business men and rentiers, bending under the weight of their rifles;
young snappy volunteers, easily scared, but full of enthusiasm,
ready to attack as well as to retreat; then, among them, a few
red trousers, fragments of a division decimated in a great battle;
despondent artillery men aligned with these non-descript infantrymen;
and there and there the shining helmet of a heavy footed dragon
who had difficulty in keeping step with the quicker pace of the
soldiers of the line.

Legions of francs-tireurs with heroic names: "Avengers of
Defeat"--"Citizens of the Tombs"--"Brothers in Death"--passed in
their turn looking like bandits.

Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants, tallow or soap
dealers, warriors for the circumstance, who had been commissioned
officers on account of their money or the length of their mustaches;
covered with arms, flannel and stripes, they were talking in
a high-sounding voice, discussing plans of campaign, and claiming
that they alone supported on their shoulders agonizing France; as
a matter of fact, these braggarts were afraid of their own men,
scoundrels often brave to excess, but always ready for pillage and
debauch.

It was rumored that the Prussians were going to enter Rouen.

The National Guard who, for the past two months, had been very
carefully reconnoitering in the neighboring woods, at times shooting
their own sentries and getting ready to fight when a little rabbit
rustled in the bushes, had been mustered out and returned to their
homes. Their arms, uniforms, all their deadly apparel, with which