both columns lay through a
region teeming with everything necessary for their support, and rich
even in luxuries, it struck me that such campaigning was more a vast
picnic than like actual war. The country supplied at all points
bread, meat, and wine in abundance, and the neat villages, never more
than a mile or two apart, always furnished shelter; hence the
enormous trains required to feed and provide camp equipage for an
army operating in a sparsely settled country were dispensed with; in
truth, about the only impedimenta of the Germans was their wagons
carrying ammunition, pontoon-boats, and the field-telegraph.

On the morning of the 20th I started out accompanied by Forsyth and
Sir Henry Havelock, and took the road through Boissy St. George,
Boissy St. Martins and Noisy Le Grand to Brie. Almost every foot of
the way was strewn with fragments of glass from wine bottles, emptied
and then broken by the troops. There was, indeed, so much of this
that I refrain from making any estimate of the number of bottles,
lest I be thought to exaggerate, but the road was literally paved
with glass, and the amount of wine consumed (none was wasted) must
have been enormous, far more, even, than I had seen evidence of at
any time before. There were two almost continuous lines of broken
bottles along the roadsides all the way down from Sedan; but that
exhibit was small compared with what we saw about Brie.

At Brie we were taken charge of by the German commandant of the
place. He entertained us most hospitably for an hour or so, and
then, accompanied by a lieutenant, who was to be our guide, I set out
ahead of my companions to gain a point on the picket-line where I
expected to get a good look at the French, for their rifle-pits were
but a few hundred yards off across the Marne, their main line being
just behind the rifle-pits. As the lieutenant and I rode through the
village, some soldiers warned us that the adventure would be
dangerous, but that we could probably get to the desired place unhurt
if we avoided the French fire by forcing our horses to a run in
crossing some open streets where we would be exposed. On getting to
the first street my guide galloped ahead to show the way, and as the
French were not on the lookout for anything of the kind at these
dangerous points, only a few stray shots were drawn by the
lieutenant, but when I followed, they were fully up to what was going
on, and let fly a volley every time they