their ranks. Having been
abroad during the whole of the war, I saw a good deal of these
irregulars, and had several intimate friends amongst them. Upon the
whole, these corps did much less service to the cause of France
than might have been reasonably expected. They were too often badly
led, and were sometimes absolutely worse than useless.

But there were brilliant exceptions, and very many of those daring
actions were performed which--while requiring heroism and courage
of the highest kind--are unknown to the world in general, and find
no place in history. Many of the occurrences in this tale are
related, almost in the words in which they were described to me, by
those who took part in them; and nearly every fact and circumstance
actually occurred, according to my own knowledge. Without aspiring
to the rank of a history, however slight, the story will give you a
fair idea of what the life of the franc tireurs was, and of what
some of them actually went through, suffered, and performed.

Yours sincerely,

The Author.

Chapter 1: The Outbreak Of War.

The usually quiet old town of Dijon was in a state of excitement.
There were groups of people in the streets; especially round the
corners, where the official placards were posted up. Both at the
Prefecture and the Maine there were streams of callers, all day.
Every functionary wore an air of importance, and mystery; and
mounted orderlies galloped here and there, at headlong speed. The
gendarmes had twisted their mustaches to even finer points than
usual, and walked about with the air of men who knew all about the
matter, and had gone through more serious affairs than this was
likely to be.

In the marketplace, the excitement and buzz of conversation were at
their highest. It was the market day, and the whole area of the
square was full. Never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had
such a market been seen in Dijon. For the ten days preceding,
France had been on the tiptoe of expectation; and every peasant's
wife and daughter, for miles round the town, had come with their
baskets of eggs, fowls, or fruits, to attend the market and to hear
the news. So crowded was it, that it was really difficult to move
about. People were not, however, unmindful of bargains--for the
French peasant woman is a thrifty body, and has a shrewd eye to
sous--so the chaffering and haggling, which almost invariably
precede each purchase, went on as briskly as usual but, between