Hatzfeldt’s appointment as Prefect led to the mention of other Prefects and Commissaries _in spe_. Doubt having been expressed as to the capacity of some of them, the Minister remarked: “Our officials in France may commit a few blunders, but they will be soon forgotten if the administration in general is conducted energetically.” The conversation having turned on the telegraph lines which were being so rapidly erected in our rear, somebody told the following story. The workmen who found that their poles were stolen and their wires cut, asked the peasants to keep guard over them during the night. The latter, however, refused to do this, although they were offered payment for it. At length they were promised that the name of each watchman should be painted upon every pole. This speculation on French vanity succeeded. After that the fellows in the long nightcaps kept faithful watch, and no further damage was done. _Friday, August 26th._--We are to move forward to Saint Ménehould, where our troops have captured 800 mobile guards. Early in the day I wrote an article about the franctireurs, dealing in detail with the false view which they take of what is permissible in war. We moved forward on the 26th, not to Saint Ménehould, however, which was still unsafe, being infested by franctireurs and mobile guards, but to Clermont en Argonne, where we arrived at 7 o’clock in the evening. On our way we passed through several rather large villages with handsome old churches. For the last couple of hours military policemen were stationed along the road at intervals of about 200 paces. The houses, which were built of grey sandstone and not whitewashed, stood close together. The whole population shuffled about in clumsy wooden shoes, and the features of the men and women, of whom we saw great numbers standing before the doors, were, so far as I could observe in a passing glance, almost invariably ugly. Probably the people thought it necessary to remove the prettier girls to a place of safety out of the way of the German birds of prey.