n down, and posted the remnant
of the battalion behind the ruins in order to sustain the attacking
columns by firing from the windows.

There were fifteen of us in that barn and I can see it now, with the
door hanging by one hinge, and battered with the balls, and the ladder
running up through a square hole, three or four dead Prussians leaning
against the walls, and a window at the other end looking into the
street in the rear.

Zebede commanded our post, Lieutenant Bretonville occupied the house
opposite with another squad, and Captain Florentin went somewhere else.
The street was filled with troops quite up to the two corners near the
brook.

The first thing we tried to do was to put up the door and fasten it,
but we had hardly commenced when we heard a terrible crash in the
street, and walls, shutters, tiles, and everything were swept away at a
stroke. Two of our men who were outside holding up the door, fell as
if cut down with a scythe.

At the same moment we could hear the steps of the retreating column
rolling over the bridge, while a dozen more such explosions made us
draw back in spite of ourselves. It was a battery of six pieces
charged with canister which Bluecher had masked at the end of the
street, and which now opened upon us.

The whole column--drummers, soldiers, officers, mounted and foot, were
in retreat, pushing and jostling each other, swept along as by a
hurricane. Nobody looked back, those who fell were lost. The last
ones had hardly passed our door when Zebede, who looked out to see what
had happened, shouted in a voice of thunder, "The Prussians!"

He fired, and several of us rushed for the ladder, but before we could
think of climbing they were upon us. Zebede, Buche, and all who had
not had time to get up the ladder drove them back with their bayonets.
It seems to me as if I could see those Prussians still, with their big
mustaches, their red faces and flat shakos, furious at being checked.

I never had such a shock as that. Zebede shouted, "No quarter," just
as if we had been the stronger. But immediately he received a blow on
the head from the butt of a musket and fell.

I saw that he was going to be murdered and I burned for revenge. I
shouted, "To the bayonet," and we all fell upon the rascals, while our
comrades fired at them from above, and a fusillade commenced from the
houses opposite.

The Prussians fell back, but a little distance away there was a whole
battalion.