lating the story that I am not a patriot? Why don't they do
as I do, eh? sell the blackguards carrion and put their money in their
pocket. Not a patriot! why, good Heavens! I shall have killed more of
them with my diseased cattle than many a soldier with his chassepot!"

When the story reached Jean's ears, however, he was greatly disturbed.
If the German authorities suspected that the people of Remilly were
harboring the francs-tireurs from Dieulet wood they might at any time
come and beat up his quarters and unearth him from his retreat. The
idea that he should be the means of compromising his hosts or bringing
trouble to Henriette was unendurable to him. Yielding to the young
woman's entreaties, however, he consented to delay his departure yet for
a few days, for his wound was very slow in healing and he was not strong
enough to go away and join one of the regiments in the field, either in
the North or on the Loire.

From that time forward, up to the middle of December, the stress of
their anxiety and mental suffering exceeded even what had gone before.
The cold was grown to be so intense that the stove no longer sufficed
to heat the great, barn-like room. When they looked from their window on
the crust of snow that covered the frozen earth they thought of Maurice,
entombed down yonder in distant Paris, that was now become a city of
death and desolation, from which they scarcely ever received reliable
intelligence. Ever the same questions were on their lips: what was he
doing, why did he not let them hear from him? They dared not voice their
dreadful doubts and fears; perhaps he was ill, or wounded; perhaps even
he was dead. The scanty and vague tidings that continued to reach them
occasionally through the newspapers were not calculated to reassure
them. After numerous lying reports of successful sorties, circulated
one day only to be contradicted the next, there was a rumor of a great
victory gained by General Ducrot at Champigny on the 2d of December; but
they speedily learned that on the following day the general, abandoning
the positions he had won, had been forced to recross the Marne and send
his troops into cantonments in the wood of Vincennes. With each new day
the Parisians saw themselves subjected to fresh suffering and privation:
famine was beginning to make itself felt; the authorities, having first
requisitioned horned cattle, were now doing the same with potatoes, gas
was no longer furnished to private h