the news arrived before the spilt blood was dry. The exceeding great
and bitter cry of anguish came to them from a score of neighboring
villages, from a hundred lonely farmhouses. The old botanist
withered and faded daily; his wife grew pale and gray. Yet they
walked their _via crucis_ together, and kept their chosen
course.

They fed the hungry and clothed the naked, helped the fugitives and
consoled the broken-hearted. They counselled their poor neighbors
to good order, and dissuaded the ignorant from the folly and peril
of violence. Toward the invading soldiery their conduct was beyond
reproach. With no false professions of friendship, they fulfilled
the hard services which were required of them. Their servants had
been helped away at the beginning of the trouble--all except the
old forester and his wife, who refused to leave. With their aid
the house was kept open and many of the conquerors lodged there
and in the outbuildings. So good were the quarters that a departing
Saxon chalked on the gate-post the dubious inscription: _"Gute
Leute-nicht auspliin-dern."_ Thus the captives at the Chateau
d'Azan had a good name even among their enemies. The baron received
a military pass which enabled him to move quite freely about the
district on his errands of necessity and mercy, and the chateau
became a favorite billet for high-born officers.

In the second year of the war an evil chance brought two uninvited
guests of very high standing indeed--that is to say in the social
ring of Potsdam. Their names are well known. Let us call them
Prince Barenberg and Count Ludra. The first was a major, the second
a captain. Their value as warriors in the field had not proved
equal to their prominence as noblemen, so they were given duty in