and artillery officers, who jointly directed the progress of the little army. We had also an ox, which was driven in the rear of the column by an artilleryman. It mysteriously disappeared on the evening of the second day's march, which, perhaps, accounted for the beef so plentifully served to us on the afternoon of the third.

Our meals were very well managed. Sometimes, when we passed through a respectable town, we breakfasted or lunched at the principal inn, leaving the column to go on ahead and catching it up afterwards. Two or three times, too, we bivouacked in the open air, which, as there was abundance of provisions, and the officer in charge of the convoy had an excellent cook, was a matter easy and pleasant to accomplish.

Francs-Tireurs were promised to us at intervals; but, though we passed numbers of woods, no Francs-Tireurs showed themselves, or made any sign whatever.

Our road from Nanteuil to Villacoublay lay through a beautiful country marked here and there (more often, I fancy, than we knew of) by places of historical, literary, and social interest. At La Ferté we saw the house where Marie Antoinette made a temporary halt before completing her journey to Paris. At Séricourt was the château of the late M. Scribe, abandoned by Madame Scribe

to the Johanniters. At Fontenay the fine old house, formerly a fortress, of the Marquis de Biron; at Tournon, a place we mistook for some celebrated training stables, but which turned out to be the country house of M. Emile Péreire.

The "enfant terrible" is found in invaded as in all other countries; and at the café of the little town or village of Fontenay I met with an interesting specimen of the class in a little girl who, in the first place, could not be restrained by her mother from singing the "Marseillaise" in presence of Prussian officers. Secondly, seeing a portion of the escort pass before the windows, the dreadful child exclaimed:

"Voilà les Prussiens qui s'en vont, Dieu merci!". "Oh, my darling," said the shocked mamma, "you must not say that. I am sure 'ces messieurs' are most amiable!"

"No, no," persisted the little girl, "you said. yourself mamma just now that they were très méchants!"

At this same place a one-year volunteer, who was going on to Paris, told me that having been quartered on an infirm old woman, he had, not to incommode her, left her house and taken a room at the café, and that the proprietor now refused to accept payment from him, and at the same time thanked him warmly for the consideration he had shown.

towards his neighbour, who on her part sent him some grapes and a Neufchatel cheese, as a mark of her esteem.

The French, despite their ignorance of geography (as to which, once take us out of the British possessions, we can match them in England) are very quick in appreciating and responding to acts of kindness, which is, after all, a merit in its way.

We dined and passed our second night at the Marquis de Biron's. No great hardship for the marquis, since the officers brought their own provisions, their cook, and other servants; the only requisition made being for partial attendance at dinner and a few bottles of wine. Previous visitors had not, the marquis's servants declared, been so considerate. The first troops who passed through Fontenay on their way to Paris had drunk and carried off large quantities of wine. They were also reported, dining in the garden, to have thrown the forks and spoons about; and the servants assured us that the plate was now put away, and locked up in some place of which the marquis alone had the key. We were, in fact, obliged to eat our dinner with clasp knives and steel forks. The marquis (as will be inferred from what I have already said) was not at home; but his house and grounds were in charge of good servants, and no harm whatever had been done to any portion of his fine property. The

château is an historical building, and in one corner a room was shown to us in which, by an agreeable tradition, it was held that the edict for the massacre of St. Bartholomew had been signed.

I don't think one of the 300 or 350 men engaged in transporting the guns was knocked up by the bad weather and the heavy marching, which together formed a trying combination; and the distance of nearly a hundred miles was got through easily in four days.

CHAPTER XV.

OCCUPATION OF DESERTED DISTRICTS.

HE German troops are known to have felt aggrieved at the systematic manner in which the inhabitants of the villages and small towns near Paris fled before them, as from an invasion of barbarians. It may, or may not, have been bad taste on the part of the French to regard their enemies as Tartars; but it was a mistake, in any case, to take refuge from them within the walls of a city about to be besieged. Similarly, many thousands of peasants* are said to have sought safety inside Metz; and it is certain that numbers of Alsatian families hastened to swell the population of Strasburg immediately before its invest

* I have seen the number estimated at 20,000; but have no better means of testing the accuracy of these figures than had, probably, the statistician who originally set them down.