The staff had gone on ahead at a sharp trot, spurring their horses in
the fear lest the Prussians might get into Altkirch before them.
General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, aware that he had a hard day's work
before him, had prudently taken Mulhausen in his way, where he
fortified himself with a copious breakfast, denouncing in language
more forcible than elegant such hurried movements. And Mulhausen
watched with sorrowful eyes the officers trooping through her streets;
as the news of the retreat spread the citizens streamed out of their
houses, deploring the sudden departure of the army for whose coming
they had prayed so earnestly: they were to be abandoned, then, and all
the costly merchandise that was stacked up in the railway station was
to become the spoil of the enemy; within a few hours their pretty city
was to be in the hands of foreigners? The inhabitants of the villages,
too, and of isolated houses, as the staff clattered along the country
roads, planted themselves before their doors with wonder and
consternation depicted on their faces. What! that army, that a short
while before they had seen marching forth to battle, was now retiring
without having fired a shot? The leaders were gloomy, urged their
chargers forward and refused to answer questions, as if ruin and
disaster were galloping at their heels. It was true, then, that the
Prussians had annihilated the army and were streaming into France from
every direction, like the angry waves of a stream that had burst its
barriers? And already to the frightened peasants the air seemed filled
with the muttering of distant invasion, rising louder and more
threatening at every instant, and already they were beginning to
forsake their little homes and huddle their poor belongings into
farm-carts; entire families might be seen fleeing in single file along
the roads that were choked with the retreating cavalry.

In the hurry and confusion of the movement the 106th was brought to a