As we could not count on this preserved meat for our food, I made a contract with a knacker, who agreed to supply me, at rather a high price, with horseflesh, and until the end this was the only meat we had to eat. Well prepared and well seasoned, it was very good. Hope had now fled from all hearts and we were living in the expectation of we knew not what. An atmosphere of misfortune seemed to hang like lead over us, and it was a sort of relief when the bombardment commenced on the 27th of December. At last, we felt that something fresh was happening. It was an era of fresh suffering. There was some stir, at any rate, for the last fortnight the fact of not knowing anything had been killing us. On the 1st of January, 1871, we lifted our glasses to the health of the absent ones, to the repose of the dead; and the toast choked us with a lump in our throats. Every night we used to hear the dismal cry of “_Ambulance! Ambulance!_” underneath the windows of the Odéon. We went down to meet the pitiful procession, and one, two, or sometimes three conveyances would be there, full of our poor, wounded soldiers. There would be ten or twelve rows of them, lying or sitting up on the straw. I said that I had one or two places, and lifting the lantern, I looked into the conveyance, and the faces would then turn slowly toward the lamp. Some of the men would close their eyes, as they were too weak to bear even that feeble light. With the help of the sergeant who accompanied the conveyance, and our attendant, one of the unfortunates would with difficulty he lifted to the narrow litter on which he was to be carried up to the hospital. Oh, what sorrowful anguish it was for me when, on lifting the patient’s head, I discovered that it was getting heavy, oh, so heavy; and when bending over that inert face I felt that there was no longer any breath! The sergeant would then give the order to take him back, and the poor dead man was put back in his place, and another wounded man was lifted out. The other dying men would then move back a little, in order not to profane the dead. Ah, what grief it was when the sergeant said: “Do try to take one or two more in! It is a pity to drag these poor chaps about from one hospital to another. The Val-de-Grâce is full.” “Very well, I will take two more,” I would say, and then I wondered where we should put them. We had to give up our own beds, and in this way the poor fellows were saved. Ever since the first of January, we had all three been sleeping every night at the hospital. We had some loose dressing-gowns of gray swanskin, not unlike the soldiers’ cloaks. The first of us who heard a cry or a groan sprang out of bed, and if necessary, called the other two.