s living there in grief and solitude and provided
for secretly by those two men.

She remained there until the German troops departed, and then one evening
the priest borrowed the baker's cart and himself drove his prisoner to
Rouen. When they got there he embraced her, and she quickly went back on
foot to the establishment from which she had come, where the
proprietress, who thought that she was dead, was very glad to see her.

A short time afterward a patriot who had no prejudices, and who liked her
because of her bold deed, and who afterward loved her for herself,
married her and made her a lady quite as good as many others.

A DUEL

The war was over. The Germans occupied France. The whole country was
pulsating like a conquered wrestler beneath the knee of his victorious
opponent.

The first trains from Paris, distracted, starving, despairing Paris, were
making their way to the new frontiers, slowly passing through the country
districts and the villages. The passengers gazed through the windows at
the ravaged fields and burned hamlets. Prussian soldiers, in their black
helmets with brass spikes, were smoking their pipes astride their chairs
in front of the houses which were still left standing. Others were
working or talking just as if they were members of the families. As you
passed through the different towns you saw entire regiments drilling in
the squares, and, in spite of the rumble of the carriage-wheels, you
could every moment hear the hoarse words of command.

M. Dubuis, who during the entire siege had served as one of the National
Guard in Paris, was going to join his wife and daughter, whom he had
prudently sent away to Switzerland before the invasion.

Famine and hardship had not diminished his big paunch so characteristic
of the rich, peace-loving merchant. He had gone through the terrible
events of the past year with sorrowful resignation and bitter complaints
at the savagery of men. Now that he was journeying to the frontier at the
close of the war, he saw the Prussians for the first time, although he
had done his duty on the ramparts and mounted guard on many a cold night.

He stared with mingled fear and anger at those bearded armed men,
installed all over French soil as if they were at home, and he felt in
his soul a kind of fever of impotent patriotism, at the same time also
the great need of that new instinct of prudence which since then has,
never left us. In the same railway carriag