“But you won’t get through, General,” spoke up a sergeant; “the Prussians are everywhere. This morning was the time for you to cut stick.” There were stories even then in circulation of companies that had become separated from their regiments and crossed the frontier without any intention of doing so, and of others that, later in the day, had succeeded in breaking through the enemy’s lines before the armies had effected their final junction. The general shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “What, with a few daring fellows of your stripe, do you mean to say we couldn’t go where we please? I think I can find fifty daredevils to risk their skin in the attempt.” Then, turning again to the old peasant: “_Eh!_ you old mummy, answer, will you, in the devil’s name! where is the frontier?” She understood him this time. She extended her skinny arm in the direction of the forest. “That way, that way!” “Eh? What’s that you say? Those houses that we see down there, at the end of the field?” “Oh! farther, much farther. Down yonder, away down yonder!” The general seemed as if his anger must suffocate him. “It is too disgusting, an infernal country like this! one can make neither top nor tail of it. There was Belgium, right under our nose; we were all afraid we should put our foot in it without knowing it; and now that one wants to go there it is somewhere else. No, no! it is too much; I’ve had enough of it; let them take me prisoner if they will, let them do what they choose with me; I am going to bed!” And clapping spurs to his horse, bobbing up and down on his saddle like an inflated wine skin, he galloped off toward Sedan. A winding path conducted the party down into the Fond de Givonne, an outskirt of the city lying between two hills, where the single village street, running north and south and sloping gently upward toward the forest, was lined with gardens and modest houses. This street was just then so obstructed by flying soldiers that Lieutenant Rochas, with Pache, Lapoulle, and Gaude, found himself caught in the throng and unable for the moment to move in either direction. Maurice and Jean had some difficulty in rejoining them; and all were surprised to hear themselves hailed by a husky, drunken voice, proceeding from the tavern on the corner, near which they were blockaded. “My stars, if here ain’t the gang! Hallo, boys, how are you? My stars, I’m glad to see you!” They turned, and recognized Chouteau, leaning from a window of the ground floor of the inn. He seemed to be very drunk, and went on, interspersing his speech with hiccoughs: “Say, fellows, don’t stand on ceremony if you’re thirsty. There’s enough left for the comrades.” He turned unsteadily and called to someone who was invisible within the room: “Come here, you lazybones. Give these gentlemen something to drink—”