consequence was that, when the train was halted
in a meadow to the left of the village, these poor creatures flung
themselves upon the ground with no desire to eat. Wine was wanting; some
charitable women who came, bringing a few bottles, were driven off by
the sentries. One of them in her affright fell and sprained her ankle,
and there ensued a painful scene of tears and hysterics, during which
the Prussians confiscated the bottles and drank their contents amid
jeers and insulting laughter. This tender compassion of the peasants for
the poor soldiers who were being led away into captivity was manifested
constantly along the route, while it was said the harshness they
displayed toward the generals amounted almost to cruelty. At that same
Douzy, only a few days previously, the villagers had hooted and reviled
a number of paroled officers who were on their way to Pont-a-Mousson.
The roads were not safe for general officers; men wearing the
blouse--escaped soldiers, or deserters, it may be--fell on them with
pitch-forks and endeavored to take their life as traitors, credulously
pinning their faith to that legend of bargain and sale which, even
twenty years later, was to continue to shed its opprobrium upon those
leaders who had commanded armies in that campaign.

Maurice and Jean ate half their bread, and were so fortunate as to have
a mouthful of brandy with which to wash it down, thanks to the kindness
of a worthy old farmer. When the order was given to resume their
advance, however, the distress throughout the convoy was extreme. They
were to halt for the night at Mouzon, and although the march was a short
one, it seemed as if it would tax the men's strength more severely
than they could bear; they could not get on their feet without giving
utterance to cries of pain, so stiff did their tired legs become the
moment they stopped to rest. Many removed their shoes to relieve their
galled and bleeding feet. Dysentery continued to rage; a man fell before
they had gone half a mile, and they had to prop him against a wall and
leave him. A little further on two others sank at the foot of a hedge,
and it was night before an old woman came along and picked them up. All
were stumbling, tottering, and dragging themselves along, supporting
their forms with canes, which the Prussians, perhaps in derision, had
suffered them to cut at the margin of a wood. They were a straggling
array of tramps and beggars, covered with sores, haggard,