A DESERTER'S PENANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 267, 1 April 1911, Page 9

A DESERTER'S PENANCE.

sirrkxdkr to clear , , A WON'S XAMK. A quietly dressed limn recci\\(L»■ «st-'i'j>pe«J up to tlie sentry on guai\\ ouUiiie llie jjciidiirjiierie at Luncvill'v jnid. spcakin" with a strong Omul;,, ,icccm, a-skcd to bts arretted. ,„„_" Si ,jd the mail. ••Whatever fur?" "j im a dcseiTeiv' The gciuhu; Jllc t .] uwv( \ A rough hand on his -IJOtil' 1 /,.,. all ,| lw k him to t lie* scrb' w "A ou duty. •■Deserter'.'"' asked llle sergeant, looking at hiiii -deserter'.'" For il,e man was dressed in good clothes, looked well fed, and the sergeant Ihotighl lie looked a good dial 100 old lor a I'lcnch soldier. ".My name,'' said tlie man, "is Paul Alphonse Koiiiiloiisc, and J was born at AJirceeuirt in IS7O- the year ni the war. 1 am a deserter. Arrest me." The sergeant shook his head, and went lor a .superior ollieer. It was to him that l'otiiiloiise told his slorv.

When he was twenty-one- in ls',l|, that is (he is a man of onc-and-l'orty now)— l'ouil]oiise became a dragoon in the Seventh Regiment, which wa, in garrison at Luneville. He was not very happy there, lie was a eountryinan, and barrack life was hard on him after the freedom of the lipids and forests of his native Auvcrgue. So one night when he was on duty m the stables and there was nobody about, Kouillouse climbed tlie barrack wall, and left the army short of one dragoon, laineville is very near the Herman frontier, and before morning Koiiiiloiise was in tieniiany. lie went to the litilt' Alsatian village of .Uoulcourt, and there he soon got work as a farmhand.

Tiling prospered with him, fur farm work was what he understood and loved, and year later Fouillouse warned a girl of the village, who bore him three children a son and two daughters. As time went on the little balance in the bank—the teapot with a woollen stocking in it which Jlme. Fouillouso always ° hid carefully under the hearthstone—grew so considerably that Fouillouse began 1o talk of leaving things to the boy, Alphonse Paul, before long. Alphoiwe Paul was a well-grown boy of sixteen, and was drawing near the a«e when it would become necessary for him to declare whether he would serve the Ucrman Kaiser, or, being the sou of a foreigner, would, as he had a perfect right to do, refuse the German military service and leave the country. Fouillouse, one evening after supper, cafled his sou to him, gave him one of those wonderfully good halfpenny cigar* which are denied to France, and asked him his ideas.

Tile boy had no doubt whatsoever. "I am a Frenchman, lather," lie said, "and will bo nothing else. You served your country; I will serve her, too.'' And the lad glanced aero'ss the farmyard and over the low stone wall, where two girls were walking past. And one of them waved a kont of ribbon—France's red, white and '>!■"<'- in greeting to young Alphonse Paul.

J'aul Alphonse's long pipe had gone out. Somehow the cheap Cierman tobacco had not its usual pleasant flavor. And next morning Paul Alphonse F'ouillousc was missing from his farm, and his wife hugged Alphonse Paul and her daughters, and fold them that their father had gone on a business journey, "to settle up an old account." Hut the three wondered why she, wept in telling them, for they knew there was no lack of money on the farm.

_ Fouillouse had realised in his talk with his son that he, too, was a Frenchman, lie had forgotten it a little all these years, but lie had watched with pride his son grow up. He knew the lad, and did not want him to despise his father. Resides, ihe buy'* undoubted patriot ism had made his own line of conduct quite clear in him. There was but one thing to be done, and at all ro-i Paul Alulnm.*" meant to do it.

Ni for ihe lirst time since IS!H—for the lirst. time for twenty years, he walked the road from Mont'ourt back to Luueville, and asked the sentry on guard qutside the gendearmerie, in the strong Als.nlian accent which he had picked up from his long life among Herman-speak-ing people, to put him under arrest as a deserter.

The captain of the gendarmerie reminded him that he would probably be amne-iied if lie would write and slate his cause to the French War <HTiii*. So Foiiillou-c took his bundle to an inn, bought paper, envelope, and postage stamp and wrote. He got no answer The French War Olliec, like event h : iig olticial in this country, grinds smail, perhaps, but moves excecdinglv .slowlv. Fouillouse wrote twice irtid th'rec time,, tie got no answer, and once more !ie wrote, this time to President FnHicrc himself. That letter, too, remained unanswered.

*o Paul Alfonse Foullouse went back to the gendarmerie, sought out file captain and insisted, a.s others heir for freedom, on arrt-st. This time the™captain of the gendarmerie worked for him. Research was made among the archive-, and his name was found. His storv was checked and found to be true in'every detail. Peports were there of his desertion, and Paul Fouillouse, the wealthy farmer of Moncourt, in Alsace, was taken to the military prison at Luneville. Then lie was taken by two French gendarmes to Xaucy, where his papers were again looked up.

l>ut iii the twenty years since hj b 4 | c . scitiou the 7th Dragoon Regiment had hcciL transferred. It is at Kontaincblcaii now, iiml lietween two ■renihirmes Ftmil-h'U.-e travelled ami>s 'France. 11iroii»h Pans, ami down to the little town on the edjje ul (lie forest, where his old regiment i< •liuu-ternl. A tew davs «j.,i «',■„[„•(. martial sat. I'anl Alphonse FouiHon-e was tried for desertion, and |„' was ac'liiitled. "You uive vour son to France and lie shall never know that there was nn.v stain on his father's name," the eolonel said, -for V ou have wined it out."