The Great Invasion of 1813-14

On the morrow, at daybreak, Hullin, attired in his Sunday pantaloons of thick blue cloth, his ample brown velvet surcoat, his red waistcoat with metal buttons, and a broad-brimmed felt hat on his head, which, looped up in front like a cockade, exposed to view his rubicund face, set out on his way to Phalsbourg, with a stout walking-stick in his hand.

Phalsbourg is a little fortified place on the high road between Strasbourg and Paris. It commands the borders of Saverne, the defiles of the upper Barr, of Roche-Plate, of Bonne Fontaine, and of the Graufthal. Its bastions, its outworks, its half-moons, are carved in zig-zag on a rocky platform. At a distance, it seems as if you could clear the walls with a single stride; but, as you approach, you discover the ditch, which is a hundred feet broad and thirty feet deep, and the gloomy ramparts cut in the rock opposite. That brings you to a stand. For the rest, with the exception of the church, the commune hall, the two gates of France and Germany in form of a mitre, and the belfreys of the two powder-mills, all is hidden behind the glacis. Such is the little town of Phalsbourg, which is not wanting in a certain character of grandeur, especially when you cross its bridges, and enter beneath its low massive portals and bristling portcullises.