the general exodus of the young and strong, had stayed behind with
their husbands, the old men who could not be persuaded to leave the
farms and fields in which they had spent their lives. "What harm can
they do to us--old people?" No doubt that had been the instinctive
feeling among those who had remained to face the invasion.

But the Germans were not content without wreaking the instinct--which is
the savage instinct--to break and crush and ill-treat something which
has thwarted you, on the women of Vareddes also. They gathered them out
of the farmyard to which they had come, in the hopes of being allowed to
stay with the men, and shut them up in a room of the farm. And there,
with fixed bayonets, the soldiers amused themselves with terrifying
these trembling creatures during a great part of the night. They made
them all kneel down, facing a file of soldiers, and the women thought
their last hour had come. One was seventy-seven years old, three
sixty-seven, the two others just under sixty. The eldest, Madame
Barthelemy, said to the others--"We are going to die. Make your
'contrition' if you can." (The Town Librarian of Meaux, from whose
account I take these facts, heard these details from the lips of poor
Madame Barthelemy herself.) The cruel scene shapes itself as we think of
it--the half-lit room--the row of kneeling and weeping women, the
grinning soldiers, bayonet in hand, and the old men waiting in the
yard outside.

But with the morning, the French mitrailleuses are heard. The soldiers
disappear.

The poor old women are free; they are able to leave their prison.

But their husbands are gone--carried off as hostages by the Germans.
There were nineteen hostages in all. Three of them were taken off in a
north-westerly direction, and found some German officers quartered in a
chateau, who, after a short interrogation, released them. Of the other
sixteen, fifteen were old men, and the sixteenth a child. The Cure is
with them, and finds great difficulty, owing to his age, the exhaustion
of the night, and lack of food, in keeping up with the column. It was
now Thursday the 10th, the day following that on which, as is generally
believed, the Kaiser signed the order for the general retreat of the
German armies in France. But the hostages are told that the French Army
has been repulsed, and the Germans will be in Paris directly.

At last the poor Cure could walk no farther. He gave his watch to a
companion. "Give it