Still exasperated and violently inclined, Coutard and Picot, in their ragged uniforms grey with dust, were cutting themselves hunks of bread and bolting big bits of cheese, whilst venting their nightmare-like souvenirs under the beautiful vine with its ripe grapes spangled with golden darts by the sun. They had now come to the fearful rout that had followed the battle; the disbanded, demoralised, hungry regiments fleeing through the fields; the high roads one stream of men, horses, carts, and guns in frightful confusion; all the wreckage of an annihilated army, lashed onward in its retreat by the mad blast of panic. Since they had not been able to fall back in good order and defend the passages of the Vosges, where ten thousand men might have stopped a hundred thousand, at least they might have blown up the bridges and filled up the tunnels. But the generals bolted in the universal scare, and such a tempest of stupefaction swept along, carrying off both vanquishers and vanquished, that for a moment the two conflicting armies lost one another--MacMahon hurrying in the direction of Lunéville, whilst the Crown Prince of Prussia was looking for him in the direction of the Vosges. On August 7 the remnants of the First French Army Corps swept through Saverne like a muddy, overflowing stream laden with wreckage. On the 8th, the Fifth Corps fell in with the First at Saarburg, like one torrent flowing into another. The Fifth Corps was also in full flight, beaten without having fought, and carrying along with it its commander, that sorry General de Failly, who was distracted to find that the responsibility of the defeat was ascribed to his inaction. On the 9th and 10th the flying gallop continued, a mad _sauve-qui-peut_, in which no one halted even to look round. On the 11th, in the pouring rain, they descended towards Bayon, so as to avoid Nancy, which was falsely rumoured to be in the enemy's hands. On the 12th they encamped at Haroué; on the 13th at Vicherey; and next day they reached Neufchâteau, where the railway at last gathered together this drifting mass of men, who, during three entire days, were shovelled into the trains, so that they might be conveyed to Châlons. Four-and-twenty hours after the last train had started the Prussians came up. 'Ah! cursed luck!' concluded Picot. 'We had to use our legs, and no mistake. And we two had been left at the infirmary.' Coutard was just emptying the bottle into his comrade's glass and his own: 'Yes,' said he, 'we took ourselves off, and we've been on the road ever since. All the same, however, one feels better now that one can drink to the health of those that haven't had their skulls cracked.'