All at once the rumour spread that some men who had brought bad news had been arrested and taken before the mayor; they declared, we were assured, that a decisive battle had been fought and lost, that the French army had been annihilated, and that the English, Prussians, and Dutch were marching on Paris.
Everybody rushed to the town hall, I, of course, one of the first.
And there we found ten or a dozen men, some still in their saddles, others standing by their horses, surrounded by the crowd, which was watching them; they were covered with blood, covered with mud, and were in rags.
They said they were Poles.
We could scarcely make out what they said; they spoke a few words of French, but with difficulty.
Some made out that they were spies; others that they were German prisoners who had escaped and who wanted to rejoin Blücher's army, pretending to be Polish.
An old officer who spoke German came up and interrogated them in German.
They were more at home in that language, and replied more coherently. According to them, Napoleon had engaged the English on the 18th. The battle began at noon; at five o'clock the English were defeated; but at six o'clock Blücher had marched au canon, arrived with 40,000 men, and decided the day in the enemy's favour: it was a decisive battle, they said; the retirement of the French army was a rout; they were the advance-guard of the fugitives.
No one believed such disastrous news; they only replied, "You will soon see."