that would be sufficient
for him. Perhaps something would turn up later on.

About ten o'clock the 7th corps made a fresh start. The marshal's first
intention had been to direct it by way of Buzancy upon Stenay, where it
would have passed the Meuse, but the Prussians, outmarching the army
of Chalons, were already in Stenay, and were even reported to be at
Buzancy. Crowded back in this manner to the northward, the 7th corps had
received orders to move to la Besace, some twelve or fifteen miles from
Boult-aux-Bois, whence, on the next day, they would proceed to pass the
Meuse at Mouzon. The start was made in a very sulky humor; the men, with
empty stomachs and bodies unrefreshed by repose, unnerved, mentally
and physically, by the experience of the past few days, vented their
dissatisfaction by growling and grumbling, while the officers, without
a spark of their usual cheerful gayety, with a vague sense of impending
disaster awaiting them at the end of their march, taxed the dilatoriness
of their chiefs, and reproached them for not going to the assistance of
the 5th corps at Buzancy, where the sound of artillery-firing had
been heard. That corps, too, was on the retreat, making its way toward
Nonart, while the 12th was even then leaving la Besace for Mouzon and
the 1st was directing its course toward Raucourt. It was like nothing so
much as the passage of a drove of panic-stricken cattle, with the dogs
worrying them and snapping at their heels--a wild stampede toward the
Meuse.

When, in the outstreaming torrent of the three divisions that striped
the plain with columns of marching men, the 106th left Boult-aux-Bois in
the rear of the cavalry and artillery, the sky was again overspread with
a pall of dull leaden clouds that further lowered the spirits of the
soldiers. Its route was along the Buzancy highway, planted on either
side with rows of magnificent poplars. When they reached Germond, a
village where there was a steaming manure-heap before every one of the
doors that lined the two sides of the straggling street, the sobbing
women came to their thresholds with their little children in their arms,
and held them out to the passing troops, as if begging the men to take
them with them. There was not a mouthful of bread to be had in all the
hamlet, nor even a potato, After that, the regiment, instead of keeping
straight on toward Buzancy, turned to the left and made for Authe, and
when the men turned their eyes across t