Our thoughts were mournful as death when at nightfall we climbed a second time to the hay-loft. We could not sleep, our anxiety was too great. Were the Germans still gaining ground? Would they sweep onward, like a cloud of insects, towards Paris, whose splendour and renown dazzled and attracted them invincibly? Oh, may they burn their wings there and be carbonised to the last one! The next day we went to see the place of the skirmish. The fields on both sides of the road were all covered over with things the soldiers had thrown away. In some places the grass was heaped with knapsacks, papers, clothes, and arms. We tramped on; the road wound its way through meadows and woods, and then got into a funnel-shaped valley. Here had been the thickest of the fight. The cavalry came up from behind; there were the guns on the rocks to the right and left. Alas, the convoy had really been caught in a trap! The three carts still stood in the middle of the road, and the meadows were thickly strewn with soldiers' things, papers, and discarded arms. Colette discovered a beautiful sword hidden in a bush; she quickly put it back again, that presently she might come and fetch it. It would be so much gained. A passer-by gave us some other details. There was a body here, another there. It was to be feared that a few more dead soldiers were hidden in the wood. On our way back we picked up all the letters, books, and papers which we found, hoping we might later on forward them to the soldiers' families, and at the same time tell them news of the unfortunate convoy. We passed through Neuville, and there we saw the ammunition captured the day before, heaped up in a yard. Another Cerberus, adorned with a spiked helmet, watched over mountains of bullets and boxes of cartridges. There was seven million francs' worth, said the peasants. Returning to the village, sunk in despondency, we heard the sound of a drum, and we arrived just in time to listen to the proclamation which the rural constable read aloud: "Arms and clothes, belonging to French soldiers, must be gathered up, and brought without delay to the Mayor's house.... By order of the German authorities," said the reader, a small hunchbacked man. And tears rolled down his cheeks. At Mme. Laroye's we found a change for the better. The refugees had set out homewards, and the friends from Laon, by taking leave, enabled us to live once more after the fashion of civilised people. With pleasure we stretched our limbs, which three nights had stiffened and tired out, in a comfortable bed.