After the passage of the German armies, our unhappy country was, as it were, walled round with a rampart of silence; for all the men who were blockading Phalsbourg, and the few detachments which were still passing with provisions, stores, flocks of sheep, and herds of oxen through the valley, were under orders not to speak to us, but leave us to the influence of fear. We received no more newspapers, no more letters, nor the least fragment of intelligence from the interior. We could hear the bombardment of Strasbourg when the wind blew from the Rhine. All was in flames down there; but, as no one dared to come and go, on account of the enemy's posts placed at every point, nothing was known. Melancholy and grief were killing us. No one worked. What was the use of working, when the bravest, the most industrious, the most thrifty saw the fruit of their labor devoured by innumerable brigands? Men almost regretted having done their duty by their children, in depriving themselves of necessaries, to feed in the end such base wretches as these. They would say: "Is there any justice left in the world? Are not upright men, tender mothers of families, and dutiful children, fools? Would it not be better to become thieves and rogues at once? Do not all the rewards fall to the brutish? Are not those hypocrites who preach religion and mercy? Our only duty is to become the strongest. Well, let us be the strongest; let us pass over the bodies of our fellow-creatures, who have done us no harm; let us spy, cheat, and pillage: if we are the strongest, we shall be in the right." Here is the list of the requisitions, made in the poorest cabins, for every Prussian who lodged there: judge what must have been our misery. "For every man lodging with you, you will have to furnish daily 750 grammes of bread, 500 grammes of meat, 250 grammes of coffee, 60 grammes of tobacco, or five cigars, a half litre of wine, or a litre of beer, or a tenth part of a litre of eau-de-vie. Besides, for every horse, twelve kilos of oats, five kilos of hay, and two and a half kilos of straw."* * Bread, about 2 lbs.; meat, 1-1/2 lbs.; coffee, 8 oz.; tobacco, 2 oz.; wine, 3/4 pint; or beer, 1-1/2 pints; oats, 26 lbs., etc. Every one will say, "How was it possible for unfortunate peasants to supply all that? It is impossible." Well, no. The Prussians did get it, in this wise: They made excursions to the very farthest farms, they carried off everything, hay, straw; elsewhere they carried off the cattle; elsewhere, corn; elsewhere, again, wine, eau-de-vie, beer; elsewhere they demanded contributions in money. Every man gave up what he had to give, so that by the end of the campaign there was nothing left. Yes, indeed! We were comfortable before this war; we were rich without knowing it. Never had I supposed that we had in our country such quantities of hay, so many head of cattle.