For several days in succession the remnants of a routed
army had been passing through the City. They
were not troops, but disorganized hordes. The
men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they
walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation.
All seemed exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought
or resolve, marching only by force of habit and dropping
with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One saw
for the most part hastily mobilized men, peaceful
business men and rentiers, bending under the weight
of their rifles; young snappy volunteers, easily scared,
but full of enthusiasm, ready to attack as well as
to retreat; then, among them, a few red trousers,
fragments of a division decimated in a great battle;
despondent artillery men aligned with these non-descript
infantrymen; and there and there the shining helmet
of a heavy footed dragon who had difficulty in keeping
step with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the
line.
Legions of francs-tireurs with heroic names:
“Avengers of Defeat”—“Citizens
of the Tombs”—“Brothers in Death”—passed
in their turn looking like bandits.
Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants,
tallow or soap dealers, warriors for the circumstance,
who had been commissioned officers on account of their
money or the length of their mustaches; covered with
arms, flannel and stripes, they were talking in a
high-sounding voice, discussing plans of campaign,
and claiming that they alone supported on their shoulders
agonizing France; as a matter of fact, these braggarts
were afraid of their own men, scoundrels often brave
to excess, but always ready for pillage and debauch.
It was rumored that the Prussians were going to enter
Rouen.
The National Guard who, for the past two months, had
been very carefully reconnoitering in the neighboring
woods, at times shooting their own sentries and getting
ready to fight when a little rabbit rustled in the
bushes, had been mustered out and returned to their
homes. Their arms, uniforms, all their deadly
apparel, with which they had recently frightened the
milestones along the national highways for three leagues
around, had suddenly disappeared.
The last of the French soldiers had just crossed the
Seine to go to Pont-Andemer by Saint Sever and Bourg-Achard;
and following them all, their general, desperate,
unable to attempt anything with such non-descript
wrecks, himself dismayed in the crushing debacle of
a people accustomed to conquer and now disastrously
defeated despite their legendary bravery, was walking
between two orderlies.
Then a profound calm, a trembling and silent expectancy
hovered over the City. Many corpulent well to
do citizens, emasculated by the business life they
had led, were anxiously waiting for the victors, fearing
lest they might consider as weapons their roasting
spits or their large kitchen knives.
