"I asked the Prussians if they had not seen my little scamp. They were leading me off and I feared that they would take me away with them. The Prussians said that somebody had fired on them from my house.
"Your son had a rifle with him and he fired on us, just like the others," they said.
"I answered: 'My little scamp did not do anything, I am sure.'
"'What shirt did he have on?' they asked.
"'A little white shirt with red stripes,' I replied.
"They insisted that he was the one that had fired.
"When the cannonading stopped, the people who had been with me told me that they had seen a young man lying stretched out in the field, but they could not tell who it was. I wanted to see who it was that was lying there dead, and yet I drew back.
"'No,' I said to myself, 'I am too much afraid.'
"But I crossed the field. I saw his cap which had fallen in front of him. I came closer. It was he. He had his hands tied behind his back.