ted: "France and the French,
the woods, the fields, and the houses of France belong to us!"

The others, who were quite drunk, and who were suddenly seized by
military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses, and
shouting: "Long live Prussia!" they emptied them at a draught.

The girls did not protest, for they were reduced to silence, and were
afraid. Even Rachel did not say a word, as she had no reply to make, and
then, the little marquis put his champagne glass, which had just been
refilled, onto the head of the Jewess, and exclaimed: "All the women in
France belong to us, also!"

At that, she got up so quickly that the glass upset and poured
the amber-colored wine onto her black hair as if to baptize her,
and broke into a hundred fragments, as it fell onto the floor. With
trembling lips, she defied the looks of the officer who was still
laughing, and she stammered out, in a voice choked with rage:
"That ... that ... that ... is not true for you shall certainly not
have any French women."

He sat down again, so as to laugh at his ease, and trying ineffectually
to speak in the Parisian accent, he said: "That is good, very good!
Then, what did you come here for, my dear?" She was thunderstruck, and
made no reply for a moment, for in her agitation she did not understand
him at first; but as soon as she grasped his meaning, she said to him
indignantly and vehemently: "I! I! I am not a woman; I am only a
strumpet, and that is all that Prussians want."

Almost before she had finished, he slapped her full in the face; but as
he was raising his hand again, as if he would strike her, she, almost
mad with passion, took up a small dessert knife with a silver blade from
the table, and stabbed him in the neck, just above the breast bone.
Something that he was going to say was cut short in his throat, and he
sat there, with his mouth half open, and a terrible look in his eyes.

All the officers shouted in horror, and leaped up tumultuously; but
throwing her chair between Lieutenant Otto's legs, who fell down at
full length, she ran to the window, opened it before they could seize
her, and jumped out into the night and pouring rain.

In two minutes, Mademoiselle Fifi was dead, and Fritz and Otto drew
their swords and wanted to kill the women, who threw themselves at their
feet and clung to their knees. With some difficulty the major stopped
the slaughter, and had the four terrified girls locked up in a roo