and long gaiters; lastly, that comfortable air of people who have brought with them a few dainties, such as a little bread with something eatable between, some tablets of chocolate, tobacco, and a phial filled with old rum.  They had not gone two kilometres outside the ramparts, and were near the fort, where for the time being the artillery was silent, when a staff officer who was awaiting them upon an old hack of a horse, merely skin and bones, stopped them by a gesture of the hand, and said sharply to their major to take position on the left of the road, in an open field.  They then stacked their arms there and broke ranks, and rested until further orders.

What a dismal place!  Under a canopy of dull clouds, the earth bare with half-melted snow, with the low fort rising up before them as if in an attitude of defence, here and there groups of ruined houses, a mill whose tall chimney and walls had been half destroyed by shells, but where one still read, in large black letters, these words, “Soap-maker to the Nobility;” and through this desolated country was a long and muddy road which led over to where the battle field lay, and in the midst of which, presenting a symbol of death, lay the dead body of a horse.

In front of the National Guard, on the other side of the road, a battalion, which had been strongly put to the test the night before, were cooking.  They had retreated as far as this to rest a little, and had spent all that night without shelter under the falling snow.  Exhausted, bespattered, in rags, they were dolefully crouched around their meagre green-wood fires; the poor creatures were to be pitied.  Underneath their misshapen caps they all showed yellow, wrinkled, and unshaven faces.  The bitter, cold wind that swept over the plain made their thin shoulders, stooping from fatigue, shiver, and their shoulder-blades protruded under their faded capes.  Some of them were wounded, too slightly to be sent away in the ambulance, and wore about their wrists and foreheads bands of bloody linen.  When an officer passed with his head bent and a humiliated air, nobody saluted him.  These men had suffered too much, and one could divine an angry and insolent despair in their gloomy looks, ready to burst out and tell of their injuries.  They would have disgusted one if they had not excited one’s pity.  Alas, they were vanquished!

The Parisians were eager for news as to recent military operations, for they had only read in the morning papers—­as they always did during this frightful siege—­enigmatical despatches and bulletins purposely bristling with strategic expressions not comprehensible to the outsider.  But all, or nearly all, had kept their patriotic hopes intact, or, to speak more plainly, their blind fanatical patriotism, and were certain against all reason of a definite victory; they walked along the road in little groups, and drew near the red pantaloons to talk a little.

“Well, it was a pretty hot affair on the thirtieth, wasn’t it?  Is it true that you had command of the Marne?  You know what they say in Paris, my children?  That Trochu knows something new, that he is going to make his way through the Prussian lines and join hands with the helping armies—­in a word that we are going to strike the last blow.”