universal relaxation of order and system even the customary corporal’s call was omitted:  it was everyone for himself.  There were to be no more issues of rations from that time forth; the soldiers were to subsist on the provisions they were supposed to carry in their knapsacks, and that evening the sacks were empty; few indeed were those who could muster a crust of bread or some crumbs of the abundance in which they had been living at Vouziers of late.  There was coffee, and those who were not too tired made and drank it without sugar.

When Jean thought to make a division of his wealth by eating one of his biscuits himself and giving the other to Maurice, he discovered that the latter was sound asleep.  He thought at first he would awake him, but changed his mind and stoically replaced the biscuits in his sack, concealing them with as much caution as if they had been bags of gold; he could get along with coffee, like the rest of the boys.  He had insisted on having the tent put up, and they were all stretched on the ground beneath its shelter when Loubet returned from a foraging expedition, bringing in some carrots that he had found in a neighboring field.  As there was no fire to cook them by they munched them raw, but the vegetables only served to aggravate their hunger, and they made Pache ill.

“No, no; let him sleep,” said Jean to Chouteau, who was shaking Maurice to wake him and give him his share.

“Ah,” Lapoulle broke in, “we shall be at Angouleme to-morrow, and then we’ll have some bread.  I had a cousin in the army once, who was stationed at Angouleme.  Nice garrison, that.”

They all looked surprised, and Chouteau exclaimed: 

“Angouleme—­what are you talking about!  Just listen to the bloody fool, saying he is at Angouleme!”

It was impossible to extract any explanation from Lapoulle.  He had insisted that morning that the uhlans that they sighted were some of Bazaine’s troops.

Then darkness descended on the camp, black as ink, silent as death.  Notwithstanding the coolness of the night air the men had not been permitted to make fires; the Prussians were known to be only a few miles away, and it would not do to put them on the alert; orders even were transmitted in a hushed voice.  The officers had notified their men before retiring that the start would be made at about four in the morning, in order that they might have all the rest possible, and all had hastened to turn in and were sleeping greedily, forgetful of their troubles.  Above the scattered camps the deep respiration of all those slumbering crowds, rising upon the stillness of the night, was like the long-drawn breathing of old Mother Earth.