"I left all my things in it—the silverware, the little trinkets and souvenirs, handed down in my family, and gathered through my lifetime. I said to myself, if I take them out, they will treat it as a deserted house. I will show them we are living there, with everything in sight. I was working through the day at the hospital, caring for the German wounded.
"The soldiers began their burning with the house of a watchmaker. They burned my house. I saw it destroyed bit by bit (morceau par morceau). I saw my husband's study go, and then the drawing-room, and the dining-room. The ivories, the pictures, the bibelots, everything that was dear to me, everything that time had brought me, was burned.
"I said to the German doctor that it was very hard.
"He replied: 'If I had known it was Madame's house, I should have ordered it to be spared.'"
We were silent for a moment. Then Madame Jacquemet said:
"Come and see what we have now."
She led us upstairs to a room which the two beds nearly filled.
"All that I own I keep under the beds," she explained. "See, there are two chairs, two beds. Nothing more. And we had such a beautiful room."