Rochas had to be held back, such was his eagerness to smash Chouteau's head. Loubet, with the bottles under his arms, endeavoured to make peace: 'Nonsense!' said he, 'we mustn't eat one another, we are all brothers.' And catching sight of his comrades, Lapoulle and Pache, he added: 'Don't be idiots, you fellows, come in and rinse your throats.'

Lapoulle hesitated for a moment, dimly conscious that it was wrong to go and make merry whilst so many poor devils had only their tongues to swallow. But then he was so thoroughly tired out, so exhausted too with hunger and thirst. All at once he made up his mind, and without a word sprang into the tavern, pushing Pache, also silent and sorely tempted, before him. Pache yielded, and neither of them reappeared.

'The brigands!' repeated Rochas; 'they all ought to be shot.'

He now only had Jean, Maurice, and Gaude with him, and despite their efforts to resist the impetus, they were all four gradually drifting along with the torrent of fugitives, which stretched across the full breadth of the road. They already found themselves far away from the tavern. It was the rout rolling towards the ditches of Sedan in a muddy stream, like a heap of soil and stones which a storm, in sweeping the hillsides, drags down into the valleys. From all the surrounding plateaux, by every slope and every fold, by the Floing road, by way of Pierremont, by way of the cemetery, by way of the Champ de Mars, as well as by the Fond de Givonne, the same mob was pouring along with an ever-accelerated gallop of panic. And how could one reproach these wretched men, who, for twelve hours, had been waiting motionless under the death-dealing artillery of an invisible foe, against which they could do nothing? Now, moreover, the batteries assailed them in front, in flank, and in the rear, the fires converged more and more as the army retreated upon the town; the men were struck down in heaps, cut into a mass of mincemeat in the traitorous hole whither they were swept. A few regiments of the Seventh Corps, notably on the side of Floing, were falling back in fairly good order. But there were no longer ranks or leaders in the Fond de Givonne; the men scrambled and hustled one another distractedly; among them were remnants of every arm, Zouaves, Turcos, Chasseurs, Linesmen, mostly unarmed, and all with torn, soiled uniforms, black hands, black faces, bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets, and swollen mouths, tumefied through having yelled so many oaths. Now and again a riderless charger rushed along at a gallop, throwing men to the ground and penetrating the mob with a long eddy of fright. Then guns passed by at breakneck speed—disbanded batteries whose artillerymen, carried away as it were by intoxication, raised no warning shout, but pursued their course crushing everything in their way. And yet the flock-like tramping did not cease; it was a compact defiling, shoulder to shoulder; a flight en masse, every break in which was immediately filled up, in the universal, instinctive eagerness to arrive yonder and secure a shelter behind a wall.

Again did Jean raise his head and turn towards the west. The sunrays were still burning the men's perspiring faces through the thick dust which was raised by their tramping feet. It was a lovely day, the sky was divinely blue. 'What a beastly nuisance!' repeated Jean; 'that horrid sun won't sling its hook.'

All at once, in a young woman standing close to a house and on the point of being crushed against it by the torrent, Maurice, to his stupefaction, recognised his sister, Henriette. For nearly a minute he remained gaping at her. And it was she who, without appearing surprised, spoke the first words: 'They shot him at Bazeilles—yes, I was there—and then, as I want to recover his body, I had an idea——'

She named neither the Prussians nor Weiss. Everybody was bound to understand her, and Maurice understood. He fondly loved his sister, and, with a sob, exclaimed, 'My poor darling!'

When Henriette had recovered her senses, at about two o'clock, she had found herself at Balan, weeping in the kitchen of some people whom she did not know, with her head lying on a table. But her tears soon ceased to flow. The heroine was already awakening in that slight, delicate, silent woman She feared nothing, she had a proud, unconquerable soul. And, in her grief, she no longer had but one idea, that of recovering her husband's body to bury it. Her first plan was simply to return to Bazeilles. But everybody deterred her from attempting this, showed her that it was absolutely impossible for her to succeed. So she at last declared that she would seek some one, a man willing either to accompany her or to take the necessary steps. And her choice fell upon a cousin of hers, who had been the assistant-manager of the refinery at Le Chêne, at the time when Weiss was employed there. He had been much attached to her husband and would surely not refuse his help. For a couple of years past, thanks to his wife having inherited some property from her parents, he had retired and taken up his abode at a charming place called the Hermitage, whose tiers of terraces rose up near Sedan, on the farther side of the Fond de Givonne. And thither she was now making her way through all the many obstacles, forced at each moment to halt, and in constant danger of being thrown down, trodden under foot, and killed.

She briefly explained her plan to Maurice, who approved of it. 'Cousin Dubreuil,' said he, 'has always been a good friend to us. He will help you.'

Then another idea came into his head. Lieutenant Rochas was anxious to save the regimental colours. It had already been suggested that the flag should be cut up, and that each man should carry a strip of the silk under his shirt; or it might be buried at the foot of a tree, and disinterred later on, if the situation of the spot were carefully noted. But the idea of lacerating that banner or burying it like a corpse affected them too painfully, and they would have preferred some other expedient. Accordingly, when Maurice proposed that they should confide the colours to some safe person, who would hide them, and if need wore, defend them until he could restore them intact, they all approved of the suggestion. 'Well, then,' resumed the young fellow, addressing his sister, 'we will go with you to see if Dubreuil is at the Hermitage Besides, I'm determined not to leave you.'