He had lain flat on his stomach to escape a bomb, and found it impossible to get up again. I had all the difficulty in the world to set him on his legs; his paunch was three times its former size. He told me that he was serving on the commissariat, and that he was on his way to offer some oxen to the Prince of Waldeck. In addition to this, he carried a rosary. Hugues Métel[100] tells of a wolf which resolved to embrace the monastic condition, but which, failing to accustom itself to the fasting diet, became a canon. As I returned to camp, an officer of engineers passed close by me, leading his horse by the bridle; a cannon-ball struck the animal in the narrowest part of the neck and cut it right off; the head and neck remained hanging in the officer's hand and dragged him to the ground with their weight. I had seen a bomb fall in the middle of a ring of naval officers who were sitting eating in a circle. The mess-platter disappeared; the officers, tumbling head over heels and run, as it were, on a sand-bank, shouted like the old sea captain: "Fire starboard guns, fire larboard guns, fire all guns, fire my wig!" These singular shots seem to pertain to Thionville. In 1558, François de Guise[101] laid siege to the place. Marshal Strozzi[102] was killed, "while talking in the trenches to the aforesaid Sieur de Guise, who had his hand on his shoulder at the time." * [Sidenote: Market in camp.] A sort of market had been formed behind our camp. The peasants had brought octaves of white Moselle wine, which remained on the wagons: the horses were taken out and ate fastened to one end of the cart, while the soldiers drank at the other end. Here and there gleamed the fires of ovens. Sausages were fried in pans, hasty puddings boiled in basins, pancakes tossed on iron dishes, puffcakes swollen out on hampers. Cakes flavoured with aniseed, rye loaves at one sou, maize cakes, green apples, red and white eggs, pipes and tobacco were sold under a tree from whose branches hung coarse cloth great-coats, for which the passers-by haggled. Village women, seated astride portable stools, milked cows, while each presented his cup to the dairy-woman and waited his turn. Before the stoves roamed cutlers in smocks and soldiers in uniform. The canteen-women went about crying aloud in German and French. There were groups standing, others seated at deal tables planted askew on the uneven ground. One sought shelter at random under a packing cloth or under branches cut in the forest, as on Palm Sunday. I believe also that there were weddings in the covered wagons, in memory of the Frankish kings. The patriots could easily have followed Majorian's[103] example and carried away the bride's chariot: _Rapit esseda victor, nubentemque nurum._[104] All sang, laughed, smoked. The scene was extremely gay at night, between the fires which lit up the earth and the stars shining overhead.