"He was charged with having climbed the tower of the cathedral to signal to the British lines. He who so suffered from rheumatism that he could hardly walk from his doorway to the church, a few paces away, by the aid of a cane. He was insulted by the officer, the soldiers who held him up before his questioner spat in his face. At length his shoes and clothes were stripped from him, and with great brutality he was thrown into a cellar, where he spent the night, with some potato bags to cover him. In the morning the door above was flung open, and a number of captives were thrown down the steep steps of the cellar way. These were Milliardet, Jourdin, Vapaille, Therré, Croix, Eugene Leriche, Lacour, Jules Denis, Berthelemy Denis, Merillon, Combes, Mesnil, Liévin, Faure and his son, aged fifteen, who was baker's boy in the village of Vareddes, and known under the nickname of 'Marmiton.' "To this group the Germans added later in the day Paul Lebel and Vincent Denis, arrested because the latter called out to a German soldier, 'Eh, well, old man, you are not yet at Paris!' "On Saturday, without feeding them or allowing any one to visit them, all these unfortunates were divided into several groups, and surrounded by soldiers, hustled along the road to Lizy-sur-Ourcy, where they were halted. "They numbered now fifteen in all, not counting the old priest, the Abbé Fossin. "Père Leriche, who was himself seventy-four years old, relates that the Abbé, who lay prostrate on the ground beside him, said to him in a low voice, 'I believe that they are going to shoot me--take my watch and breviary, and try and get them to my family.' When the march was resumed the Abbé could not walk fast enough to suit the soldiers. He was pushed and struck by them, his soutane was torn to ribbons. Finally they threw him into a wagon which they seized on the road. In this he lay groaning. He died a short time later, and was left beside the road. The heat was atrocious; thus they marched, the younger ones sustaining the elders, through the long hours to the rear, without water or food, insulted and beaten constantly by their captors. "At Coulomb, Père Jourdain fell in the road, unable to continue the march. He was immediately dispatched by a revolver shot. "At Chézy-en-Orxois, another old man, Milliardet, eighty years old, was similarly disposed of. Any complaint was the signal of death. Both Terry and Croix were shot for whistling. "Old Eugene Menie, who halted on the edge of a deep ditch, was struck by the butt of a gun in the hands of one of the soldiers, and his neck broken--they threw him into the ditch and went on. "Père Liévin, aged sixty-one, who had heart disease, could not keep step with the others; he was purple in the face, and his eyes stuck out so comically that it amused the soldiers, who finally shot him and left his body at the cemetery gate in Chauny."