e implacable towards everything
bearing that name, and spare none of the execrated race which has been
the cause of so many tears, so much blood, so much mourning. Never
mind!... I think in this case it would have been better not to have
shot....

A shot fired, not far from us, on our left brought me up from my
shelter. It seemed strange after the complete calm of that night. It
was seven o'clock. The sun was magnificent, and had already bathed the
deserted plain, the fields, the heights of S., and the ruined village.
In the distance, towards the east, the towers of the cathedral of R.
stood out proudly against the golden sky. I looked and saw all my
Chasseurs standing on the ledges watching with interest a scene which
seemed to be going on in front of the trenches occupied on our left by
the Territorials.

I got up by the side of one of them, and he explained to me what was
happening.

"_Mon Lieutenant_, it's the infantry fellows who have just killed a
hare that ran between the two lines, and they're going to fetch
it...."

And in fact I saw this strange sight: two men had gone out in full
daylight from their trenches and were advancing with hesitating steps
towards the enemy's. Behind them were a hundred inquisitive heads,
looking out above the embrasures arranged between the sacks of earth.
A few soldiers, who had come out of the trench, were even sitting on
the bank of chalky earth. It was certainly such a scene as I had
hardly expected to witness. What was the captain of the company
occupying the trench doing?

But my astonishment became stupefaction when I saw the hundreds of
heads that fringed the enemy's trenches. I at once sent G. and a
non-commissioned officer with the following order to all our men:

"No one is to show himself.... Every man to his fighting post!...
Carbines loaded and ready to fire!"

The Germans opposite became suspicious on seeing our line so silent,
and no man showing himself; they, too, waited on the alert behind
their loopholes. But along the rest of their front their men kept on
coming out from their trenches unarmed, and making merry and friendly
gestures. I became uneasy, and wondered how this unexpected comedy
might end. Ought I to have those men fired upon who were not quite
opposite to us, and whose opponents seemed rather inclined to make a
Christmas truce?

Our two infantrymen had come to the spot where the hare had fallen,
very nearly half-way between the French and