Madame Barthélemy herself.) The cruel scene shapes itself as we think of
it--the half-lit room--the row of kneeling and weeping women, the
grinning soldiers, bayonet in hand, and the old men waiting in the
yard outside.

But with the morning, the French mitrailleuses are heard. The soldiers
disappear.

The poor old women are free; they are able to leave their prison.

But their husbands are gone--carried off as hostages by the Germans.
There were nineteen hostages in all. Three of them were taken off in a
north-westerly direction, and found some German officers quartered in a
château, who, after a short interrogation, released them. Of the other
sixteen, fifteen were old men, and the sixteenth a child. The Curé is
with them, and finds great difficulty, owing to his age, the exhaustion
of the night, and lack of food, in keeping up with the column. It was
now Thursday the 10th, the day following that on which, as is generally
believed, the Kaiser signed the order for the general retreat of the
German armies in France. But the hostages are told that the French Army
has been repulsed, and the Germans will be in Paris directly.

At last the poor Curé could walk no farther. He gave his watch to a
companion. "Give it to my family when you can. I am sure they mean to
shoot me." Then he dropped exhausted. The Germans hailed a passing
vehicle, and made him and another old man, who had fallen out, follow in
it. Presently they arrive at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, through which thousands of
German troops are now passing, bound not for Paris, but for Soissons and
the Aisne, and in the blackest of tempers. Here, after twenty-four more
hours of suffering and starvation, the Curé is brought before a