farmhouse, and was afterwards told that he had died there. The engagement had no very decisive result, but Schmidt fell back to the road connecting Sainte Suzanne with Thorigne-en-Charnie, whilst we withdrew towards Soulge-le-Bruant, about halfway between Saint Jean and Laval. During the fight, however, whilst the artillery duel was in progress, quite half of Jaureguiberry's men had taken themselves off without waiting for orders. I believe that on the night of January 15 he could not have mustered more than 7000 men for action. Yet only two days previously he had had nearly three times that number with him. Nevertheless, much might be pleaded for the men. The weather was still bitterly cold, snow lay everywhere, little or no food could be obtained, the commissariat refraining from requisitioning cattle at the farms, for all through the departments for Mayenne and Ille-et-Vilaine cattle-plague was raging. Hungry, emaciated, faint, coughing incessantly, at times affected with small-pox, the men limped or trudged on despairingly. Their boots were often in a most wretched condition; some wore sabots, others, as I said once before, merely had rags around their poor frost-bitten feet. And the roads were obstructed by guns, vans, waggons, vehicles of all kinds. Sometimes an axle had broken, sometimes a horse had fallen dead on the snow, in any case one or another conveyance had come to a standstill, and prevented others from pursuing their route. I recollect seeing hungry men cutting steaks from the flanks of the dead beasts, sometimes devouring the horseflesh raw, at others taking it to some cottage, where the avaricious peasants, who refused to part with a scrap of food, at least had to let these cold and hungry men warm themselves at a fire, and toast their horseflesh before it. At one halt three soldiers knocked a peasant down because he vowed that he could not even give them a pinch of salt. That done, they rifled his cupboards and ate all they could find. Experience had taught me a lesson. I had filled my pockets with ham, bread, hard-boiled eggs, and other things, before leaving Sainte Suzanne. I had also obtained a meal at Saint Jean, and secured some brandy there, and I ate and drank sparingly and surreptitiously whilst I went on, overtaking one after another batch of weary soldiers. However, the distance between Saint Jean and Laval is not very great. Judging by the map, it is a matter of some twenty-five miles at the utmost. Moreover, I walked only half the distance. The troops moved so slowly that I reached Soulge-le-Bruant long before them, and there induced a man to drive me to Laval. I was there on the afternoon of January 16, and as from this point trains were still running westward, I reached Saint Servan on the following day. Thus I slipped through to my goal, thereby justifying the nickname of L'Anguille--the Eel--which some of my young French friends had bestowed on me.