They had not received so much as a ration of bread on the whole journey; the Germans devoured everything! They would have seen our poor fellows--whom they had compelled to bear the burden of their baggage--they would have seen them drop with weariness and starvation before their eyes, without giving them a drop of water! But for our unhappy invaded Lorraine brothers, who fed them out of their own poverty, they would have perished, every one. This is the truth! We experienced it ourselves not long afterward; for the same fate was reserved to us. After the passage of these miserable creatures, to whom I gave a little bread--though we had scarcely any left, since the Germans, only two days before, had robbed us of twenty-seven loaves just fresh out of the oven--after this melancholy sight, we saw coming with a terrible clatter and ringing of sabres, one after the other, three Prussian aides-de-camp, who were announced to us; the first as a colonel, the second a general, and the third I cannot remember what--a duke, a prince, something of that kind! It was the colonel whom I had the honor, as they called it, to entertain, Colonel Waller, of the 10th regiment of Silesian grenadiers; and then followed the general, who did me the honor to sup at my house at my expense. This man's name was Macha-Cowsky. They had the pleasure of informing us that that very night Phalsbourg was going to be thoroughly shelled. Those gentlemen are full of the greatest delicacy; they imagined that this good news was going to delight me, my wife, and my daughter! The flag of the Silesian grenadiers was brought into the colonel's apartment. This regiment was arriving from the Austrian frontier; it had waited for the declaration of neutrality of the good Catholics down there, to come by rail and unite with the twelve army corps which were invading us with so much glory. I learned this by overhearing their conversation. That was a very bad night for us. The officers wanted to be waited on separately, one after the other; my poor wife was obliged to cook for them, to bring them plates--in a word, to be their servant; and Gredel, in spite of her indignation, was helping her mother, pale with passion and biting her lips to keep it down. The general and the colonel took their supper at nine, the aide-de-camp at ten; and so forth all the night through, without giving a thought to the exhaustion and trouble of the poor women. They were laughing a good deal over what Monsieur le Cure of Wilsberg had said the night before; who had told them that the misfortunes of Napoleon had arisen from his withdrawing his troops from Rome, and that "whoever ate of the Pope would burst asunder!" They enjoyed these words and had great fun over them. I, in my corner, came to the conclusion that from a fool you must expect nothing but folly.