But Loubet’s attention had just been attracted to a little farmhouse, one of the last dwellings in Contreuve, some two or three hundred yards away, where there seemed to him to be promise of good results.  He called Chouteau and Lapoulle to him and said: 

“Come along, and let’s see what we can do.  I’ve a notion there’s grub to be had over that way.”

So Maurice was left to keep up the fire and watch the kettle, in which the water was beginning to boil.  He had seated himself on his blanket and taken off his shoe in order to give his blister a chance to heal.  It amused him to look about the camp and watch the behavior of the different squads now that there was to be no issue of rations; the deduction that he arrived at was that some of them were in a chronic state of destitution, while others reveled in continual abundance, and that these conditions were ascribable to the greater or less degree of tact and foresight of the corporal and his men.  Amid the confusion that reigned about the stacks and tents he remarked some squads who had not been able even to start a fire, others of which the men had abandoned hope and lain themselves resignedly down for the night, while others again were ravenously devouring, no one knew what, something good, no doubt.  Another thing that impressed him was the good order that prevailed in the artillery, which had its camp above him, on the hillside.  The setting sun peeped out from a rift in the clouds and his rays were reflected from the burnished guns, from which the men had cleansed the coat of mud that they had picked up along the road.

In the meantime General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, commanding the brigade, had found quarters suited to his taste in the little farmhouse toward which the designs of Loubet and his companions were directed.  He had discovered something that had the semblance of a bed and was seated at table with a roasted chicken and an omelette before him; consequently he was in the best of humors, and as Colonel de Vineuil happened in just then on regimental business, had invited him to dine.  They were enjoying their repast, therefore, waited on by a tall, light-haired individual who had been in the farmer’s service only three days and claimed to be an Alsatian, one of those who had been forced to leave their country after the disaster of Froeschwiller.  The general did not seem to think it necessary to use any restraint in presence of the man, commenting freely on the movements of the army, and finally, forgetful of the fact that he was not an inhabitant of the country, began to question him about localities and distances.  His questions displayed such utter ignorance of the country that the colonel, who had once lived at Mezieres, was astounded; he gave such information as he had at command, which elicited from the chief the exclamation: 

“It is just like our idiotic government!  How can they expect us to fight in a country of which we know nothing?”