n
troopers, and set out at about four o'clock and at five o'clock, while
it was still pitch dark, we reached the first houses of Porterin. I
halted and ordered Marchas, you know Pierre de Marchas, who afterwards
married little Martel-Auvelin, the daughter of the Marquis de
Martel-Auvelin, to go alone into the village, and to report to me what
he saw.

"I had chosen nothing but volunteers, and all of good family. It is
pleasant when on service not to be forced to be on intimate terms with
unpleasant fellows. This Marchas was as sharp as possible, as cunning as
a fox and as supple as a serpent. He could scent the Prussians as well
as a dog can scent a hare, could find victuals where we should have
died of hunger without him, and he obtained information from everybody,
and information which was always reliable, with incredible cleverness.

"In ten minutes he returned. 'All right,' he said; 'there have been no
Prussians here for three days. It is a sinister place, is this village.
I have been talking to a Sister of Mercy, who is attending to four or
five wounded men in an abandoned convent.'

"I ordered them to ride on, and we penetrated into the principal street.
On the right and left we could vaguely see roofless walls, which were
hardly visible in the profound darkness. Here and there a light was
burning in a room; some family had remained to keep its house standing
as much as they were able; a family of brave, or of poor, people. The
rain had begun to fall, a fine, icy cold rain, which froze us before it
wetted us through, by merely touching our cloaks. The horses stumbled
against stones, against beams, against furniture. Marchas guided us,
going before us on foot, and leading his horse by the bridle.

"'Where are you taking us to?' I asked him. And he replied: 'I have a
place for us to lodge in, and a rare good one.' And soon we stopped
before a small house, evidently belonging to some owner of the middle
classes, quite enclosed, built near the street and with a garden in the
rear.

"Marchas broke open the lock by means of a big stone which he picked up
near the garden gate; then he mounted the steps, smashed in the front
door with his feet and shoulders, lit a bit of wax candle, which he was
never without, and went before us into the comfortable apartments of
some rich private individual, guiding us with admirable assurance, as
if he had lived in this house which he now saw for the first time.

"Two troopers re