time, brothers in death as well as in life! At Versailles, we took a carriage back to Paris. But we must relate what became of the general and staff of the _Expeditionary Army of the West._ Pajol mounted his horse at the first sound of firing and rode through the midst, trying vainly to make his voice heard above the hubbub. Bullets were raining round him, but he did not trouble himself about them any more than he would have done had they been hailstones. I once recalled this incident to him and complimented him upon his courage and _sang-froid._ "Bah!" he said, "it would have been a fine thing indeed if an old soldier who had been through all the upheavals of the Empire had taken any notice of a little wall-peppering like that!" The storm calmed down round him as it did round us, but everyone was not as disposed to retreat as we were: one portion of the Expeditionary Army did not see the fun of having come to Cognières for nothing, and decided to push on to Rambouillet. Pajol looked after these fanatics with a certain feeling of terror and sent Charras and Degousée at their head; but those two leaders soon saw the hopelessness of holding this human flood in bounds and allowed themselves to be borne along with it. They advanced as far as the courtyard of the château de Rambouillet, where the mayor of the town pointed out below his breath, in secrecy, an ammunition waggon, the keys of which he had handed to Marshal Maison. This waggon contained the crown jewels, valued at eighty millions. "Good!" said Charras: "they must be confided to the care of the people; it is the only way to prevent them coming to harm."