It was the end of the year. Colette still hoped to see the French come back before our departure. But, alas! nothing of the kind happened. Christmas, New Year's Day, were kept as they had been kept a year before, sadly by the French, merrily by the Germans. Then the month of January, cold and foggy, glided by, and we were still kept waiting. At length the day of the departure came. The convoy, the mass of emigrants, were strikingly like the herd we had witnessed the year before. Yet I think we saw more sick people. There were many who coughed. When once we were all seated in a carriage, we five, with two little orphan girls, who went to meet their grandmother at Lyons, the train moved off at last, and such an emotion seized upon us that no one uttered a word. The first time our flight had been stopped at Chevrigny, a second time at Jouville. How far should we go now? We had been told that there would be no quarantine. Was it true? We were travelling through a grey country. The night fell and the dawn rose again: we were in Germany. We made many a long stop in the stations; soldiers distributed coffee and soup in the carriages. We had taken with us, put by from our pittance of a whole week, dry toast, barley coffee, and licorice-wood tea. As to tasting "the soup"--no, thank you. We peered through the windows, but did not see anything worth looking at. Towns and villages were gloomy; in the stations, boys of about thirteen did the work of railway porters. The night fell again. We reached the Black Forest, which was white with snow. We wound our way up a mountain, and caught sight of a vale far below us. The branches of the fir-trees bent beneath their pure burden, and the cloak spread over the ground was so dazzling that it gave light to the starless night. Houses were to be seen everywhere, grouped together in hamlets and villages, or standing apart in the mountain--good-natured-looking houses nestled in the snow, with gaily-lit-up windows. Then I cast my eyes about me. My companions were slumbering, and the flickering light brought out the paleness of their uneasy faces. One of the little girls was coughing, and we could hear other people who seemed to echo back the same sad sound. The long train that rolled along was full of wretchedness and misery. And from those snug little houses, from those towns we had just crossed, came the soldiers who had rushed upon our country. From thence the plunderers, the drunkards, the debauchees, the executioners; from thence came those who have carried dismay into a peaceful country, who have converted a happy, industrious population into a fearful, enslaved herd.... May you be cursed ... cursed.... And there, in the big houses, in the towns, live still the accomplices. They are all there. The lamp is bright, the stove lit up. Dinner is over; they are smoking their pipes and reading their papers.