At last, after about half an hour, a pale line stretched behind the bottom-land of Fiquet, around the woods of La Bonne-Fontaine. Captain Rolfo, the other citizens, and myself, leaned against the rampart, and looked at the snow-covered plain, where some German patrols were wandering in the fog, and nearer to us, at the foot of the glacis, the Wurtemburg sentinel stood motionless in the poplar alley which leads to the large shed of the tile-kiln. Everything was still gray and indistinct; though the winter sun, as white as snow, rose above the dark line of firs. Our soldiers stood motionless, with grounded arms, in the covered ways. The "_Verdâs!_" and "_Souïdas!_" went their rounds. It grew lighter every moment. No one would have believed that a fight was preparing, when six o'clock sounded from the mayoralty, and suddenly our two companies, without command, started, shouldering their arms, from the covered ways, and silently descended the glacis. In less than a minute, they reached the road which stretches along the gardens, and defiled to the left, following the hedges. You cannot imagine my fright when I found that the fight was about to begin. It was not yet clear daylight, but still the enemy's sentinel saw the line of bayonets filing behind the hedges, and called out in a terrible way: "_Verdâ!_" [Illustration: THE SORTIE FROM THE LIME-KILN.] "Forward!" replied Captain Vigneron, in a voice like thunder, and the heavy soles of our soldiers sounded on the hard ground like an avalanche. The sentinel fired, and then ran up the alley, shouting I know not what. Fifteen of the landwehr, who formed the outpost under the old shed used for drying bricks, started at once; they did not have time for repentance, but were all massacred without mercy. We could not see very well at that distance, through the hedges and poplars, but after the post was carried, the firing of the musketry and the horrible cries were heard even in the city. All the unfortunate landwehr who were quartered in the Pernette farm-house--a large number of whom were undressed, like respectable men at home, so as to sleep more comfortably--jumped from the windows in their pantaloons, in their drawers, in their shirts, with their cartridge-boxes on their backs, and ranged themselves behind the tile-kiln, in the large Seltier meadow. Their officers urged them on, and gave their orders in the midst of the tumult. There must have been six or seven hundred of them there, almost naked in the snow, and, notwithstanding their being thus surprised, they opened a running fire which was well sustained, when our two pieces on the bastion began to take part in the contest. Oh! what carnage! Looking down upon them, you should have seen the bullets hit, and the shirts fly in the air! And, what was worst for these poor wretches, they had to close ranks, because, after destroying everything in the tile-kiln, our soldiers went out to make an attack with their bayonets!