More serious was the proclamation which granted a delay to the French soldiers still in the invaded territory. The blockade had taken a great many of them by surprise, and had prevented them from reaching the French line; they wore civil clothes and lived under an assumed name. Some of them had surrendered at the beginning of the invasion; others had been discovered and shot. But the new regulation enabled those who were hidden to give themselves up until the 20th of November. From that date every French soldier, caught in invaded territory, would be looked upon as a spy and be immediately shot. As many as eighty surrendered before the stated day, and oh, desolation! the very day after they arrested, in a suburb of the town where he lived disguised as a workman, a French officer, a captain. We read on the bills stuck up in the streets that he had been shot in the citadel. Another announcement threatened the villagers more than the town's people. It intimated that every criminal attempt made at any point of the railroads would immediately bring terrible reprisals upon the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. "Whether guilty or not," the unhappy wretches would be "driven from their houses if the military authorities thought proper"; the women would be taken away, and "the men enrolled in the gangs of labourers." Besides, such hostages as the Germans selected might be shot. On the other hand, the invaders were always in readiness to drain the country of the little money that was left. Many means were at their disposal. Fines were showered down upon the towns and villages. If a French aeroplane dropped bombs on the Laon station, the town was quickly condemned to pay upwards of one hundred thousand francs. In October, to mark, no doubt, the anniversary of the German occupation, the invaded were warned that they would have to pay a second contribution of war. The chief authorities of the communes were told that those under their charge would soon get into the habit of paying tribute, very likely every quarter, to the conquerors. "And when all the money has thus been wrung from all purses, well, you will but have to issue municipal notes, which you will give to us, the Prussians. So, when the war is at an end, when you have all been eaten out of house and home, you will all the same be our debtors!"