Maurice hesitated, and was unable to answer. According to what he had read at Rheims, it seemed to him difficult that the third German army, commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia, could be at Vouziers when a couple of days previously it appeared to have encamped in the vicinity of Vitry-le-François. There had certainly been some mention of a fourth army, under the orders of the Crown Prince of Saxony, which was to operate on the Meuse; and probably it was this one that they were about to encounter, though the rapidity of the occupation of Grand-Pré astonished him, as the Meuse was so far away. Maurice's ideas became altogether confused, however, when, to his stupefaction, he heard General Bourgain-Desfeuilles asking a peasant of Falaise whether the Meuse did not pass by Buzancy, and whether there were not some strong bridges there. Moreover, in his serene ignorance, the general asserted that they were about to be attacked by a column of one hundred thousand men coming from Grand-Pré, whilst another of sixty thousand was advancing by way of Ste. Menehould. 'And your foot?' asked Jean, addressing Maurice. 'I no longer feel it,' the latter replied, with a laugh. 'If we fight, I shall be all right.' This was true; such intense nervous excitement buoyed him up that he no longer seemed to tread the ground. To think that he had not burnt a cartridge since the campaign began! He had marched to the frontier, he had spent that terrible night of anguish before Mulhausen, without seeing a Prussian, without firing a shot; and then he had been obliged to retreat, first to Belfort, and then to Rheims; and now for five days past he had again been marching to meet the enemy, and his chassepot was still immaculate, unused. He experienced an increasing need, a slowly gathering longing to level his gun and fire at anyone or anything, in order to ease his nerves. During the six weeks or so that had elapsed since he had enlisted in a spasm of enthusiasm, imagining that he would fight the very next day, he had only employed his poor delicate feet in running away and tramping along, afar from any field of battle. Thus it happened that amid the feverish expectancy of the entire corps, he was one of those who consulted with the most impatience that Grand-Pré road, which stretched far away into the distance in a straight line between two rows of lovely trees. The valley where the Aisne coursed like a silver ribbon among the poplars and the willows, was spread out below him; but his eyes returned perforce to the road lying yonder.