Again I crossed the shop, paddling through that sticky yellow slime in which bits of furniture and clothing floated like croutons in a gigantic nauseating omelet.
Outside, towards the end of the street that opened on to the quay, great animation reigned. A bugle sounded and I could hear the tramp of soldiers' feet.
"Look!" cried my friend. "Look, all that is left of the Institut St.
Joseph, the pride of La Ferte."
Across the river between the broken spans of the bridge, my eye fell upon the gutted remains of what had once been a most exquisite bit of eighteenth century architecture. The mansion which had sheltered Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on their eventful return from Varennes, was now a smoking pile of ashes!
"And to think we had to do it! Oh, curse their hides!" muttered an elderly man close to my elbow.
"We?"
"Yes."
"?"
"Why, when they had to get out of here they crossed the Marne, destroyed the bridge and entrenched themselves in the houses along the bank. The English caught them like rats in a cage, but at what a price! One fellow that's rowed across says he can bear them moaning, but you bet they can rot there before we'll go to 'em. Begging your pardon for the language!"
A dozen men of the genie were busy constructing a temporary arch between two spans, and just as soon as a plank was laid a regiment from Cherbourg (almost all reservists) filed over one by one. The population gave them an ovation, and it was a curious sight to see these care-worn, haggard-faced people simply going mad with joy, while around them was heaped desolation.