At this Fouchard put on an air of virtuous indignation: 'Rotten? My cows rotten! Such beautiful meat; meat fit to be given to an accouchée to restore her to health and strength!' Then he whimpered and thumped himself on the chest, and declared that he was an honest man, and would rather cut off some of his own flesh than sell any bad meat. He was known, and for thirty years that he had been a butcher there was nobody in the world who could say that he had not always given good weight and good quality. 'Those cows were as healthy as they could be, sir, and if your men have had the stomach-ache, it must surely be because they ate too much; unless some villains dropped some poison in the pot——'
He poured forth such a flood of words, indulged in such ridiculous suppositions that the captain, quite beside himself, hastily interrupted him: 'That will do! You are warned, so take care! And now another matter: We suspect all of you here, in this village, of lending assistance to the Francs-tireurs of the Dieulet Woods, who killed another of our sentries only the night before last. You hear me? well, mind you take care!'
When the Prussians had gone away old Fouchard shrugged his shoulders and sneered with profound contempt. Diseased animals indeed? why of course he sold them diseased animals, he didn't sell them anything else! All the carrion that the peasants brought him, whatever died of disease and was picked up in the ditches—wasn't that good enough for those dirty hounds? Turning towards Henriette, whose fears had been relieved on discovering what purpose it was that had brought the Prussians there, he tipped her a wink and muttered with a chuckle of triumph: 'And to think, little one, that some folks say I'm not a patriot. Why don't they do as I do, cram those brutes with bad meat and pocket their silver? Not a patriot, indeed! Why, I shall have killed more of them with my rotten cows than many soldiers will have killed with their chassepots!'
However, when Jean came to hear of the affair he felt very uneasy. If the German authorities suspected the inhabitants of Remilly of harbouring the Francs-tireurs of the Dieulet Woods they might at any time make a perquisition and discover him. The idea of compromising those who had sheltered him, of causing Henriette the slightest worry, was more than he could bear, and he was anxious to leave the farm at once. So pressing, however, were the young woman's entreaties, that she prevailed on him to stay a few days longer, for his wound was cicatrising but slowly, and his legs were not yet strong enough to enable him to join one of the campaigning regiments either in the North or on the Loire.
Then, until mid-December, came the most nipping, dismal, heartrending days of their solitude. The cold had become so intense that the stove no longer warmed the big, bare room. Whenever they looked out of the window at the thick snow covering the ground they bethought themselves of Maurice, buried over yonder in frozen, lifeless Paris, whence no certain tidings reached them. The same questions were ever on their lips: What was he doing? Why did he give no sign of life? They did not dare to express their horrible fears—he might be wounded, ill, perhaps dead. The vague, scanty information which from time to time still reached them through the newspapers was not of a nature to reassure them. After various reports of so-called successful sorties, invariably contradicted as time went on, there had come a rumour of a great victory gained at Champigny, on December 2, by General Ducrot. But they afterwards learned that he had been obliged to recross the Marne on the morrow, abandoning the positions he had conquered to the foe. And now at each hour the bonds that were strangling Paris pressed more and more tightly round her, famine was beginning, potatoes as well as cattle and horses had been requisitioned, gas was no longer supplied to private consumers, and the streets were soon plunged at night-time into perfect darkness, through which, ere long, the bombarding shells were to wing their lurid flight. And now Jean and Henriette never warmed themselves, never ate without being haunted by thoughts of Maurice and those two millions of living beings shut up in that gigantic tomb.
From all sides, moreover, from Northern as from Central France, the tidings were becoming more grievous. In the North the Twenty-second Army Corps, formed of Mobile Guards, depôt companies, officers and soldiers who had escaped the disasters of Sedan and Metz, had been obliged to abandon Amiens and fall back in the direction of Arras; and Rouen in its turn had just fallen into the enemy's hands, no serious effort to defend it having been made by that handful of demoralised, disbanded men. In Central France, the victory of Coulmiers, gained on November 3 by the Army of the Loire, had given birth to ardent hopes: Orleans having been reoccupied and the Bavarians put to flight, a forward march would ensue by way of Etampes, and Paris would speedily be delivered. But on December 5, Prince Frederick Charles recaptured Orleans, and cut the Army of the Loire in two, three of its corps withdrawing towards Vierzon and Bourges whilst the two others under the orders of General Chanzy fell back, step by step, as far as Le Mans, during an entire week of incessant marching and fighting. The Prussians were everywhere—at Dijon as well as at Dieppe, on the road to Le Mans as well as at Vierzon. And then, too, almost every morning there resounded the distant crash of some stronghold capitulating under the shells. Strasburg had succumbed already on September 28, after forty-six days of siege and thirty-seven days of bombardment, its ramparts pounded, its monuments riddled by nearly two hundred thousand projectiles. The citadel of Laon had previously blown up, Toul also had capitulated; and then came a dismal procession of surrenders:—Soissons, with one hundred and twenty-eight guns; Schelestadt, with one hundred and twenty; Verdun, which mounted one hundred and thirty-six; Neuf Brisach, one hundred; La Fère, seventy; Montmédy, sixty-five. Thionville, mounting its two hundred and fifty cannon, was in flames; Phalsburg, defended by five and sixty guns, only opened its gates during the twelfth week of its furious resistance. It seemed as though the whole of France were burning, crumbling, and sinking amid the rageful cannonade.[44]
One morning when Jean insisted on starting off Henriette caught hold of his hands and detained him with a despairing grasp. 'No, no,' said she, 'do not leave me all alone, I beg of you; you are still too weak, wait for a few days, only for a few days longer; I promise that I will let you start when the doctor says you are strong enough to fight.'