At Saint Germain, Dr. Russell's courier assisted in obtaining conveyances for the whole of our party, and we were soon rolling away in the direction of Mantes-la-Jolie, famous as the town where William the Conqueror, whilst bent on pillage and destruction, received the injuries which caused his death. Here we had to report ourselves to the German Commander, who, to the general consternation, began by refusing its permission to proceed. He did so because most of the safe-conducts delivered to us at Versailles, had, in the first instance, only stated that we were to travel by way of Sedan; the words "or Mantes or Dreux" being afterwards added between the lines. That interlineation was irregular, said the General at Mantes; it might even be a forgery; at all events, he could not recognize it, so we must go back whence we had come, and quickly, too--indeed, he gave us just half an hour to quit the town! But it fortunately happened that in a few of the safe-conducts there was no interlineation whatever, the words "Sedan or Mantes or Dreux" being duly set down in the body of the document, and on this being pointed out, the General came to the conclusion that we were not trying to impose on him. He thereupon cancelled his previous order, and decided that, as dusk was already falling, we might remain at Mantes that night, and resume our journey on the morrow at 5.45 a.m., in the charge of a cavalry escort. Having secured a couple of beds, and ordered some dinner at one of the inns, my father and I strolled about the town, which was full of Uhlans and Hussars. The old stone bridge across the Seine had been blown up by the French before their evacuation of the town, and a part of the railway line had also been destroyed by them. But the Germans were responsible for the awful appearance of the railway-station. Never since have I seen anything resembling it. A thousand panes of glass belonging to windows or roofing had been shivered to atoms. Every mirror in either waiting or refreshment-rooms had been pounded to pieces; every gilt frame broken into little bits. The clocks lay about in small fragments; account-books and printed forms had been torn to scraps; partitions, chairs, tables, benches, boxes, nests of drawers, had been hacked, split, broken, reduced to mere strips of wood. The large stoves were overturned and broken, and the marble refreshment counter--some thirty feet long, and previously one of the features of the station--now strewed the floor in particles, suggesting gravel. It was, indeed, an amazing sight, the more amazing as no such work of destruction could have been accomplished without extreme labour. When we returned to the inn for dinner, I asked some questions. "Who did it?" "The first German troops that came here," was the answer. "Why did they do it?--was it because your men had cut the telegraph wires and destroyed some of the permanent way?" "Oh no! They expected to find