What had happened? The common cry of men so sharply foiled went up.
"Nous sommes trahis!" The German troops in Vareddes, foreseeing
immediate withdrawal, and surrounded by their own dead and dying, must
somehow avenge themselves, on some one. "Hostages! The village has
played us false! The Curé has been signalling from the church. We are in
a nest of spies!"

So on the evening of the 7th, the old Curé, who had spent his day in the
church, doing what he could for the wounded, and was worn out, had just
gone to bed when there was loud knocking at his door. He was dragged out
of bed, and told that he was charged with making signals to the French
Army from his church tower, and so causing the defeat of the Germans.

He pointed out that he was physically incapable of climbing the tower,
that any wounded German of whom the church was full could have seen him
doing it, had the absurd charge been true. He reminded them that he had
spent his whole time in nursing their men. No use! He is struck,
hustled, spat upon, and dragged off to the Mairie. There he passed the
night sitting on a hamper, and in the morning some one remembers to have
seen him there, his rosary in his hand.

In one of the local accounts there is a touching photograph, taken, of
course, before the war, of the Curé among the boys of the village. A
mild reserved face, with something of the child in it; the face of a man
who had had a gentle experience of life, and might surely hope for a
gentle death.

Altogether some fourteen hostages, all but two over sixty years of age,
and several over seventy, were taken during the evening and night. They