It was true. Despairing of reducing the handful of madmen, who thus delayed their advance, the Bavarians were now placing a gun in position at the corner of the Place de l'Eglise. And the honour thus shown them, that artillery pointed at them from over yonder, made the besieged furiously mirthful. They jeered contemptuously: Ah! those dirty cowards with their cannon! Laurent, meanwhile, was still on his knees, carefully aiming at the gunners and bringing a man down at each shot he fired, so that for a time the gun could not be worked; in fact, five or six minutes elapsed before the first discharge. And even then, the gun being pointed too high, merely a strip of the roof was carried away. But the end was at hand. In vain did they search the dead; there was not a cartridge left! Haggard and exhausted, the six men fumbled here and there, seeking for something which they might fling from the windows to crush the enemy. One of them, on showing himself at a window, vociferating and brandishing his fists, was riddled by a volley of lead, and then only five of them were left. What could they do? Go down--try to escape by way of the garden and the meadows? But at that moment there was a loud uproar below, and men streamed furiously up the stairs. The Bavarians had at last crept round the house, broken open the back door, and invaded the ground floor. A terrible _mêlée_ ensued in the little rooms, among the corpses and the shattered furniture. The chest of one of the French soldiers was transpierced by a bayonet thrust, and the two others were taken prisoners, whilst the captain, who had just vented his last gasp, lay there with his mouth open and his arm still raised, as though to give an order. However, a German officer, a stout, fair man, armed with a revolver, and whose bloodshot eyes seemed to be starting from his head, had caught sight of Weiss and Laurent, the one in his black coat and the other in his blue linen jacket, and savagely asked them in French: 'Who are you? What the ---- are you doing here?' Then, seeing that they were black with powder, he realised the truth, and stammering with fury, heaped insults upon them in German. He had already raised his weapon to blow their brains out, when the soldiers he commanded rushed forward, caught hold of the two civilians and pushed them before them down the stairs. The two men were carried along by the human wave which flung them upon the road, where they rolled over as far as the opposite wall, amid such vociferous shouts that the voices of the officers could be no longer heard. Then, during two or three minutes which elapsed whilst the stout fair officer was endeavouring to clear a space, in view of proceeding with their execution, they were able to pick themselves up and look about them.