inst the enemy. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour
and their spent condition, the men insisted on lighting fires and making
soup; it was the first time since their departure that they had had an
opportunity to put warm food into their stomachs, and seated about the
cheerful blaze in the cool air of evening they were dipping their noses
in the porringers and grunting inarticulately in token of satisfaction
when news came in that burst upon the camp like a thunderbolt,
dumfoundering everyone. Two telegrams had just been received: the
Prussians had not crossed the Rhine at Markolsheim, and there was not a
single Prussian at Huningue. The passage of the Rhine at Markolsheim
and the bridge of boats constructed under the electric light had existed
merely in imagination, were an unexplained, inexplicable nightmare of
the prefet at Schelestadt; and as for the army corps that had menaced
Huningue, that famous corps of the Black Forest, that had made so much
talk, it was but an insignificant detachment of Wurtemburgers, a
couple of battalions of infantry and a squadron of cavalry, which had
maneuvered with such address, marching and countermarching, appearing in
one place and then suddenly popping up in another at a distance, as to
gain for themselves the reputation of being thirty or forty thousand
strong. And to think that that morning they had been near blowing up
the viaduct at Dannemarie! Twenty leagues of fertile country had been
depopulated by the most idiotic of panics, and at the recollection of
what they had seen during their lamentable day's march, the inhabitants
flying in consternation to the mountains, driving their cattle before
them; the press of vehicles, laden with household effects, streaming
cityward and surrounded by bands of weeping women and children, the
soldiers waxed wroth and gave way to bitter, sneering denunciation of
their leaders.

"Ah! it is too ridiculous too talk about!" sputtered Loubet, not
stopping to empty his mouth, brandishing his spoon. "They take us out
to fight the enemy, and there's not a soul to fight with! Twelve leagues
there and twelve leagues back, and not so much as a mouse in front of
us! All that for nothing, just for the fun of being scared to death!"

Chouteau, who was noisily absorbing the last drops in his porringer,
bellowed his opinion of the generals, without mentioning names:

"The pigs! what miserable boobies they are, _hein_! A pretty pack of
dunghill-cocks the