We had not been on the march an hour when a terrific explosion was heard, reverberating overhead. It was the mined fort which was blowing up. All the work of those last days was flying into the air in a re-echoing crash of bricks, ironwork, shells, and guns. Our labor was wiped out. Nevertheless, it had not been in vain. Thanks to its existence, the German army which had faced us had been retarded twenty-four hours in its advance. Indeed, their advance-guards had encountered that garrisoned fort, and had been obliged to await the arrival of artillery sufficient to reduce and take it. This delay had permitted the last French troops to retreat without trouble. They were safe when the fort, henceforth useless, blew up. It left nothing for the hand of the enemy, and its mission was accomplished. A battle would have added to our work nothing but blood. Our chiefs were wise in sparing that. It was not until later that we knew all this. At that moment we did not look so far. We pursued our way singing, in a deluge of rain, overtaking distracted fugitives along the route: exhausted old men, women carrying and leading children, who moved aside to make way for us, then stumbled in our wake. We passed through villages already deserted, a forsaken countryside where the rain beat down the fields of barley and ripe wheat. On we went. In passing, we gathered fruit from the trees. At the fountains and springs we drank water made turbid by the rain. We sang. We heard, somewhere, the roar of the cannon. We had no idea where it thundered so. It seemed ahead of us and behind us. As we saw nothing terrifying, as there was no visible evidence of a battle, we advanced constantly, quite light-hearted, without knowing that we were passing through one of the great battles of the beginning of the war, one of the decisive struggles which did much to retard the advance of the enemy; that our column, quite ignorant of events, was thus marching freely across the battle of Guise. That, at foundation, is not so impossible as might appear. Shortly after, we had occasion to verify such zones of silence in the midst of violent action. Yes, one may be in the midst of battle and not be aware of it. Even at Austerlitz the guard had not yet charged, half the troops had not broken a cartridge, when the battle was won.