Meantime, a number of the French who had lingered at Le Mans were gradually effecting their escape. Many artillery and commissariat waggons managed to get away, and a local notability, M. Eugene Caillaux--father of M. Joseph Caillaux who was French Prime Minister during the latter half of 1911, and who is now (Dec., 1913) Minister of Finances--succeeded in sending out of the town several carts full of rifles, which some of the French troops had flung away. However, the street-fighting could not be indefinitely prolonged. It ceased when about a hundred Germans and a larger number of French, both soldiers and civilians, had been killed. The Germans avenged themselves by pillaging the houses in the Rue Dumas, and several on the Place des Halles, though they spared the Hotel de France there, as their commander, Voigts Rhetz, reserved it for his own accommodation. Whilst the bombardment of a part of the lower town continued--the railway station and the barracks called the Caserne de la Mission being particularly affected--raids were made on the French ambulances, in one of which, on the Boulevard Negrier, a patient was barbarously bayoneted in his bed, on the pretext that he was a Franc-tireur, whereas he really belonged to the Mobile Guard. At the ambulance of the Ecole Normale, the sisters and clergy were, according to their sworn statements, grossly ill-treated. Patients, some of whom were suffering from smallpox, were turned out of their beds--which were required, it was said, for the German wounded. All the wine that could be found was drunk, money was stolen, and there was vindictive destruction on all sides. The Mayor [The Prefect, M. Le Chevalier, had followed the army in its retreat, considering it his duty to watch over the uninvaded part of the department of the Sartha.] of Le Mans, M. Richard, and his two _adjoints_, or deputies, went down through the town carrying a towel as a flag of truce, and on the Place de la Mission they at last found Voigts Rhetz surrounded by his staff. The General at once informed the Mayor that, in consequence of the resistance of the town, it would have to pay a war-levy of four millions of francs (L160,000) within twenty-four hours, and that the inhabitants would have to lodge and feed the German forces as long as they remained there. All the appeals made against these hard conditions were disregarded during nearly a fortnight. When both the Mayor and the Bishop of Le Mans solicited audiences of Prince Frederick Charles, they were told by the famous Count Harry von Arnim--who, curiously enough, subsequently became German Ambassador to France, but embroiled himself with Bismarck and died in exile--that if they only wished to tender their humble duty to the Prince he would graciously receive them, but that he refused to listen to any representations on behalf of the town.