My first idea of an irruption of the enemy did not seem just now quite so improbable, for we almost daily heard a good deal of firing in the direction of Mons, and the peasantry were continually bringing accounts of movements of the French army, none of which ever proved true; and the firing, we afterwards learned, proceeded from the practice of the Dutch or Belgic artillery at Mons. Our host, the Baron van Lombeke, paid us a visit about the beginning of this month for the first time. The ostensible motive for this visit was an inspection of the roads, which he said were immediately to be put in a complete state of repair. He stayed three or four days with us, during which his excursions never extended further than the major’s or the curé’s, so that he saw but little of the roads--which, together with the circumstance of his having arrived only a few days before from Paris, induced a suspicion that his real business was of a very different nature--possibly to ascertain the strength and positions of our cavalry corps, or something of the sort. It seemed odd enough receiving a man as a guest in his own house; our servants prepared a room for him, and he was waited upon by the old gardener. Of course he dined, or rather supped, with us; for I believe he usually partook of the curé’s dinner at one o’clock. Although what we should call rather vulgar-looking, yet we found M. le Baron exceedingly well-informed, perfectly the gentleman in manners, and upon the whole an agreeable acquisition to our little party. His gardens, and everything about the place, he begged us to consider as our own. We had done so already; however, we took the thing as it was meant--a mere compliment; but we felt that there was more sincerity in the contrast he drew between ourselves and the Prussians, and the repeated assertions of his satisfaction in having his chateau occupied by us instead of by them. Finding me in want of books, he kindly promised to send me some from Brussels; and I was agreeably surprised at his punctuality, when, a day or two after his departure, the old gardener brought me the five volumes of ‘The Hermit of the Chaussée d’Antin’--a work new to me, and to which I was indebted for several most agreeable evenings. The day marked for our advance into France now approached; and although no confirmation of the rumour reached us, yet we began to prepare for it as confidently as if already given out in general orders. Meantime, as will be seen, our friends beyond the border were scrutinising our intentions pretty closely.