Then, in passing through Raucourt there was desperate hustling and anxiety. Ought they to turn to the right, towards Autrecourt, in view of crossing the Meuse at Villers, as had been decided? Perplexed and hesitating, General Douay feared that he might find the bridge there blocked with retreating troops, perhaps even already in the power of the Prussians. He preferred, therefore, to continue straight on through the defile of Haraucourt, so as to reach Remilly before night. Again had their destination been changed; after Mouzon, Villers, and after Villers, Remilly. They were still marching due north, with the Uhlans galloping behind them. They had now less than four miles to go, but it was already five o'clock, and they were overwhelmingly fatigued. They had been on foot since daybreak, and had taken twelve hours to cover scarcely three leagues, tramping along, wearing themselves out with endless halts, amid the liveliest emotions and fears. Moreover, during the last two nights they had barely slept, and since leaving Vouziers they had not been able to satisfy their hunger. They were sinking with inanition. At Raucourt the scene was pitiable. Raucourt is a well-to-do little town, with its numerous factories, its well-built high street which the road follows, its coquettish-looking church and town-hall. Only, all its resources had been exhausted; the bakers' and grocers' shops had been emptied, even the crumbs in the private houses had been swept away--first during the night that the Emperor and Marshal MacMahon had spent there, when the town was burdened with the staff and the imperial household, and then when the whole of the First Corps passed through it on the following morning, streaming along the highway like a river. Now there was no bread left there, no more wine, no more sugar, nothing that can be eaten, nothing that can be drunk--excepting water. Ladies had been seen standing at their doors, distributing glasses of wine and cups of broth, draining alike their casks and their saucepans to the dregs. And thus everything had gone, and great was the despair when, at about three o'clock, the first regiments of the Seventh Corps began defiling along the high street. What! So it was beginning again! There were still more soldiers! Once more, indeed, the high street became a river of exhausted men--men covered with dust and dying of hunger, without anybody having a morsel of anything to give to them. Many of the soldiers halted, knocked at the doors, held out their hands towards the windows, begging that a crust of bread might be thrown to them. And there were women who sobbed, and who signed to the soldiers that they could give them nothing, since they had nothing whatever left. At the corner of a street called the Rue des Dix-Potiers Maurice's eyes began to swim, and he staggered. Jean hastened to assist him, but, sinking on a corner-stone, he murmured: 'No, leave me; this is the end--I prefer to die here!'