"They have taken the bread out of our mouths," resumed the adjoint, "and now they are despoiling us of our goods. They are like a swarm of bailiffs let loose upon our homes. Everywhere they levy a distress upon our chattels. There is an ammunition waggon outside my house; they have put all the furniture of my salon upon it."
"You should make a protest to the Commandant," said the maire, but not very hopefully.
"It is no use," replied the adjoint despondingly. "I have. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said, 'C'est la guerre.' It is always so. They have shot Jules Bonnard."
"Et pourquoi?" asked the maire.
"I know not," said the adjoint. "They found four market-gardeners returning from the fields last night and shot them too—they made them dig their own graves, and tied their hands behind their backs with their own scarves. I protested to a Staff officer; he said it was 'verboten' to dig potatoes. I said they did not know; how could they? He said they ought to know. Then he abused me, and said if I made any more complaints he would shoot me too. They have made the civils dig trenches."
"Ah," said the maire. He knew it was a flagrant violation of the Hague Regulations, but it was not the tithe of mint and cummin of the law that troubled him. It was the reflection that the civil who is forced to dig trenches is already as good as dead. He knows too much.
"And the women," continued the adjoint, in a tone of stupefied horror, "they are crying, many of them, and will not look one in the face. Some of them have black eyes. And the young girls!"
The maire brooded in impotent horror. His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the captain. "The Commandant wishes to see you tout de suite," he exclaimed. "March!" He was conducted by a corporal's guard, preceded by the captain, into the presence of the General, who had taken up his quarters in the principal mansion looking out upon the square. The General was a stout, square-headed man, with grey moustaches and steel-blue eyes, and the maire divined at a glance that here was no swashbuckler, but a man who had himself under control. "I have imposed a fine of 300,000 francs upon your town; you will collect it in twenty-four hours; if it is not forthcoming to the last franc I shall be regretfully compelled to burn this town to the ground."
"And why?" exclaimed the maire, whom nothing could now surprise, though much might perplex.
The General seemed unprepared for the question. He paused for a moment and said, "Some one has been giving information to the enemy." "No!"—he held up his hand, not impolitely but finally, as the maire began to expostulate—"I have spoken."