the pumpkins, and skirmished for the ingredients of pumpkin-pie, which
the matron of our hospital baked for us. This was an unknown use for
pumpkins in France, and those pies cost about their weight in silver.
Sugar we had--it was the eggs that cost. Horsemeat and pumpkin-pie!
There was a wild extravagance in that dinner, but then it was
patriotic--at least the dessert was.

We nearly froze to death at Bourget, but I have not time to tell
you of it. I must pass on to the last sortie--toward Montretout and
Malmaison. That was a dark, foggy, leaden morning, with a drizzling
rain. We passed through the whole French army on our way out--line,
National Guards, Mobiles, artillery, cavalry: we passed through them
all, everywhere meeting with a grateful reception. Sometimes they
cheered us and our wagons (now increased to eight) and our immense
coffee-pot. This last was an institution: it consisted of three great
boilers mounted on wheels. Before the meat gave out we used sometimes
to put soup in our coffee-pot and take it to the field. Coffee by some
means we still had. Even on the desolate morning I am now telling you
of many a poor foot-soldier who had been upon the almost impassable
roads all night had been cheered by a sly tin cupful of the precious
liquid as we trudged on toward the field. Well, we were finally
ordered to halt at the little village of Rueil, within a stone's throw
of the church where Josephine and Hortense lie buried. I climbed a
hill on the left, and saw the French pushing toward Buzenval. They
could see nothing before them but a line of fire--not a Prussian above
the low wall in front of the thick mass of wood. Though I could see
these Frenchmen dropping down by hundreds, they went steadily on and
on. Some of them were National Guards who had never before been under
fire. It was here that young Henri Regnault fell, with many other
Parisians known in literature and art. After a while the Germans began