Clearly the effect of the abandonment was a belief that the French were already, to all intents, beaten. In the Berlin papers there appeared glowing accounts of the triumph. Conversely, at all events in England among those who did not know, the French evacuation came as a shock. This was all part of the foreseen result. It not only heightened the confidence of the German armies, but it had no small influence on that fatal change of plan on their part which we may now say was decided upon at this very time. General Joffre purposely misled the enemy, both as to the power at his command, and as to his disposition of that power. Thus it was that the Germans, unopposed, made their triumphal entry. They swept through the famous Gate of Mars, the triumphal arch built by the then townsmen of Rheims in honour of Julius Cæsar and Augustus and to mark the completion of the scheme of military roads by Agrippa. They parked their cannon along the noble Public Promenade which stretches beyond this great monument. In the square before the Cathedral, about which at that time German war correspondents went into ecstasies of admiration, the statue of Joan of Arc was ringed by stacks of German lances. Ranks of men in _pickelhauben_, headed by bands playing "Deutschland über Alles," were in movement along the great Boulevard Victor Hugo. The very name now seemed a mockery. Rheims appeared helpless. Taking possession of the town hall, the invaders seized the Mayor, Dr. Langlet, and compelled him to remain up all through the succeeding night issuing the orders which they dictated at the muzzle of a revolver.[29] Nearly one hundred of the leading citizens found themselves placed under arrest as hostages. This was alleged to be a guarantee for the preservation of order. As a fact, it was intended to assist collection, both of the heavy "fine" imposed on the city, and of the extortionate requisitions demanded in kind. With the stocks of champagne contained in the labyrinth of vast cellars hollowed out beneath Rheims in the chalk rock, the German officers made themselves unrestrainedly free. The occupation degenerated into an orgie. Much wine that could not be consumed was, on the advance being resumed, taken to the front, loaded on ambulance wagons.[30] It is alleged that nearly 2,000,000 bottles of wine were either consumed, plundered, or wasted. Every house, too, had its complement of soldiers billeted on the occupants. When they marched south to the Marne, the Germans had been refreshed with unwonted good cheer and by rest in comfortable beds.