Weeks and months had passed, since that first call to arms had echoed through the land, and still the storm of war raged with undiminished fury; but the arrow had recoiled upon its sender. Upon the Rhine the vineyards were ripening, the purple grapes gaining richer hues day by day; golden harvests moved in the fields; over the cities floated the nation's victorious banner; but yonder in France, the vineyards were laid waste, the blooming meadows were trodden under the feet of men and horses, the flames of burning villages rose to heaven. All the horrors which had been destined for the Rhineland, now fell upon French soil, a late but fearful punishment for the once so frivolously devastated Palatinate. Even the victors could no longer restrain their rage: the ruin, now unfettered, took its course, alike visiting the guilty and the guiltless, and the trembling land now at last itself experienced the full, terrible import of those words with which it had often enough absolved itself from every responsibility--_C'est la guerre!_ Onward, still onward, marched the victorious columns of the German army, from the Rhine to the Moselle, from the Moselle to the Meuse, from the Meuse to the Seine, throwing down all that stood in its way. City after city opened its gates, citadel after citadel yielded after a shorter or longer resistance. The fiery August sun blazed down upon seven battlefields, saluting at the same time, countless trophies of victory; and the first cool breezes of September swept that soil, where the wavering enemy, surrounded, hemmed in, pressed on every side, had at last yielded. A whole French corps, the once formidable head of the army, now indeed held the vaunted entrance to Germany; but without arms or resources;--and meantime the conquerors pressed on, with restless, unyielding persistence, to the heart of France--to Paris! At N., the capital of one of the departments, in spite of the war-billows that had long since swept over it, reigned an active, military life. This town was the principal station on the great military and travelling highway which led from Germany into the interior of France. Marching regiments, endless provision and munition trains, here crossed the path of the returning transports of sick and wounded soldiers, ambulances, and couriers; all the streets were crammed with men, carriages and horses; all the quarters were full to overflowing. In this state of things, two travellers, apparently English or American, who had arrived yesterday, although they undoubtedly belonged to the richer class, still deemed it a lucky accident to obtain, at an extravagant price, a pair of miserably-furnished attic rooms in a hotel of the second grade.