The hostages were led away towards Châlons. "_It was evident_," said one of them in his statement before the Commission of Enquiry, "_that on account of his age and feebleness, Abbé Oudin could not walk far. We were obliged to carry him, so to speak. Near Coole (7 km. to the north of Sompuis) our escort made us halt, and two soldiers who had seen a butcher's cart standing abandoned in a field, dragged it on the road, and said: 'Get in, Curé.' The poor man was so feeble that he was unable to do so. The Germans tipped up the cart, and as the back did not open, they made the old priest sit on the edge, then raised the shafts so quickly that he fell on his back into the bottom of the cart, his feet in the air. The old servant got up beside him, and the Germans made signs to us to put ourselves between the shafts and to drag the cart. As we set out, they all threw their haversacks on the top of the Abbé and his servant, as they would have thrown them on to a bundle of hay._" The hostages thus traversed Châlons and arrived at Suippes, where, in the rain, they spent the night out of doors, in the playground of the school. "_At Vouziers, during the whole of Sunday, the 13th_," declared a witness, "_Abbé Oudin was unceasingly ill-treated by the German officers, as well as by the soldiers, but principally by the officers. The latter came in large numbers, and each of them, in passing, spat in the Abbé's face or struck him with their riding whips. I saw officers and soldiers kick the poor man with their spurs. He was so weak that he no longer stirred, in spite of all that he must have been suffering. I saw soldiers, too, strike him with the butt-end of their rifles; but I insist that the officers were worse than the men. These atrocities only ended in the evening. Abbé Oudin passed the night lying on the ground like us; we hardly heard him once complain._" [Illustration: GRAVES AT SOMPUIS] The Abbé's old servant did not escape ill-treatment either. On the Sedan Road, in Tannay Church, four soldiers seized her, threw her into a blanket of which they held the four corners, and tossed her on to the altar steps; then, laying hold of her again, they threw her into the midst of the seats, not troubling about the piercing cries which her many bruises drew from her. Sedan was Abbé Oudin's last stage; there death put an end to his sufferings. His servant, after careful nursing in the hospice, recovered, but another victim, a hostage named Mougeot, aged 72, succumbed to the results of German brutality. He was brought in a hand-cart to Pafert barracks, with four ribs broken by kicks, and thrown on to a bundle of straw, where he soon expired. [Illustration: HOUSES DESTROYED IN HUIRON]