eside the lieutenant with
the downcast look of a prisoner. The stables were vacant. Desnoyers saw
his last animals being driven off with sticks by the helmeted shepherds.
The costly progenitors of his herds were all beheaded in the park like
mere slaughter-house animals. In the chicken houses and dovecotes, there
was not a single bird left. The stables were filled with thin horses who
were gorging themselves before overflowing mangers. The feed from the
barns was being lavishly distributed through the avenue, much of it lost
before it could be used. The cavalry horses of various divisions were
turned loose in the meadows, destroying with their hoofs the canals,
the edges of the slopes, the level of the ground, all the work of
many months. The dry wood was uselessly burning in the park. Through
carelessness or mischief, someone had set the wood piles on fire. The
trees, with the bark dried by the summer heat, were crackling on being
licked by the flame.

The building was likewise occupied by a multitude of men under this same
superintendent. The open windows showed a continual shifting through the
rooms. Desnoyers heard great blows that re-echoed within his breast. Ay,
his historic mansion! . . . The General was going to establish himself
in it, after having examined on the banks of the Marne, the works of the
pontoon builders, who had been constructing several military bridges
for the troops. Don Marcelo's outraged sense of ownership forced him to
speak. He feared that they would break the doors of the locked rooms--he
would like to go for the keys in order to give them up to those in
charge. The commissary would not listen to him but continued ignoring
his existence. The lieutenant replied with cutting amiability:

"It is not necessary; do not trouble yourself!"

After this considerate remark, he started to rejoin his regiment but
deemed it prudent before losing sight of Desnoyers to give him a little
advice. He must remain quietly at the castle; outside, he might be taken
for a spy, and he already knew how promptly the soldiers of the Emperor
settled all such little matters.

He could not remain in the garden looking at his dwelling from any
distance, because the Germans who were going and coming were diverting
themselves by playing practical jokes upon him. They would march toward
him in a straight line, as though they did not see him, and he would
have to hurry out of their way to avoid being thrown down by their