"This, my good mother, comes to tell you that all is as well as can be, and that I arrived on Tuesday evening at Phalsbourg, just as they were closing the gates. The Cossacks were already on the side of Saverne; we had to keep up a constant fire all night against their vanguard. The next day, an envoy came to summon us to surrender the place. The governor, Meunier, made answer that he might go and hang himself elsewhere, and three days after great showers of bombs and howitzer-shells began to rain upon the town. The Russians have three batteries, one on the side of Mittelbronn, the other at the barracks above, and the third behind the tile-kiln of Pernette; but the red-hot shot did us the most harm; they burn the houses from bottom to top, and when some part is set fire to, then come the howitzer-shells in a body and hinder people from putting it out. The women and children do not leave the block houses; the inhabitants remain with us upon the ramparts; they are brave fellows; there are among them some old warriors of Sambre and Meuse, of Italy and Egypt, who have not forgotten their old skill. It made me sorry to see the old greybeards hard at work again with the guns. I warrant you, no bullet misses its mark with them. But, for all that, when you've made the world tremble, it's rather hard to be forced, in your last days, to defend your barrack and your last morsel of bread." "Yes, it is hard," put in Dame Catherine, wiping her eyes; "only to think of it makes one sorrowful." Then she continued:--