They soon learned, indeed, that they were to encamp there until General Douay had obtained precise information respecting the enemy's march. Since the day before--since he had seen Margueritte's division proceed up-country towards Le Chêne Populeux--the general's anxiety had been increasing, for he knew that he was no longer covered, that there was no longer a single man guarding the defiles of the Argonne, and that consequently he might be attacked at any moment. On this account he had just despatched the 4th Hussars to reconnoitre the country as far as the defiles of Grand-Pré and La Croix-aux-Bois, with orders to procure him some information at any cost. Bread, meat and forage had been given out the day before, thanks to the energy of the Mayor of Vouziers; and that morning, at about ten o'clock, orders had just been issued that the men might cook their _soupe_--since they might not be able to do so later on--when a general flutter was occasioned by the departure of some more troops, General Bordas's brigade, which took the same road as the Hussars. What was up? Were they all going to start? Wouldn't they be allowed to have a quiet meal now that the pots were on the fires? Some of the officers thereupon explained that Bordas's brigade had simply received orders to occupy Buzancy, a few miles away, whilst others, it must be admitted, asserted that the Hussars had come in contact with a large force of the enemy's cavalry, and that the brigade had been sent to the front to extricate them. Maurice now enjoyed a few delightful hours of repose. He had stretched himself out in a field, where the regiment was encamped halfway up the height, and, numbed as it were with fatigue, he lay there gazing over the verdant valley of the Aisne, with its meadows dotted with tufts of trees through which the river slowly coursed. In front of him Vouziers was reared, built in amphitheatral fashion, and closing the valley, its roofs rising one above the other, crowned by the dome-covered tower and the tapering steeple of the church. Down below, near the bridge, the tannery chimneys were smoking, whilst at the other end of the town the buildings of a large mill, white with flour, were to be seen among the foliage on the river bank. And this view of the little town, rising above the tall rushes, was in Maurice's eyes invested with a tender charm as though he had again become a sensitive being, a dreamer. His youth seemed to be coming back to him, the days long past which he had spent at Vouziers at the time when his home was at Le Chêne, his native place. For an hour or so he forgot everything else.