at he should be given the best bedroom, trailing the
scabbard of his sword noisily up the marble staircase; but encountering
Gilberte in the corridor he drew in his horns, bowed politely, and
passed stiffly on. He was courted with great obsequiousness, for
everyone was well aware that a word from him to the colonel commanding
the post of Sedan would suffice to mitigate a requisition or secure the
release of a friend or relative. It was not very long since his
uncle, the governor-general at Rheims, had promulgated a particularly
detestable and cold-blooded order, proclaiming martial law and decreeing
the penalty of death to whomsoever should give aid and comfort to the
enemy, whether by acting for them as a spy, by leading astray German
troops that had been entrusted to their guidance, by destroying bridges
and artillery, or by damaging the railroads and telegraph lines.
The enemy meant the French, of course, and the citizens scowled and
involuntarily doubled their fists as they read the great white placard
nailed against the door of post headquarters which attributed to them as
a crime their best and most sacred aspirations. It was so hard, too,
to have to receive their intelligence of German victories through the
cheering of the garrison! Hardly a day passed over their heads that
they were spared this bitter humiliation; the soldiers would light great
fires and sit around them, feasting and drinking all night long, while
the townspeople, who were not allowed to be in the streets after nine
o'clock, listened to the tumult from the depths of their darkened
houses, crazed with suspense, wondering what new catastrophe had
befallen. It was on one of these occasions, somewhere about the middle
of October, that M. de Gartlauben for the first time proved himself to
be possessed of some delicacy of feeling. Sedan had been jubilant all
that day with renewed hopes, for there was a rumor that the army of the
Loire, then marching to the relief of Paris, had gained a great victory;
but how many times before had the best of news been converted into
tidings of disaster! and sure enough, early in the evening it became
known for certain that the Bavarians had taken Orleans. Some soldiers
had collected in a house across the way from the factory in the Rue
Maqua, and were so boisterous in their rejoicings that the Captain,
noticing Gilberte's annoyance, went and silenced them, remarking that he
himself thought their uproar ill-timed.

Tow