The Germans replied, a refugee was wounded, the women screamed, all fled and hid themselves. Of the two courageous soldiers, one, alas, was killed, and the other taken prisoner. More than once we heard accounts of the fighting from eye-witnesses. M. and Mme. Robert, large landowners of Ailles, told us how their village had been occupied by the enemy. Every day German patrols had been seen in the place; but one morning the French came back. All fell into raptures, kissed one another, marvelled at the return, dug up their treasures, and kept the day as a feast. In the evening the youths of the village went for a walk with the Zouaves, listening to the warriors' tales, and the fiddler of the village played madly the sole tune that he knew. The next morning, about half-past five, Mme. Robert, looking out of the window, said to her husband: "Look, some one is trying to get in through the orchard gate." In truth, some one was coming in. The Germans had arrived in great numbers; they sprang up from all sides. Our soldiers were ready. A close fight took place in the orchards, in the gardens, in the barns, and chiefly in the big yard of the farm. At the outset of the skirmish an officer had pushed the inhabitants into the kitchen: "Stay there, don't go out." The defenders of the village had to fight against fearful odds, and yet many Germans seemed to play their part reluctantly. Some of them took refuge in the barns, and hid themselves to avoid the scuffle. Then a captain came up, armed with a kind of whip, the leather thongs of which were weighted with tiny leaden balls, and with this he vigorously lashed his soldiers until they returned to the hottest of the fight. The Zouaves fought like lions, but they were only 250 against an enemy ten times superior in number, and in spite of their efforts at last gave way. Another German officer, noticing civilians in a room, cried aloud with anger, and shut them up in an empty cellar. For a long time the prisoners heard the noise of the fight going on above their heads, and little by little it became less violent, and then ceased completely. Only the third day, in the morning, were the poor people taken out of the cellar, half-dead with hunger and cold. M. and Mme. Robert were still dressed as at the moment of the surprise, their naked feet light slippered, he with a night-cap and white ducks on, she in a morning-jacket and short petticoats. They were not even allowed to go in for a minute to eat a bit of food and take clothes and money. It may be supposed that the German soldiers, always thrifty, had safely put into their pockets all that was worth stealing. Accompanied by soldiers, the poor people had to go on foot to Laon, half-naked and starved. "Going through Chamouille," said Mme. Robert, "I was so hungry that I ate the potato peelings I found in the street." In Laon, the prisoners were set at liberty, and they went to relations of theirs, who did their best to comfort and clothe them.