We then learnt from one of the Prussians who was least seriously wounded (he had received a sabre cut on his head), that he and his comrades belonged to a detachment of three thousand men, which had refrained from entering the town for fear of being surprised; they were following their instructions, which were to camp out as much as possible, their commanders always fearing a nocturnal massacre if they ventured to stay in the towns.
"However, it will all be over soon," added the wounded man, "since Paris surrendered the day before yesterday."
This was the first intimation we had received of that important event.
We were just on the point of crying out at the news, when a voice in the doorway said suddenly—
"That is not true, Paris will not surrender like that."
We turned round, and there we saw, leaning against the door, pale, one of the officers of our small detachment of infantry. He had one of the finest and most soldierly heads imaginable, gashed, now, with a deep wound over the left eye-brow—hence his pallor and the blood that covered him.
He had received a pistol-shot in his face, which had felled him; but, the fresh air soon reviving him, he had managed to get up, and, seeing the town a hundred steps in front of him, he had reached it, leaning against its walls for support.
The kind neighbours who had assisted our host had directed this officer to our house, and, mortally wounded, he had arrived just in time to give that truly patriotic denial to the news announced by his enemy.
The bullet was still in the wound; it was extracted very skilfully by Millet, but, as we have said, the wound was mortal, and the officer died during the night, about two o'clock in the morning, just when a dog began to bark.