transport, and their wounded lying on the baggage wagons, men of many regiments mixed up, the light of the street lamps shining on the casques of cuirassiers with their long horsehair tails, leading their stumbling horses, and foot soldiers, hunched under their packs, marching silently with dragging steps. Once in a while one of the soldiers left the ranks and came on to the sidewalk, whispering to a group of dark shadows. The crowds watched silently, in a curious, dreadful silence, as though stunned. A woman near me spoke in a low voice, and said, “Nous sommes perdus!” Those were the only words I heard or remembered. That night in the station of Amiens the boys of a new class were being hurried away in truck trains, and while their army was in retreat sang “La Marseillaise,” as though victory were in their hearts. Next day the German army under von Kluck entered Amiens, and ten days afterward passed through it on the way to Paris. Madame Carpentier told me of the first terror of the people when the field-gray men came down the Street of the Three Pebbles and entered their shops. A boy selling oranges fainted when a German stretched out his hand to buy some. Women hid behind their counters when German boots stamped into their shops. But Madame Carpentier was not afraid. She knew the Germans and their language. She spoke frank words to German officers, who saluted her respectfully enough. “You will never get to Paris... France and England will be too strong for you... Germany will be destroyed before this war ends.” They laughed at her and said: “We shall be in Paris in a week from now. Have you a little diary, Madame?” Madame Carpentier was haughty with them. Some women of Amiens--poor drabs--did not show any haughtiness, nor any pride, with the enemy who crowded into the city on their way toward Paris. A girl told me that she was looking through the window of a house that faced the Place de la Gare, and saw a number of German soldiers dancing round a piano-organ which was playing to them. They were dancing with women of the town, who were laughing and screeching in the embrace of big, blond Germans. The girl who was watching was only a schoolgirl then. She knew very little of the evil of life, but enough to know that there was something in this scene degrading to womanhood and to France. She turned from the window and flung herself on her bed and wept bitterly...