"How frank they are," an old woman whimpered. "How splendid to be frank like that! As to myself, I could not be so." I suppose she meant courageous, but courage was not in question. We thought of nothing; we felt nothing; we were only looking at the men. We were glaring with all our eyes at a sight that crushed our souls. Grief left a huge void in our hearts. The enemy was there, and it was all up with us! I think we had suffered less if we had seen the Germans arrive in a town. A town is always somewhat of a courtesan. It gives a hearty welcome and hospitality to every one; it is daily a prey to strangers of ill repute. If invasion beats against its walls, if a hostile army crosses its streets--one human flood succeeding so many others--the town scowls at the foe, and then loses all memory of him. But there in a small village, hidden in a fold of the French ground, in a tiny hamlet which a hostile mind never chose for a shelter, the presence of the invaders seems to profane the very grass; and ever after the poor little place will remain an unhallowed spot, which bloodshed and years will not purify again. After the horsemen had passed, there rolled along cannon and powder-carts, whose rumbling set our teeth on edge. "Grandmother, look there!" cried out Colette. On a powder-cart, looking very unhappy, sat the small dog we had met in the meadow. So the Germans had traversed Morny; they had followed close upon us. At last there came an end to the procession. The street was empty. No one uttered a word, and we ran away to cry to our hearts' content. House, yard, barns were all crowded with people. I took refuge in the garden. Nature seemed covered with an ashen veil, the very sun was obscured. Had the radiant morning really begotten this sad noon? Like a wounded animal looking for a dark shelter, I fled to the orchard, and crouching down in a corner close to the wall I wept most bitterly, without knowing why. Some one called me; I had to go back to life, or rather a life, unknown, unsuspected, in which all was changed. The Prussians were advancing through France.