s, which extorted from them shrieks of agony.

"And then," continued Silvine, "I don't know how it happened, but all
at once the uproar was succeeded by a deathlike stillness. I had gone
upstairs and was looking from a window that commanded a view of the
street and fields. There was not a soul in sight, not a 'red-leg' to
be seen anywhere, when I heard the tramp, tramp of heavy footsteps, and
then a voice shouted something that I could not understand and all the
muskets came to the ground together with a great crash. And I
looked down into the street below, and there was a crowd of small,
dirty-looking men in black, with ugly, big faces and wearing helmets
like those our firemen wear. Someone told me they were Bavarians. Then
I raised my eyes again and saw, oh! thousands and thousands of them,
streaming in by the roads, across the fields, through the woods, in
serried, never-ending columns. In the twinkling of an eye the ground was
black with them, a black swarm, a swarm of black locusts, coming thicker
and thicker, so that, in no time at all, the earth was hid from sight."

She shivered and repeated her former gesture, veiling her vision from
some atrocious spectacle.

"And the things that occurred afterward would exceed belief. It seems
those men had been marching three days, and on top of that had fought at
Beaumont like tigers; hence they were perishing with hunger, their
eyes were starting from their sockets, they were beside themselves.
The officers made no effort to restrain them; they broke into shops
and private houses, smashing doors and windows, demolishing furniture,
searching for something to eat and drink, no matter what, bolting
whatever they could lay their hands on. I saw one in the shop of
Monsieur Simonin, the grocer, ladling molasses from a cask with his
helmet. Others were chewing strips of raw bacon, others again had filled
their mouths with flour. They were told that our troops had been passing
through the town for the last two days and there was nothing left, but
here and there they found some trifling store that had been hid away,
not sufficient to feed so many hungry mouths, and that made them think
the folks were lying to them, and they went on to smash things more
furiously than ever. In less than an hour, there was not a butcher's,
grocer's, or baker's shop in the city left ungutted; even the private
houses were entered, their cellars emptied, and their closets pillaged.
At the doctor's--d