The Germans came into the town on the 27th of August, after the heroic defense of the bridge over the Mortagne by a detachment of fifty-four men of the 2d Chasseurs from sunrise to sunset, who held up during hours the brigade of the Bavarian General Clauss. Finally, at five o’clock the gray hosts got through and passed in with a great sound of tramping feet and ringing hoof, and, after the manner of invaders, _mettant le feu et le sang dans le village_. Sister Julie thought her hour also had come. In the room where we were sitting she had placed her thirteen wounded men, brought in at intervals during the day. “_Mes petits_,” she called them, and her eyes shone softly at the memory. She sent the other sisters up to the attic, and remained alone to face the enemy and to beg that the house be spared. She went out on the little step, not knowing what fate awaited her, and found four immense officers on horseback, with their horses’ heads facing her. “They thought they were Charlemagnes, immense men, with light hair and light-blue eyes and arched noses and gallooned uniforms. I was like a dwarf in comparison, and I am not small.” To tell the truth, she is indeed a “muscular Christian.” Then began the interrogatory, the ranking officer demanding of her: “_Sie sprechen Deutsch?_” She said to us, with a smile: “I did speak it in my youth, but it wasn’t the moment to recall my studies, and I didn’t answer, and we remained for a few seconds looking at each other _comme des chiens de faïence_.[3] I so little on the house-step, and they so tall on their big horses, and with poignards drawn from their breast pockets, _pas le beau geste de tirer l’épée du côté_,” she finished, disdainfully. Finally, the silence was broken by the ranking officer, whose next words were in French: “_Nous ne sommes pas des barbares_; you have soldiers and weapons concealed in your house. Lead the way.” Then the four officers dismounted and, with pistols in one hand and poignards in the other, followed Sister Julie into the little room where the thirteen wounded men were lying. Their helmets touched the ceiling as they looked about them. Standing by the first bed nearest the door, an officer pulled down the covers. “You have arms concealed.” “We have nothing. You will find only men lying in their blood.” By this time Sister Julie was not only talking, but acting the scene, indicating where the beds were, where she had stood, where the four _chefs_ had entered, and how the eyes of the wounded men followed her. The officers made the rounds of the beds, pulling down each stained cover, Sister Julie following to re-cover the men, who were expecting, as was she, the order to burn the house.