the puddles quivered in the gray uncertain
moonlight. We stood up under a part of the roof at the corner of the
old house thinking of our troubles.

At the end of an hour, the drums began to beat with a dull sound; the
men shook the straw from their clothes and we resumed our march. It
was still dark--but we could hear the chasseurs sounding their signal
to mount, behind us.

Between three and four in the morning, at dawn, we saw a great many
other regiments, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, on the march like
ourselves by different roads, all the corps of Marshal Grouchy in
retreat! The wet weather, the leaden sky, the long files of weary men,
the disappointment of being retaken, and the thought that so many
efforts and so much bloodshed had only terminated a second time in an
invasion, all this made us hang down our heads. Nothing was heard but
the sound of our own footsteps in the mud.

I could not shake off my sadness for a long time, when a voice near me
said:

"Good-morning, Joseph."

I was awakened, and looking at the man who spoke to me, I recognized
the son of Martin the tanner, our neighbor at Pfalzbourg; he was
corporal of the Sixth, and the file-closer, marching with arms at will.
We shook hands. It was a real consolation for me to see some one from
our own place.

In spite of the rain which continued to fall and our great fatigue, we
could talk of nothing but this terrible campaign.

I related the story of the battle of Waterloo, and he told me that the
4th battalion on leaving Fleurus had taken the route toward Wavre with
the whole of Grouchy's corps, and that in the afternoon of the next
day, the 18th, they heard the cannon on their left and that they all
wanted to go in that direction, even the generals, but the marshal
having received positive orders, had continued on the route to Wavre.
It was between six and seven o'clock, before they were convinced that
the Prussians had escaped; then they changed their course to the left
in order to rejoin the Emperor, but unfortunately, it was too late, and
toward midnight they were obliged to take a position in the fields.

Each battalion formed in a square. At three o'clock in the morning the
cannon of the Prussians had awakened the bivouacs, and they had
skirmished until two o'clock in the afternoon, when the order to
retreat reached them.

Again, Martin said they were too late, for a part of the enemy's force
which had been engaged with that