“Ja! Ja!” cried the Uhlan, stepping in lively style out of the blanket to avoid another prod of the lance. He was immediately recognised as the ruffian who had taken the key of the inn cellar, and had pleaded war as an excuse for non-payment of his score. He was searched, and on him were found 2,000 francs, which had doubtless been stolen. On Sunday the Germans set fire to the stables and granaries of the modest little château, whose owner was absent, and next day they tried to burn some of the houses and shops, but were in too great a hurry to set them alight. On Monday morning they posted their artillery on a height commanding the road to the west along which the French cavalry was advancing. But the enemy did not wait to be attacked. After firing a few shots they removed the guns to another hill on the east, only to abandon it promptly. Then they rode away, leaving in the village seven killed, twenty-three wounded, and fourteen drunken brigands. As they retired the Germans thrust their lances into the bodies of two wounded French soldiers. The German wounded were cared for by the villagers. One of them, said a young Frenchwoman, “was a very pretty boy—a noble, I feel sure. He was shot through the chest, and offered thousands of marks for a motor-car to take him to hospital. But we don’t take money for services of that kind.” The enemy took with them all the motor-cars and bicycles, many of the horses and carts, all the petrol, wine, tobacco, jam and provisions. They killed many sheep and cattle, and kept the village baker busy night and day, with a revolver at his head and a bayonet at his back to prevent him from falling asleep. They cleaned out the shop of the jeweller and watchmaker. In all the best houses were remnants of interrupted feasts—stumps of cigars that had burned holes in the table-covers, half-empty champagne and liqueur bottles, broken bread, and the remains of chickens and omelettes. Silver was missing, though plated goods were left, for they appear to have a nice taste in such articles also. The next village, Courtaçon, about eight miles to the south of La Ferté, fared even worse. When I entered between its smoking walls and smouldering hayricks, I was met by a weeping woman. “They have killed my son—my only son!” He was a mere boy, and the German soldiers shot him dead as he sat at table by his mother’s side. All the farmsteads, the gendarmerie, all the best houses were heaps of burning ruins. The Germans set fire to them before they fled; they shot horses and cattle, they threatened the unarmed villagers with death, and they put the mayor at the head of their retreating column. Courtaçon looked as though it had been disembowelled and thrown to the flames.