the field; and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of
armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a breach.

The people did not attempt to resist. They stood passive, dry-eyed in
misery, looking on whilst the little treasures of their household lives
were swept away forever, and ignorant what fate by fire or iron might be
their portion ere the night was done. They saw the corn that was their
winter store to save their offspring from famine poured out like
ditch-water. They saw oats and wheat flung down to be trodden into a
slough of mud and filth. They saw the walnut presses in their kitchens
broken open, and their old heirlooms of silver, centuries old, borne
away as booty. They saw the oak cupboard in their wives' bedchambers
ransacked, and the homespun linen and the quaint bits of plate that had
formed their nuptial dowers cast aside in derision or trampled into a
battered heap. They saw the pet lamb of their infants, the silver
earrings of their brides, the brave tankards they had drunk their
marriage wine in, the tame bird that flew to their whistle, all seized
for food or spoil. They saw all this, and had to stand by with mute
tongues and passive hands, lest any glance of wrath or gesture of
revenge should bring the leaden bullets in their children's throats or
the yellow flame amidst their homesteads. Greater agony the world cannot
hold.

--LOUISE DE LA RAMEE (Ouida).

[Footnote: This extract is taken from a story by the same title. The
chief characters are the peasant Bernadou, his wife Margot, and his old
grandmother Reine Allix. The scene is laid during the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870. The great defeat of the French at Sedan, and the surrender
of Paris from starvation after a long siege brought the war to an end.