"Look, Christian," said my cousin, pulling a paper out of his pocket; "the armies of Bourbaki and Garibaldi are surrendered by this armistice. Manteuffel has come down from Paris with 80,000 men to occupy the passes of the Jura in their rear: the unfortunate men are caught as in a vice, between him and Werder; and all who have escaped from the hands of the Prussians and taken service again, like our poor Mobiles of Phalsbourg, will be shot!" While cousin was speaking, Gredel had come downstairs, without even putting on her slippers; she was leaning against him, as pale as death, trying to read over his shoulder; when suddenly she tore the paper from his hands. George wished he had said nothing; but it was too late! Gredel, after having read with clinched teeth, ran off like a mad woman, uttering fearful screams: "Oh! the wretches! ... Oh! my poor Jean Baptiste! ... Oh! the thieves! ... Oh! my poor Jean Baptiste!" She seemed to be seeking something to fight with. And as we stood confounded at her outcries, I said: "Gredel, for Heaven's sake don't scandalize us in this way. The people will hear you from the other end of the village!" She answered in a fury: "Hold your tongue! You are the cause of it all!" "I!" said I, indignantly. "Yes, you!" she shrieked, with a terrible flashing in her eyes: "you, with your Plebiscite; deceiving everybody by promising them peace! You deserve to be along with Bazaine and the rest of them." And my wife cried: "That girl will be the death of us." She had sat down upon the stairs. Marie Anne, with her hands clasped, said: "Do forgive her; her mind is going." Never had I felt so humbled; to be treated thus by my own daughter! But Gredel respected nothing now; and Cousin George, trying to get in a word, she exclaimed: "You! you! an old soldier! Are you not ashamed of staying here, instead of going to fight? The Landwehr are as old as you, with their gray hairs and their spectacles; they don't make speeches; they all march. And that's why we are beaten!" At last I became furious; and I was looking for my cowhide behind the door, to bring her to her senses, when, unfortunately, a Landwehr came in to ask if the flour was ready. The moment Gredel caught sight of him, she uttered such a savage shriek that my ears still tingle with it, and in a second she had laid hold of her hatchet; George had scarcely time to seize her by her twisted back hair, when the hatchet had flown from her hand, whizzing through the air, and was quivering three inches deep in the door-post. The Landwehr, an elderly man, with great eyes and a red nose, had seen the steel flash past close to his ear; he had heard it whiz, and as Gredel was struggling with George, crying: "Oh, the villain; I have missed him!" he turned, and ran off at the top of his speed. I ran to the mill-dam, supposing he was going to the mayor's, but no, he ran a great deal farther than that, and never stopped till he reached Wechem.