A few days later, after Sedan, Jean sees the Germans enter Versailles. '"Here they are!" 'It is the octroi-guards who cry out this as they come flying from the gates across the town. They brush me roughly as they pass, and their abject terror gains on me. 'I follow them. But as I run I see on the other side of the boulevard five or six inquisitive persons, who have stopped in their walk, and hide themselves behind the trees. If they stay to see, why may not I? I, too, get behind the stem of a tree, and I watch with staring eyes to see what will happen. On the road, fifty yards from the gates, a dozen horsemen are coming onward at a walk. They stop a moment before the octroi-officers; then they come on into the town in two lines, almost touching the pavement. '"The Uhlans!" says someone behind me. Ah, I think with a thrill, these are the Uhlans! 'They draw near us; their pistols are cocked. They pass me close, and I feel that I shall fall from fright; my nails clutch the bark of the tree which screens me. These riders are covered with blood. There is blood on the pennons of their lances, on the hocks of their horses, on the rents in their torn uniforms, and one of the foremost has a white linen band stained with red on his forehead. Ah! it is hideous! I want to run away--I want to run away; it is impossible. Before me there are these Germans, riding slowly, searching with piercing glances the streets which open out to the left and to the right. Behind them comes on a dense dark mass. One can hear the tramp of feet. One can distinguish the spikes of helmets, the barrels of muskets, the little drums no bigger than tambourines, and the fifes which are playing a march. These drummers and pipers are followed by linesmen in dark blue, shod with boots drawn up above their trousers, the musket held straight on the shoulder, the cloak rolled. 'And these men, grey with dust and mud, black with powder, with their coats in rags--these men, who fought no doubt this morning, and who have just made a forced march--preserve the most marvellous exactitude, the most perfect regularity in the dressing of their ranks, and the rhythm of their steps keeps measure from the first line to the last of the whole column.