that the Prussians were
in Dieulet forest and moving on Sommanthe and Beaumont. He had flung
himself down by the roadside, exhausted before the march had commenced,
with a sorrowing heart and an empty stomach, at the dawning of that day
which he felt was to be so disastrous for them all. Distressed to see
him looking so pale, the corporal affectionately asked him:

"Are you feeling so badly still? What is it? Does your foot pain you?"

Maurice shook his head. His foot had ceased to trouble him, thanks to
the big shoes.

"Then you are hungry." And Jean, seeing that he did not answer,
took from his knapsack one of the two remaining biscuits, and with a
falsehood for which he may be forgiven: "Here, take it; I kept your
share for you. I ate mine a while ago."

Day was breaking when the 7th corps marched out of Osches en route
for Mouzon by way of la Besace, where they should have bivouacked. The
train, cause of so many woes, had been sent on ahead, guarded by the
first division, and if its own wagons, well horsed as for the most part
they were, got over the ground at a satisfactory pace, the requisitioned
vehicles, most of them empty, delayed the troops and produced sad
confusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne. After leaving the
hamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between wooded
hills on either side. Finally, about eight o'clock, the two remaining
divisions got under way, when Marshal MacMahon came galloping up, vexed
to find there those troops that he supposed had left la Besace that
morning, with only a short march between them and Mouzon; his comment
to General Douay on the subject was expressed in warm language. It was
determined that the first division and the train should be allowed to
proceed on their way to Mouzon, but that the two other divisions, that
they might not be further retarded by this cumbrous advance-guard,
should move by the way of Raucourt and Autrecourt so as to pass
the Meuse at Villers. The movement to the north was dictated by the
marshal's intense anxiety to place the river between his army and the
enemy; cost what it might, they must be on the right bank that night.
The rear-guard had not yet left Osches when a Prussian battery,
recommencing the performance of the previous day, began to play on them
from a distant eminence, over in the direction of Saint-Pierremont. They
made the mistake of firing a few shots in reply; then the last of the
troops filed out of the town