I will make a bet that if a pretty woman had taken command of the army on
the eve of Sedan, when Marshal MacMahon was wounded, we should have
broken through the Prussian lines, by Jove! and had a drink out of their
guns.

"It was not a Trochu, but a Sainte-Genevieve, who was needed in Paris;
and I remember a little anecdote of the war which proves that we are
capable of everything in presence of a woman.

"I was a captain, a simple captain, at the time, and I was in command of
a detachment of scouts, who were retreating through a district which
swarmed with Prussians. We were surrounded, pursued, tired out and half
dead with fatigue and hunger, but we were bound to reach Bar-sur-Tain
before the morrow, otherwise we should be shot, cut down, massacred. I do
not know how we managed to escape so far. However, we had ten leagues to
go during the night, ten leagues through the night, ten leagues through
the snow, and with empty stomachs, and I thought to myself:

"'It is all over; my poor devils of fellows will never be able to do it.'

"We had eaten nothing since the day before, and the whole day long we
remained hidden in a barn, huddled close together, so as not to feel the
cold so much, unable to speak or even move, and sleeping by fits and
starts, as one does when worn out with fatigue.

"It was dark by five o'clock, that wan darkness of the snow, and I shook
my men. Some of them would not get up; they were almost incapable of
moving or of standing upright; their joints were stiff from cold and
hunger.