We passed through a large and beautiful village, pillaged and abandoned also.
Farther on we met some peasants, who scowled at us from the road-side. We must have had ill-looking faces, especially Buche with his head bound up, and his beard eight days old, thick and hard as the bristles of a boar.
About one o'clock in the afternoon we re-crossed the Sambre, by the bridge of Chatelet, but as the Prussians were still in pursuit we did not halt there. I was quite at ease, thinking:
"If they are still pursuing us, they will follow the bulk of the army, in order to take more prisoners and pick up the cannon, caissons, and baggage."
This was the manner in which we were compelled to reason, we, who three days before had made the world tremble.
I recollect that when we reached a small village about three o'clock in the afternoon, we stopped at a blacksmith's shop to ask for water. The country people immediately began to gather round, and the smith, a large, dark man, asked us to go to the little inn, opposite, saying he would join us and take a glass of beer with us.
Naturally enough this pleased us, for we were afraid of being arrested, and we saw that these people were on our side.
I remembered that I had some money in my knapsack, and that now it would be useful.
We went into the inn, which was only a little shop, with two small windows on the street, and a round door opening in the middle, as is common in our country villages.
When we were seated the room was so full of men and women, who had come to hear the news, that we could hardly breathe.