here he fortified himself
with a copious breakfast, denouncing in language more forcible than
elegant such hurried movements. And Mulhausen watched with sorrowful
eyes the officers trooping through her streets; as the news of the
retreat spread the citizens streamed out of their houses, deploring
the sudden departure of the army for whose coming they had prayed
so earnestly: they were to be abandoned, then, and all the costly
merchandise that was stacked up in the railway station was to become the
spoil of the enemy; within a few hours their pretty city was to be in
the hands of foreigners? The inhabitants of the villages, too, and of
isolated houses, as the staff clattered along the country roads, planted
themselves before their doors with wonder and consternation depicted on
their faces. What! that army, that a short while before they had seen
marching forth to battle, was now retiring without having fired a shot?
The leaders were gloomy, urged their chargers forward and refused to
answer questions, as if ruin and disaster were galloping at their heels.
It was true, then, that the Prussians had annihilated the army and were
streaming into France from every direction, like the angry waves of
a stream that had burst its barriers? And already to the frightened
peasants the air seemed filled with the muttering of distant invasion,
rising louder and more threatening at every instant, and already they
were beginning to forsake their little homes and huddle their poor
belongings into farm-carts; entire families might be seen fleeing
in single file along the roads that were choked with the retreating
cavalry.

In the hurry and confusion of the movement the 106th was brought to a
halt at the very first kilometer of their march, near the bridge over
the canal of the Rhone and Rhine. The order of march had been badly
planned and still more badly executed, so that the entire 2d division
was collected there in a huddle, and the way was so narrow, barely
more than sixteen feet in width, that the passage of the troops was
obstructed.

Two hours elapsed, and still the 106th stood there watching the
seemingly endless column that streamed along before their eyes. In
the end the men, standing at rest with ordered arms, began to become
impatient. Jean's squad, whose position happened to be opposite a break
in the line of poplars where the sun had a fair chance at them, felt
themselves particularly aggrieved.

"Guess we must be the re