now came
from their neighbors across the frontier, whence the customs guards had
disappeared, swept away like all else in the general cataclysm. Finally
there were never-ending vexations and annoyances, a conflict that
commenced to rage afresh each morning between the Prussian governor
and his underlings, quartered at the Sous-Prefecture, and the Municipal
Council, which was in permanent session at the Hotel de Ville. It
was all in vain that the city fathers fought like heroes, discussing,
objecting, protesting, contesting the ground inch by inch; the
inhabitants had to succumb to the exactions that constantly became more
burdensome, to the whims and unreasonableness of the stronger.

In the beginning Delaherche suffered great tribulation from the officers
and soldiers who were billeted on him. It seemed as if representatives
from every nationality on the face of the globe presented themselves
at his door, pipe in mouth. Not a day passed but there came tumbling in
upon the city two or three thousand men, horse, foot and dragoons, and
although they were by rights entitled to nothing more than shelter and
firing, it was often found expedient to send out in haste and get them
provisions. The rooms they occupied were left in a shockingly filthy
condition. It was not an infrequent occurrence that the officers came
in drunk and made themselves even more obnoxious than their men. Such
strict discipline was maintained, however, that instances of violence
and marauding were rare; in all Sedan there were but two cases reported
of outrages committed on women. It was not until a later period, when
Paris displayed such stubbornness in her resistance, that, exasperated
by the length to which the struggle was protracted, alarmed by the
attitude of the provinces and fearing a general rising of the populace,
the savage war which the francs-tireurs had inaugurated, they laid the
full weight of their heavy hand upon the suffering people.

Delaherche had just had an experience with a lodger who had been
quartered on him, a captain of cuirassiers, who made a practice of going
to bed with his boots on and when he went away left his apartment in
an unmentionably filthy condition, when in the last half of September
Captain de Gartlauben came to his door one evening when it was raining
in torrents. The first hour he was there did not promise well for the
pleasantness of their future relations; he carried matters with a high
hand, insisting th