e
lighted it, and took this infernal machine into the next room; but he
came back immediately and shut the door. The Germans all stood
expectantly, their faces full of childish, smiling curiosity, and as
soon as the explosion had shaken the chateau, they all rushed in at
once.

Mademoiselle Fifi, who got in first, clapped his hands in delight at
the sight of a terra-cotta Venus, whose head had been blown off, and
each picked up pieces of porcelain, and wondered at the strange shape
of the fragments, while the major was looking with a paternal eye at
the large drawing-room which had been wrecked in such a Neronic
fashion, and which was strewn with the fragments of works of art. He
went out first, and said, with a smile: "He managed that very well!"

But there was such a cloud of smoke in the dining-room, mingled with
the tobacco smoke, that they could not breathe, so the commandant
opened the window, and all the officers, who had gone into the room for
a glass of cognac, went up to it.

The moist air blew into the room, and brought a sort of spray with it,
which powdered their beards. They looked at the tall trees which were
dripping with the rain, at the broad valley which was covered with
mist, and at the church spire in the distance, which rose up like a
gray point in the beating rain.

The bells had not rung since their arrival. That was the only
resistance which the invaders had met with in the neighborhood. The
parish priest had not refused to take in and to feed the Prussian
soldiers; he had several times even drunk a bottle of beer or claret
with the hostile commandant, who often employed him as a benevolent
intermediary; but it was no use to ask him for a single stroke of the
bells; he would sooner have allowed himself to be shot. That was his
way of protesting against the invasion, a peaceful and silent protest,
the only one, he said, which was suitable to a priest, who was a man of
mildness, and not of blood; and everyone, for twenty-five miles round,
praised Abbe Chantavoine's firmness and heroism, in venturing to
proclaim the public mourning by the obstinate silence of his church
bells.

The whole village grew enthusiastic over his resistance, and was ready
to back up their pastor and to risk anything, as they looked upon that
silent protest as the safeguard of the national honor. It seemed to the
peasants that thus they had deserved better of their country than
Belfort and Strassburg, that they had s