r artillery was
on ahead, and we were carrying everything before us, so towards Le
Bourget I advanced. About a mile from Le Bourget, there is a cross-road
running to St. Denis through Courneuve. Here I found the barricade which
had formed our most advanced post removed. Le Bourget seemed to be on
fire. Shells were falling into it from the Prussian batteries, and, as
well as I could make out, our forts were shelling it too. Our artillery
was on a slight rise to the right of Le Bourget, in advance of Drancy;
and in the fields between Drancy and this rise, heavy masses of troops
were drawn up in support. Officers assured me that Le Bourget was still
in our possession, and that if I felt inclined to go there, there was
nothing to prevent me. I confess I am not one of those persons who snuff
up the battle from afar, and feel an irresistible desire to rush into
the middle of it. To be knocked on the head by a shell, merely to
gratify one's curiosity, appears to me to be the utmost height of
absurdity. Those who put themselves between the hammer and the anvil,
come off generally second best, and I determined to defer my visit to
the interesting village before me until the question whether it was to
belong to Gaul or Teuton had been definitely decided. So I turned off to
the left and went to St. Denis.

Here everybody was in the streets, asking everybody else for news. The
forts all round it were firing heavily. On the Place before the
Cathedral there was a great crowd of men, women, and children. The
sailors, who are quartered here in great numbers, said that they had
carried Le Bourget early in the morning, but that they had been obliged
to fall back, with the loss of about a third of their number. Most of
them had hatchets by their sides, and they attack a position much as if
they were boarding a ship. About 100 prisoners had been brought into the
town in the morning, as well as two Freres Chretiens, who had been
wounded, and for whom the greatest sympathy was expressed. Little seemed
to be known of what was passing. "The Prussians will be here in an
hour," shouted one man; "The Prussians are being exterminated," shouted
another. "What is this?" cried the crowd, as Monseigneur Bauer, the
bishop _in partibus infidelium_ of some place or other, now came riding
along with his staff. He held up his two fingers, and turned his hand
right and left. His pastoral blessing was, however, but a half success.
The women crossed themselve