Huntsville gazette., 1884-12-20
"GRANDMERE JEANNE1,ON." "
How Her Sorrow Was Mitigated
By the Photographer Art.


/ Twas smoking my after-dinner cigar
and reading Figaro on the esplanade in
Stasbourg, when l was accosted by an
old woman who inquired in French for
the nearest photographer. She wore
the common dress of the Alsatian peas
ant. and her dusty shoes indicated a
long foot journey, bnt under her linen
head-dress fell her white hair round a
face that, sunburnt and wrinkled and
wearing traces of recent tears, yet was
50 beautiful in its expression of tender
goodness and touching resignation not
nnmixed with a certain pride, that [
involuntarily addressed her as Grand
mere" and forgetting that I had
promised friend to await his arrival,
offered to guide her to her destination.
On the road she told me her simple
story. She was a widow, and lived
prior to the French-German war with
her married son in village, fifty miles
from Strasbourg. They were Well-to-
do peasants before the enemy invaded
their little village; but one morning
they woke to find the Prussians en-
samped in their fields and making
themselves perfectly at home. More
troops arrived the next day and the fol-
lowing, until the quiet village was big
camp, where the enemy heaped up the
stores needed for the siege of Stras-
bourg.
One dark night the camp was alarmed
and a magazine containing among other
stores considerable quantity of pow
der was found on fire, and there was
NO doubt that it was the work of the
inhabitants. Accordingly the next
morning six of the most prominent or
most patriotic of the inhabitants were
brought before the Prussian com
msnder, and after short examination
that proved nothing, without further
trial, shot in the square in front of the
oXe Of the six victims, and his wife,
who became frantic with grief over his
death, was the next morning found life
less on his grave, thus leaving her rinfant
son to the sole care of his grandmother
The old woman now centered all her
hope and all her affection in the little
boy. and as he grew up she was fully
repaid, for he loved his grandmother
with an intensity often found in chill
dren who die young-a love that was
alone equaled by his veneration of his
dead parents, his alteration Of "la belle
France and his hate of the Prussians,
for the old woman, who loved her
beautiful country dearly, and never
forgot that her husband fell fighting for
it at "Solferino," and that her son was
killed by its enemies, instilled, perhaps
unconsciously, both feelings in his
young breast.
One day, when the boy was ten years
old. Prussian official who inspected
the village school was struck with his
beauty and serious air, and addressed a
question to him in German respecting
his parents. "The Prussians killed
them," answered the boy in French.
The official colored, and in a rebuking
tone asked the boy why he didn't speak
German. Because it is the language
of my country's enemies" answered
the boy fearlessly.
The Official ordered him in arrest,
and he was shut up in chamber above
the school-room, where he remained
until night, when he boldly leaped from
the window to the ground and, as he
fell IN thick copse, escaped unhurt.
The boy now fairly flew to his grand
mother S house, but as he was afraid of
being seen and brought back to the
school if he followed the road, he
crossed the fields behind the village.
- tl.. k,x 4 Al.
were ripe, so old Martin, the owner of
the choicest grapes in the village, kept
watch with a loaded shotgun over his
precious treasures. Softly he walks
over the field behind the wine-press,
when he hears something force its way
through the grapevines. He stops and
cocks his piece. He will now catch
the thief who robs him of his biggest
grapes. The moon is behind the
clouds, but he sees the outline of a per-
son running fast through the vines.
''Halt!'' he commands-but the person
never heeds him. He raises his gun
q fash-a scream-a fall of body
among the grapes, and when the old
man arrives on the spot, he finds in
stead of the supposed grape thief
little curly y-haired boy whose life is fast
ebbing away with the blood that flows
out and mixes with the crushed grapes;
his black eyes are already fixed and
CLASSY, and it is with a faltering voice
he Whispers ''Giye my love to grand
mother and tell her-father! mother!
I am coming"-his hands grasp the
vines tighter. he raises himself to a sit
ting posture, the moon coming from
behind the clouds shines on the wine
leaves in his curly hair. a cry rises in