The Invasion of France in 1814 by Erckmann-Chatrian

The next day at dawn, Hullin, wearing his blue cloth Sunday breeches, his large brown velvet jacket and red waistcoat with brass buttons, and a broad beaver mountaineer's hat turned up like a cockade above his ruddy face -- started on his way to Phalsbourg, a stout stick in his hand.

Phalsbourg is a small fortress, half-way on the imperial road from Strasbourg to Paris; it dominates Saverne, the defiles of Haut-Barr, Roche-Platte, Bonne-Fontaine, and of the Graufthal. Its bastions, outposts, and demilunes are cut out in zig-zags on a rocky plain: from afar, the walls look as though they might be cleared at a jump; but on coming closer one perceives the moat, a hundred feet wide, thirty deep, and the dark ramparts hewn in the face of the rock. That makes one stop suddenly. Besides, with the exception of the church, the town-hall, the two gateways of France and Germany, in shape of mitres, and the peaks of the two powder-magazines, all the rest is hidden behind the fortifications. Such is Phalsbourg, which is not without a certain imposing effect, especially when one crosses its bridges and piers, under its thick gates, garnished with iron-spiked portcullis.