On the 2d of September the Germans entered Senlis, where they were greeted by rifle fire from African troops. Alleging that they had been fired on by civilians, they set fire to two quarters of the town. One hundred and five houses were burned in the following manner: The Germans marched along the streets in a column; at a whistle from an officer, some of them fell out, and proceeded to break in the doors of the houses and the shop fronts; then others came along and lit the fire with grenades and rockets; patrols who followed them fired incendiary bullets with their rifles into those houses in which the fire was not taking hold fast enough.
While our soldiers were firing in the outskirts of the town, the hostages who had been taken into the streets by the Germans were forced to walk in the middle of the road, while the Germans prudently kept to the footpaths. M. Levasseur, Mme. Dauchy and her little girl aged 5, MM. Pinchaux, Minouflet, and Leymarie were among the number of the hostages who were thus exposed to death. Near the hospital Levasseur was killed. Soon Leymarie in his turn fell mortally wounded. As he was carrying him to lay him at the foot of a wall, Minouflet was struck by a bullet on the knee. An officer approached him, and told him to show his wound, and then suddenly fired with his revolver into his shoulder. At the same spot a witness saw another officer in the act of torturing a French wounded soldier by beating him in the face with a stick.
Meanwhile several murders were committed. M. Simon was dragged out of his house and killed by a rifle shot in the side. At 2 o'clock the Germans broke in the door of M. Mégret's house. The latter came forward, promised to give them everything they asked for, and brought them ten bottles of wine. He was murdered by a shot full in the chest. MM. Ramu, Vilcoq, Chambellant and Gaudet, drawn by curiosity, went to look at the burning forage store to which the French troops had set fire as they retired. Enemy soldiers fired on them several times. Ramu was wounded, Gaudet was killed on the spot, Chambellant received two bullets, one in his right hand and the other below the groin, and died a week later. MM. Simon, Ecker, Chery, Leblond, Rigauld, Louis, and Momus were also killed in Senlis.
At 3 o'clock the Mayor, M. Odent, was arrested at the Hôtel de Ville on the allegation, against which he protested, that civilians had fired on the German troops. While he was being led away the Secretary of the Mairie joined him near the Hôtel du Grand Cerf, and proposed that he should go and fetch his Deputies. "It is useless," he replied, "one victim is enough." The Magistrate was taken to Chamant, and during the journey was the butt of hateful brutality. His gloves were torn from him and thrown in his face; his stick was taken from him and he was violently beaten with it on the head. Finally, toward 11 o'clock, he was made to appear before three officers. One of them questioned him, persisting in accusing him of having fired or caused others to fire on the Germans, and warned him that he was about to die. M. Odent then went to his fellow-captives, handed them his papers and money, shook hands with them, and with great dignity made his last adieu. He then returned to the officers. On their order, two soldiers dragged him ten meters away and sent two bullets through his head. The murderers made a little hollow in the ground, and flung over the corpse a layer of earth so thin that it did not cover the victim's feet. A few hours before, 200 meters off, six other inhabitants of Senlis, MM. Pommier, Barbier, Aubert, Cottereau, Arthur Rigault, and Dewert, had already been shot and buried.
The same evening M. Jeandin, a baker, who had been arrested at 3 or 4 in the afternoon without any reason, and then taken by the Forty-ninth Pomeranian Regiment of Infantry to Villers-Saint-Frambourg, was fastened to a stake in a field and pierced repeatedly with the point of a bayonet.
It is unnecessary to say that the town of Senlis was pillaged. While the enemy sacked the houses they took pleasure in exciting the worst instincts of the populace by offering part of the booty to women in wretched circumstances.
At Villers-Saint-Frambourg the woman X. was raped by a soldier who got into her house. After the crime she took refuge in a neighboring house. The precaution was a wise one, for numerous comrades of the aggressor broke into her house and, furious at not finding the victim they sought, smashed the windows and seized the chickens, rabbits, and pig which they found in an outhouse.
On Sept. 3 at Creil, under the orders of a Captain who tried to force MM. Guillot and Demonts to show him the houses of the richest inhabitants, the Germans scattered among the houses, breaking in doors and windows, and gave themselves up to pillage with the complicity of their leaders, to whom they came constantly to show the jewelry which they had stolen. Demonts and Guillot were then led into the country, where they found about 100 inhabitants of Creil and Nogent-sur-Oise and the neighborhood. All these persons were forced to suffer the shame and grief of working against the defense of their country by cutting down a field of maize which hindered the firing of the enemy and by digging trenches intended to shelter the Germans. For seven days the enemy kept them there without giving them food. Some women of the neighborhood were, fortunately, able to give them a little.
Meanwhile in the town several people were put to death. M. Parent, who was escaping, was killed in the Rue Victor Hugo by a shot by a Uhlan. As soon as he fell, troopers hurled themselves upon him to search his clothes. M. Alexandre had his head shattered, at the intersection of the Rue Gambetta and the Rue Carnot. Germans entered the shop of M. Brèche, wine seller. Thinking, no doubt, that he was not serving them quickly enough, they dragged him into the courtyard of Mme. Egasse, his neighbor, where an officer accused him of having fired on the soldiers, and ordered, in spite of his denial, that he should be shot at once. Mme. Egasse tried to soften the murderers, but she was brutally ordered off. From the room to which she went she heard the reports, and through the window she saw Brèche's body stretched on the ground. When she came down she could not prevent herself from expressing her grief. The officer then said to her: "A dead man! We see too many to take any notice. Besides, wherever we are fired upon, we kill and burn."
A young man named Odener, carrying a bag of rice, had been taken from Liancourt of Creil. When he reached the Place de l'Eglise, worn out by fatigue and the ill-treatment which he had received, he put down his load and tried to escape. Two soldiers took aim at him, fired, and struck him down. A certain Leboeuf, who had been his fellow-prisoner, died at Creil a few days afterward in consequence of a wound which he had received on the way.