a cigarette. He seized it eagerly--so eagerly that I also
handed him a cigar. He just sort of fondled that cigar for a moment and
then placed it in an inside pocket. It was a very cheap and very bad
French cigar, for I was in a part of the country that has never heard of
Havanas, but to the little old man it was something precious.
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