“Come, Mademoiselle!” cried von Meyeren. “Do not sit over there. We are enemies, but we will not hurt you. And you, Baroness!” he cried, rising and going across to them, “I insist upon your having dinner. It is not fair, is it, Heinrich?” he asked, addressing the elder of the pair.
“No. The Baroness must join us. She must,” he said.
The two women refused, but with their heads elevated by wine the three men insisted, and at last, in order to pacify them, the mother and daughter consented to sit at the further end of the table, though they would eat nothing.
“Here’s health to the Fatherland?” cried the younger of the three, getting up unsteadily and spilling his wine as he raised it to his lips amid the “Hochs” of his two companions.
The scene was surely as disgraceful as it was unexpected. Baron de Neuville’s wife and daughter left there, alone and unprotected, in that great mediaeval château, had accepted the word of honour of a Saxon nobleman. They had never expected to witness such a scene of drunkenness as that!
Suddenly, from somewhere below, sounded men’s shouts and women’s screams. Were the men below drunk, like their officers? Again and again was the uproar repeated.
The Baroness rang the bell, but there was no response.
“Whatever can be happening below?” asked Aimée, full of fear. Now that the officers were drunk, what hope was there for the Kaiser’s barbaric savages in the servants’ hall?
Again the bell was rung, when Mélanie, in her cap and apron, dashed into the room, crying:
“Ah! Madame! It is terrible—terrible! The soldiers are wrecking the salon. They are ripping the furniture with their swords. They are all drunk, Madame—the beasts are all drunk?”