Commandant," said the _maire_, but not
very hopefully.

"It is no use," replied the _adjoint_ despondingly. "I have. He simply
shrugged his shoulders and said, 'C'est la guerre.' It is always so.
They have shot Jules Bonnard."

"Et pourquoi?" asked the _maire_.

"I know not," said the _adjoint_. "They found four market-gardeners
returning from the fields last night and shot them too--they made them
dig their own graves, and tied their hands behind their backs with their
own scarves. I protested to a Staff officer; he said it was 'verboten'
to dig potatoes. I said they did not know; how could they? He said they
ought to know. Then he abused me, and said if I made any more complaints
he would shoot me too. They have made the _civils_ dig trenches."

"Ah," said the _maire_. He knew it was a flagrant violation of the Hague
Regulations, but it was not the tithe of mint and cummin of the law that
troubled him. It was the reflection that the _civil_ who is forced to
dig trenches is already as good as dead. He knows too much.

"And the women," continued the _adjoint_, in a tone of stupefied horror,
"they are crying, many of them, and will not look one in the face. Some
of them have black eyes. And the young girls!"

The _maire_ brooded in impotent horror. His meditations were interrupted
by the entrance of the captain. "The Commandant wishes to see you _tout
de suite_," he exclaimed. "March!" He was conducted by a corporal's
guard, preceded by the captain, into the presence of the General, who
had taken up his quarters in the principal mansion looking out upon the
square. The General was a stout, square-headed man, with grey moustaches
and steel-blue eyes, and the _maire_ divined at a glance that here was
no swashbuckler, but a man who had himself under control. "I have
imposed a fine of 300,000 francs upon your town; you will collect it in
twenty-four hours; if it is not forthcoming to the last franc I shall be
regretfully compelled to burn this town to the ground."

"And why?" exclaimed the _maire_, whom nothing could now surprise,
though much might perplex.

The General seemed unprepared for the question. He paused for a moment
and said, "Some one has been giving information to the enemy."
"No!"--he held up his hand, not impolitely but finally, as the _maire_
began to expostulate--"I have spoken."

"But," said the _maire_ desperately, "we shall be ruined. We have not
got it. And all our goods have been taken alrea