Loubet had made himself quite famous by reason of his knapsack, in
which was to be found a little of everything: linen, an extra pair of
shoes, haberdashery, chocolate, brushes, a plate and cup, to say
nothing of his regular rations of biscuit and coffee, and although the
all-devouring receptacle also contained his cartridges, and his
blankets were rolled on top of it, together with the shelter-tent and
stakes, the load nevertheless appeared light, such an excellent system
he had of packing his trunk, as he himself expressed it.

"It's a beastly country, all the same!" Chouteau kept repeating from
time to time, casting a look of intense disgust over the dreary plains
of "lousy Champagne."

Broad expanses of chalky ground of a dirty white lay before and around
them, and seemed to have no end. Not a farmhouse to be seen anywhere,
not a living being; nothing but flocks of crows, forming small spots
of blackness on the immensity of the gray waste. On the left, far away
in the distance, the low hills that bounded the horizon in that
direction were crowned by woods of somber pines, while on the right an
unbroken wall of trees indicated the course of the river Vesle. But
over there behind the hills they had seen for the last hour a dense
smoke was rising, the heavy clouds of which obscured the sky and told
of a dreadful conflagration raging at no great distance.

"What is burning over there?" was the question that was on the lips of
everyone.

The answer was quickly given and ran through the column from front to
rear. The camp of Chalons had been fired, it was said, by order of the
Emperor, to keep the immense collection of stores there from falling