dly
through the town. A little later on, a black mass descended St.
Catherine's Hill, while two other invading bodies appeared respectively
on the Darnetal and the Boisguillaume roads. The advance guards of the
three corps arrived at precisely the same moment at the Square of the
Hotel de Ville, and the German army poured through all the adjacent
streets, its battalions making the pavement ring with their firm,
measured tread.

Orders shouted in an unknown, guttural tongue rose to the windows of the
seemingly dead, deserted houses; while behind the fast-closed shutters
eager eyes peered forth at the victors-masters now of the city, its
fortunes, and its lives, by "right of war." The inhabitants, in their
darkened rooms, were possessed by that terror which follows in the wake
of cataclysms, of deadly upheavals of the earth, against which all human
skill and strength are vain. For the same thing happens whenever the
established order of things is upset, when security no longer exists,
when all those rights usually protected by the law of man or of Nature
are at the mercy of unreasoning, savage force. The earthquake crushing a
whole nation under falling roofs; the flood let loose, and engulfing
in its swirling depths the corpses of drowned peasants, along with dead
oxen and beams torn from shattered houses; or the army, covered with
glory, murdering those who defend themselves, making prisoners of the
rest, pillaging in the name of the Sword, and giving thanks to God to
the thunder of cannon--all these are appalling scourges, which destroy
all belief in eternal justice, all that confidence we have been taught
to feel in the protection of Heaven and the reason of man.

Small detachments of soldiers knocked at each door, and then disappeared
within the houses; for the vanquished saw they would have to be civil to
their conquerors.

At the end of a short time, once the first terror had subsided, calm
was again restored. In many houses the Prussian officer ate at the same
table with the family. He was often well-bred, and, out of politeness,
expressed sympathy with France and repugnance at being compelled to take
part in the war. This sentiment was received with gratitude; besides,
his protection might be needful some day or other. By the exercise of
tact the number of men quartered in one's house might be reduced; and
why should one provoke the hostility of a person on whom one's whole
welfare depended? Such conduct would