By mere chance Morny had as yet paid no more than the contribution of war which had been levied on the whole country soon after the invasion. Other villages less fortunate than ours had been overburdened with taxes upon the most ridiculous pretences. A poor hamlet, Coucy les Eppes, was fined six times during the space of a few months. First came the general contribution. Then a fine of half a million francs was imposed upon the canton of Sissonne, to which Coucy belongs, and every village had to pay its share. It so happened that in September some soldiers, coming back from Reims, drove their carts through Sissonne, and as their carts were loaded with bottles of wine, they drank all the way, and threw empty bottles behind them. Then came motor-cars, which punctured their tyres on the broken glass. Great scandal! The civilians were accused of having put a trap for honest Prussian wheels. Their protestations availed nothing. The canton was condemned to a fine; the canton must pay; and Coucy paid like the other communes. When all houses were searched after the great proclamation of November, an old flint-lock, kept in memory of an ancestor, was discovered in Coucy at an old maiden lady's. It never struck the owner that she should have brought it to the Mayor's house, or hidden it. And suppose the old maiden lady had shouldered the ancient gun? It is enough to make you shudder when you think of the danger the German army might have thus incurred. As quick as could be a few thousand francs were levied on the village which dared be subversive enough to conceal an old maid and an old gun. Even then the troubles of the poor village did not come to an end. A French aviator dropped a bomb on the station, and the bomb disturbed a few German carriages. The military authority knitted its brows. "Why! This Coucy is talked of again! Let it have a good fine, and it will keep quiet." For what reasons had this village to bleed itself and borrow from the town in order to pay the invader twice more, I do not know, but so it was. Morny's turn was coming. One night a barn of the farm where the Hussars were quartered took fire, and was soon in a blaze with the straw it contained. The whole village ran to quench the conflagration. We stood near-by just long enough to see the peasants put the fire out with all speed, while the soldiers folded their arms, and were pleased to be amused. Von Bernhausen and Bubenpech looked on at the spectacle. Then Von Bernhausen thought proper to rate the Mayor sharply: "There are not people enough.... Go and fetch civilians.... Be quick...." All the able-bodied men of the village were summoned, and they sweated while the Hussars made sport of them. The _Gazette des Ardennes_, which took the place of the _Journal de Guerre_ to the very best advantage, does not relate such accidents in this wise, but I can only narrate what my eyes have seen.