the night, and did their best to persuade him by
remarks exchanged between them that his execution was imminent.

It is generally believed at Coulommiers that criminal attempts have
been made on many women of that town, but only one crime of this
nature has been proved for certain. A charwoman, Mme. X., was the
victim. A soldier came to her house on the 6th of September, toward
9:30 in the evening, and sent away her husband to go and search for
one of his comrades in the street. Then, in spite of the fact that two
small children were present, he tried to rape the young woman. X.,
when he heard his wife's cries, rushed back, but was driven off with
blows of the butt of the man's rifle into a neighboring room, of which
the door was left open, and his wife was forced to suffer the
consummation of the outrage. The rape took place almost under the eyes
of the husband, who, being terrorized, did not dare to intervene, and
used his efforts only to calm the terror of his children.

In the same way, Mme. X., at Sancy-les-Provins, and Mme. Z., at
Beton-Bazoches, were the victims of similar outrages. The former was
forced to submit to the will of a soldier with a revolver at her
throat; the second, in spite of her resistance, was thrown upon a bed
and outraged in the presence of her little daughter, aged 3. The
husbands of these two women have been with the army since the
commencement of the war.

On the 6th of September, at Guerard, where two workmen, Maitrier and
Didelot, had been killed at the outposts, the enemy took possession of
six hostages. One only was able to escape and return to his village.

At Mauperthuis, on the same day, four Germans who had already gone in
the morning to the house of M. Roger, presented themselves there again
at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. "There were three of you here this
morning, and now you are only two. Come out," said one of them.
Immediately Roger and a refugee named M. Denet, who was a guest in the
house, were seized and led away. The next day, at the end of the
village, Mme. Roger found the body of her husband, pierced by two
bullets. Denet had also been shot, and his body was discovered some
little time afterward in such a state of decomposition as to make it
impossible to ascertain the nature of the wounds which the unfortunate
man had received.

In a hamlet in the same commune, M. Fournier, caretaker of a farm at
Champbrisset, resided with a Swiss named Knell. The Germans took the