One or two more trains were got away after ours, the last one, I believe, being vainly assailed by some Uhlans before it had crossed the viaduct. The latter ought then to have been blown up, but an attempt to do so proved ineffectual. We went on very slowly on account of the many trains in front of us. Every now and again, too, there came a wearisome stop. It was bitterly cold, and it was in vain that we beat the tattoo with our feet in the hope of thereby warming them. The men with me were also desperately hungry, and complained of it so bitterly and so frequently, that, at last, I could not refrain from producing a little bread and meat which I had secured at Le Mans and sharing it with them. But it merely meant a bite for each of us. However, on stopping at last at Conlie station--some sixteen or seventeen miles from Le Mans--we all hastily scrambled out of the train, rushed into a little inn, and almost fought like wild beasts for scraps of food. Then on we went once more, still very slowly, still stopping again and again, sometimes for an hour at a stretch, until, half numbed by the cold, weary of stamping our feet, and still ravenous, we reached the little town of Sille-le-Guillaume, which is not more than eight or nine miles from Conlie. At Sille I secured a tiny garret-like room at the crowded Hotel de la Croix d'Or, a third-rate hostelry, which was already invaded by officers, soldiers, railway officials, and others who had quitted Le Mans before I had managed to do so. My comparatively youthful appearance won for me, however, the good favour of the buxom landlady, who, after repeatedly declaring to other applicants that she had not a corner left in the whole house, took me aside and said in an undertone: "listen, I will put you in a little _cabinet_ upstairs. I will show you the way by and by. But don't tell anybody." And she added compassionately: "_Mon pauvre garcon_, you look frozen. Go into the kitchen. There is a good fire there, and you will get something to eat." Truth to tell, the larder was nearly empty, but I secured a little cheese and some bread and some very indifferent wine, which, however, in my then condition, seemed to me to be nectar. I helped myself to a bowl, I remember, and poured about a pint of wine into it, so as to soak my bread, which was stale and hard. Toasting my feet at the fire whilst I regaled myself with that improvised _soupe-au-vin_, I soon felt warm and inspirited once more. Hardship sits on one but lightly when one is only seventeen years of age and stirred by early ambition. All the world then lay before me, like mine oyster, to be opened by either sword or pen.