In the forests they committed downright murder. Where it is worth while they cut down trees of reasonable growth at regular intervals; anywhere else they break off saplings about one yard from the ground. In the wood of Festieux I know an immense beech-tree. Its trunk can hardly be encircled by four men with outstretched arms. In its boughs a nobleman of the neighbourhood lived for several weeks at the time of the Revolution. As they found no means to fell this giant, the invaders have hewn pieces out of it all round, and cut off its upper branches. The poor tree will not outlive the invasion. On the outskirts of the villages, along the roads and brooks, the Germans cut down the beautiful trees, poplars, maples, chestnuts, which gave a poetical charm to the country. To spoil the land is the aim of our malignant foe. Truly, it will be long before songs and laughter are heard again in the wasted country. The nymphs of our groves seek in vain their verdant shades along the treeless rivulets, and flee away, sighing their elegies. Can anything be sadder than this? No epic could be more tragical, no ode could exalt our hearts more than this call, more than this immense wailing we are ever hearing. It is the very breath of our sullied, bruised, wounded country, and it will not cease until the day when her sons return, and striking her soil with their feet will say: "Mother! O, mother! thy cause is avenged! We come back from the country of thy foes!" PART III "There is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandar-log." "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the Jungle. We all say so, and so it must be true."--"The Monkey-People," RUDYARD KIPLING (_The Jungle Book_). CHAPTER X Herr Bubenpech had hardly been appointed commandant in Morny when the enemy took a new step in the organisation of the country. From that moment two or three spectacled scribes gathered together in a large schoolroom, labelled "Bureau" both in French and in German, and busied themselves with endless scribblings. They drew up lists of the male inhabitants of the village, who twice a month had to be present when their names were called over. They put in writing all the divers tasks required of the villagers. They kept an account of the allowance of food sometimes granted to the civilians. They distributed passports and they superintended requisitions. From the outset Bubenpech seemed eager to show he was hard to please. The rural constable was ordered to announce that gold was to be brought to the "bureau," where the owners would be given bank-notes in its stead, according to the simplest exchange, 100 marks for 125 francs. Pieces of gold are not readily drawn out of the stockings. Yet a few of them had to come forth. I am afraid that since then the invaders have managed to empty them; but at that time they were only at the heel.