Colonel de Vineuil felt uncomfortable on hearing this, and discreetly intervened to remind the general that Stenay and Mouzon were on the Meuse, and that the Germans, having occupied the former locality, were about to attempt the passage of the river by the bridge at the latter town, which lay more to the north. 'Well, general,' resumed Sambuc, 'we came to warn you that the Dieulet woods are now full of Prussians. When the Fifth Corps was leaving Bois-les-Dames yesterday there was an engagement near Nouart.' 'What! was there fighting yesterday?' 'Yes, general; the Fifth Corps fought while it was falling back, and to-night it must be at Beaumont. So while some of our comrades went to inform it of the enemy's movements, it occurred to us to come and tell you of the situation, so that you may support the Fifth Corps, for it will have quite sixty thousand men to deal with in the morning.' On hearing this, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles shrugged his shoulders. 'Sixty thousand men! How you talk! Why not a hundred thousand? You must be dreaming, my fine fellow. Fear makes you see double. There can't be sixty thousand men near us--we should know it.' To this opinion he obstinately clung, and it was in vain that Sambuc appealed to the testimony of Ducat and Cabasse. 'We saw the guns,' so the Provençal asserted, 'and those devils must be madmen to risk sending them along the forest roads, in which one sinks to the shins on account of the late rain.' 'Somebody is guiding them, that's certain,' declared the ex-process-server, in his turn. Since their experiences at Vouziers, however, the general no longer believed in the reported concentration of the two German armies, which had been dinned into his ears, he said, till he was sick and tired of it. And he did not even consider it worth his while to send the Francs-tireurs to the commander of the Seventh Corps, to whom, by the way, the men thought they were speaking. If one had listened to all the peasants and prowlers who came with so-called information, the army would no longer have taken a step without being turned to right or left, and launched into unheard-of adventures. However, as the three Francs-tireurs knew the country, the general ordered them to remain and accompany the column. 'All the same,' said Jean to Maurice as they were returning to the camp to fold up their tent; 'all the same, those are good fellows to have come four leagues across country to warn us.' The young man assented; he considered that the Francs-tireurs were in the right. He also knew the country, and felt extremely uneasy at the thought that the Prussians were in the Dieulet woods advancing upon Sommauthe and Beaumont. In the dawn of what he instinctively felt would be a terrible day, he had seated himself on the ground, weary already, although they had not yet started on the march; but his stomach was empty, and his heart oppressed with anguish.