took fifty hostages, of whom twenty-six perished. And at half-past five,
while the fighting was still going on, the punitive burning of the town
began, by a cyclist section told off for the work and furnished with
every means for doing it effectively. These men, according to an
eyewitness, did their work with wild shouts--"_cris sauvages_."

A hundred and seventeen houses were soon burning fiercely. On that hot
September evening, the air was like a furnace. Before long the streets
were full of blazing débris. Two persons who had hidden themselves in
their cellars died of suffocation; yet to appear in the streets was to
risk death at the hands of some drunk or maddened soldier.

At the opening of the French attack, a German officer rushed to the
hospital, which was full of wounded, in search of francs-tireurs.
Arrived there, he saw an old man, a chronic patient of the hospital and
half idiotic, standing on the steps of the building. He blew the old
man's brains out. He then forced his way into the hospital, pointing his
revolver at the French wounded, who thought their last hour had come. He
himself was wounded, and at last appeared to yield to the remonstrances
of the Sister in charge, and allowed his wound to be dressed. But in the
middle of the dressing, he broke away without his tunic, and helmetless,
in a state of mad excitement, and presently reappeared with a file of
soldiers. Placing them in the street opposite the rooms occupied by the
French wounded, he ordered them to fire a volley. No one was hurt,
though several beds were struck. Then the women's wards were searched.
Two sick men, _éclopés_ without visible wounds, were dragged out of
their beds and would have been bayoneted then and there but for the
entreaties of the nurses, who ultimately released them.

An awful night followed in the still burning or smouldering town.