man--seventy-nine years old--"le père Milliardet"--can do no more. The
next morning he staggered to his feet at the order to move, but fell
almost immediately. Then a soldier with the utmost coolness sent his
bayonet through the heart of the helpless creature. Another falls on the
road a little farther north--then another--and another. All are killed,
as they lie.

The poor Maire, Liévin, struggles on as long as he can. Two other
prisoners support him on either side. But he has a weak heart--his face
is purple--he can hardly breathe. Again and again he falls, only to be
brutally pulled up, the Germans shouting with laughter at the old man's
misery. (This comes from the testimony of the survivors.) Then he, too,
falls for the last time. Two soldiers take him into the cemetery of
Chouy. Liévin understands, and patiently takes out his handkerchief and
bandages his own eyes. It takes three balls to kill him.

Another hostage, a little farther on, who had also fallen was beaten to
death before the eyes of the others.

The following day, after having suffered every kind of insult and
privation, the wretched remnant of the civilian prisoners reached
Soissons, and were dispatched to Germany, bound for the concentration
camp at Erfurt.

Eight of them, poor souls! reached Germany, where two of them died. At
last, in January 1915, four of them were returned to France through
Switzerland. They reached Schaffhausen with a number of other
_rapatriés,_ in early February, to find there the boundless pity with
which the Swiss know so well how to surround the frail and tortured
sufferers of this war. In a few weeks more, they were again at home,