Bourmont is a city set upon a hill, a hill that rises so sharply, so suddenly, that no motor vehicle is allowed to take the straight road up its side, but must follow the roundabout route at the back. Already we have heard tales about our hill; one of them being of a lad belonging to a company of engineers stationed here, who in a spendthrift mood, being disinclined to climb the hill one night after having dined at the café at its foot, bribed an old Frenchman with a fifty franc note to wheel him to the summit in a wheelbarrow. The Frenchman, for whose powers one must have great respect, achieved the feat eventually, the spectators agreeing the ride a bargain at the price. Two-thirds of the way up the hill on the steep street called grandiosely _Le Faubourg de France_ we have our billet, at the home of Monsieur and Madame Chaput. These are an adorable old couple; Madame a stately yet lovably gentle soul, Monsieur le Commandant, a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and member of the _Légion d’Honneur_. His wonderful old uniforms with their scarlet trousers and gold epaulets rub elbows with my whipcord in the wardrobe. Outside, the Maison Chaput resembles all the other houses which, built one adjoining another, present a solid grey plaster front on each side of the street. Like all the rest it has two doors, one opening into the house and one into the stable, and like every other house on the street the doors bear little boards with the billeting capacity of house and stable stenciled on them, so many _Hommes_, so many _Off._ (for _Officiers_). It is told how one lad after walking the length of the street exclaimed; “Gee! Looks as if this were Dippyville. There’s one or two off in every house!” Another boy gazing ruefully at the sign on his billet door, groaned; “Twelve homes! Why, there ain’t one there!” One stable door nearby wears the legend in large scrawling letters; “Sherman was right.” At first the owner was furious at this defacement of his property, but when someone explained the significance of the words to him, he became mollified and even took a pride in them. “Where are you stopping?” asks one boy of another. “Me? Oh, at the Hotel de Barn, four manure-heaps straight ahead and two to the right.” The distinguishing feature of the Maison Chaput is the corner-stone. This shows as a white stone tablet at one side of the door. On it is carved “Laid by the hand of Emil Chaput, aged one year. Anno. 1842.” It is the same Emil Chaput who with his tiny baby hand “laid” the corner-stone who is now our genial host. “It is droll,” said Madame; “When strangers come to town they must always stop and read the corner-stone. They think the tablet is placed there to mark the birthplace of some famous man.”