The door opened of itself, and I found there a pleasant
woman of middle age, but frowning. She had three daughters, all of
great strength, and she was upbraiding them loudly in the German of
Alsace and making them scour and scrub. On the wall above her head was
a great placard which I read very tactfully, and in a distant manner,
until she had restored the discipline of her family. This great
placard was framed in the three colours which once brought a little
hope to the oppressed, and at the head of it in broad black letters
were the three words, 'Freedom, Brotherhood, and an Equal Law'.
Underneath these was the emblematic figure of a cock, which I took to
be the Gallic bird, and underneath him again was printed in enormous
italics -
Quand ce coq chantera
Ici credit l'on fera.
Which means -
When you hear him crowing
Then's the time for owing.
Till that day - Pay.
While I was still wondering at this epitome of the French people, and
was attempting to combine the French military tradition with the
French temper in the affairs of economics; while I was also delighting
in the memory of the solid coin that I carried in a little leathern
bag in my pocket, the hard-working, God-fearing, and honest woman that
governs the little house and the three great daughters, within a yard
of the frontier, and on the top of this huge hill, had brought back
all her troops into line and had the time to attend to me.
