"_Mon Lieutenant_, it's the infantry fellows who have just killed a hare that ran between the two lines, and they're going to fetch it...." And in fact I saw this strange sight: two men had gone out in full daylight from their trenches and were advancing with hesitating steps towards the enemy's. Behind them were a hundred inquisitive heads, looking out above the embrasures arranged between the sacks of earth. A few soldiers, who had come out of the trench, were even sitting on the bank of chalky earth. It was certainly such a scene as I had hardly expected to witness. What was the captain of the company occupying the trench doing? But my astonishment became stupefaction when I saw the hundreds of heads that fringed the enemy's trenches. I at once sent G. and a non-commissioned officer with the following order to all our men: "No one is to show himself.... Every man to his fighting post!... Carbines loaded and ready to fire!" The Germans opposite became suspicious on seeing our line so silent, and no man showing himself; they, too, waited on the alert behind their loopholes. But along the rest of their front their men kept on coming out from their trenches unarmed, and making merry and friendly gestures. I became uneasy, and wondered how this unexpected comedy might end. Ought I to have those men fired upon who were not quite opposite to us, and whose opponents seemed rather inclined to make a Christmas truce? Our two infantrymen had come to the spot where the hare had fallen, very nearly half-way between the French and the German lines. One of them stooped down and got up again proudly brandishing his victim in the enemy's faces. At once there was a burst of applause from the German lines. They called out: "Kameraden! Kameraden!" This was going too far. I saw two unarmed Prussians leave their trench and come forward, with their hands raised towards the two Frenchmen, so I consulted G.: "Ought we to fire? I confess it would be rather unpleasant for me to order our fellows to fire upon these unarmed men. On the other hand, can we allow the least intercourse between the barbarous nation that is still treading our soil and our good brothers-in-arms who are pouring out their blood every day to reconquer it?" Fortunately, the officer who commanded the Saint Thierry artillery, and who had observed this scene with his glasses, spared me a decision which would have been painful to me. Pong! Pong! Pong! Pong! Four shells passed, hissing, over our heads, and burst with admirable precision two hundred yards above the German trenches. The artillery officer seemed to have placed with a delicate hand the four little white puffs of smoke which, equidistant from each other, appeared to mark out the bounds in the heavens of the frontier line he wished to forbid the enemy to pass on the earth. The Germans did not fail to understand this graceful warning. With cries of rage and protest, they ran back to their shelters, and our Frenchmen did the same.