ey will click their heels together properly, they
never cease at the same time to munch noisily and to fill out their
hollow cheeks.

One feels that they believe us French to be up to every sort of
devilment, that we are going to undress them, to take their papers, and
they tremble from head to foot in fear of being shot. Even when you give
them a cigarette, it does not seem to allay their mistrust. One of them,
who was dying of thirst, would not drink the water that was offered him
before the gendarme had tasted it in front of him.

They are all astonished at their adventure. They had been told that they
were going to enter Maubeuge in company with the Belgians; to seize
Maubeuge would be as easy as taking a _cafe au lait_--and there they are
without their _cafe au lait_!

The officers are absolutely different. Prussian pride gave them an
assurance which their mishap has transformed into irritation. A young
Baron Lieutenant, like von Forstner, pretended that he couldn't make his
bed, and refused to answer before simple soldiers. He couldn't feel
anything but the humiliation of being a prisoner, and couldn't get
accustomed to his new situation.

We found on the field of battle the medicine chest of a vet., who jotted
down his impressions from minute to minute. When he was killed he was
writing: "I see the shells bursting with a white smoke in the sky, which
is lighted up from the south; luckily my helmet protects me from
sunstroke." Evidently he was on an excursion, this veterinary surgeon,
and was counting on coming to Paris, and had taken the most minute
precautions of hygiene and of elegance. He was provided with scent and
eau de cologne. He had even brought with him a rose ointment for the
nails, and a superb gilt shoulder-belt which was to raise his prestige
for when he passed under the Arc de Triomphe. The battery to which he
belonged is annihilated now. We could observe on the spot the terrific
effect of our artillery, which was very well commanded. Six abandoned
guns, of which three are impossible to move, are there on the ground
with all their crews, all their officers, all their horses--the pieces
still mounted, riddled with splinters. They were taken back to the rear,
and attracted all the way along the curiosity of the soldiers, with
their sumptuous armorial bearings and their motto, _Ultima regis ratio_.

But this lesson seems to have made a bit of an impression on the Germans
who have fled, and it has