Read "Waterloo" by Erckmann-Chatrian online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The next morning all the clocks in the village were to be wound up, and as Mr. Goulden was growing old he had intrusted that to me, and I went out very early. The wind had blown the leaves in heaps against the walls during the night, and the people were coming to take their torches and vases of flowers from the altars. All this made me sad, and I thought, "Now that they have performed their service for the dead, I hope they are satisfied. If the permit would come, it would be all very well, but if these people think they are going to amuse us with psalms they are mistaken. In the time of the Emperor we had to go to Russia and Spain it is true, but the ministers did not leave the young people to pine away. I would like to know what peace is for if it is not to get married!"
I denounced Louis XVIII., the Comte d'Artois, the _emigres_, and everybody else, and declared that the nobles mocked the people.