heek-bones, protruding eyes, and a
large underhung mouth which, when he was pleased, looked sensual, and,
when he was annoyed, merely cruel. The base of his forehead was square,
but it rapidly receded with a convex conformation of head, very closely
shaven as though with a currycomb, and his ears stood out almost at
right angles to his skull. The ferocity that was his by nature he
seemed to have assiduously cultivated by art, and the points of his
moustaches, upturned in the shape of a cow's horns, accentuated the
truculence of his appearance. In short, he was a typical Prussian
officer. In peace he would have been merely comic. In war he was
terrible, for there was nothing to restrain him.

Meanwhile the officer called for a corporal's guard to place the _maire_
under arrest. "But you will first sign the following _affiche_--by the
General's orders," he exclaimed roughly.

Le Maire informe ses concitoyens que le commandant en chef des
troupes allemandes a ordonne que le maire et deux notables soient
pris comme otages pour la raison que des civils aient tire sur des
patrouilles allemandes. Si un coup de fusil etait tire a nouveau
par des civils, les trois otages seraient fusilles et la ville
serait incendiee immediatement.

Si des troupes alliees rentraient le maire rappelle a la population
que tout civil ne doit pas prendre part a la guerre et que si l'un
d'eux venait a y participer le commandant des troupes allemandes
ferait fusilier egalement les otages.

"One moment," said the _maire_ as he took up a pen, "'_les civils_'! I
ordered the civil population to deposit their arms at the _mairie_ two
days ago, and the _commissaire de police_ and the gendarmes have
searched every house. We have no armed civilians here."

"Es macht nichts," said the officer; "we shall add '_ou peut-etre des
militaires en civil_.'"

The _maire_ shrugged his shoulders at the disingenuous parenthesis. It
was, he knew, useless to protest. For all he knew he might be signing
his own death-warrant. He studied the style a little more attentively.
"Mon Dieu, what French!" he said to himself; "'etait,' 'seraient,'
'venait'! What moods! What tenses! Monsieur le Capitaine," he continued
aloud, "if I had used such French in my exercises at the Lycee my
instituteur would have said I deserved to be shot. Pray allow me to make
it a little more graceful." But the Prussian's ignorance of French
syn