'Carl--Charles Pierrepont.' She repeated it two or three times, and laughing, said: 'It sounds very droll!' Charlie could not help laughing at the girl's _naïve_ manner, and thought that the old Warwickshire squire, who was fond of deducing his descent from Robert, who received the manor of Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, from the Conqueror, would have found nothing 'droll' in it. 'And what is yours, Mademoiselle?' 'Célandine--Célandine de Caillé.' 'Well, I cannot say it is _droll_. I think it very pretty.' 'Your little rebuke is a just one, Monsieur,' said the smiling old gentleman, who, had Charlie been a genuine Prussian, would little have relished all this conversation between him and his daughter. 'We shall be very good friends, I doubt not, for to-night, at least, Monsieur.' 'Only for to-night?' 'To-morrow shall relieve you of our hateful presence, as we shall probably move against Metz.' 'Don't say "hateful," Monsieur, when we owe you so much, and esteem you so much,' urged Célandine. 'Ernestine will never have a rival, even here,' thought Charlie, as he begged them to excuse him, as he had to go his rounds, and, with his sergeant, post fresh sentinels. That duty done, he undid his belt, but without undressing, threw himself on a sofa, and, utterly exhausted and worn out by the whole events of the day, oblivious of the presence of Mademoiselle de Caillé and her father in the dining-room, he slept as soundly as Hood's old woman, 'Who might have worn a percussion cap, And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap.' CHAPTER XVII. FACING A BATTERY OF MITRAILLEUSES. The night passed over quietly, and without alarm; but with dawn of day came an officer of Uhlans, attended by a trumpeter, flying at full speed along the line of advanced posts, calling in all the out-pickets, while the King was probably already telegraphing to Berlin as usual:-- 'Another new victory! Thank God for His mercy!' Referring to the official pietism of the Prussian monarch at this crisis, a very impartial historian of the war says thus:--'How little his armies were controlled by regard for humanity--the most essential element of any religion--will appear in lurid colours. Abu Bekr, the successor of Mohammed, enjoined his soldiers not to kill old people, women, or children; to cut down no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of corn; to spare all fruit-trees; and slay no cattle but such as they could take for their own use. But the Prussians made a desert of France, burned villages and small towns, and treated old people and women with horrible barbarity. But they were prodigal of religious words, and words with many have too often a greater weight than facts.' But with all this, it should be borne in mind, from past experience of French invading armies, how would those of the Emperor have behaved had they reached Berlin?