Buche took Zebede on his shoulders and started up the
ladder. We followed him, shouting "Hurry!" while we aided him with all
our strength to climb the ladder with his burden. I was next to the
last, and I thought we should never get up. We heard the shots already
in the barn, but we were up at last, and all inspired with the same
idea, we tried to draw the ladder up after us. To our horror we found,
as we endeavored to pull it through the opening between the shots, one
of which took off the head of a comrade, that it was so large we could
not get it into the loft. We hesitated for a moment, when Zebede,
recovering himself, exclaimed, "Shoot through the rounds!" This seemed
to us an inspiration from heaven.

Below us the uproar was terrible. The whole street, as well as our
barn, was full of Prussians.

They were mad with rage, and worse than we; repeating incessantly, "No
prisoners!"

They were enraged by the musket-shots from the houses; they broke down
the doors, and then we could hear the struggles, the falls, curses in
French and German, the orders of Lieutenant Bretonville opposite, and
the Prussian officers commanding their men to go and bring straw to
fire the houses. Fortunately the harvest was not yet secured, or we
should all have been burned.

They fired into the floor under our feet, but it was made of thick oak
plank and the balls tapped on it like the strokes of a hammer. We
stood one behind the other and continued our fire into the street, and
every shot told.

It appeared as if they had retaken the church square, for we only heard
our fire very far away. We were alone, two or three hundred men in the
midst of three or four thousand. Then I said to myself, "Joseph! you
will never escape from this danger. It is impossible! your end has
come!" I dared not think of Catherine, my heart quaked. Our retreat
was cut off, the Prussians held both ends of the street and the lanes
in the rear, and they had already retaken several houses.

Suddenly the hubbub ceased; they were making some preparation we
thought; they have gone for straw or fagots or they are going to bring
up their guns to demolish us.

Our gunners looked out of the window, but they saw nothing, the barn
was empty. This dead silence was more terrible than the tumult had
been a few minutes before.

Zebede had just raised himself up, and the blood was running from his
mouth and nose.

"Attention! we are going to have anothe