wilderness of German domination, was once more in the hands of the French. The inhabitants received their long-hoped-for deliverance with every sign of frantic delight. The uprooted frontier-posts were carried in triumph through the flag-decked streets, flowers were rained on the heads of the triumphant troops, every one was cheering or in tears, and in the general tumult of joy and excitement no one apparently stopped to consider the remarkable ease with which the victory had been won or the extent of the guile which the retreat might possibly conceal. CHAPTER VIII OCCUPATIONS OF MULHOUSE Encouraged by their success at Altkirch, the French set out early next morning for Mulhouse, ten miles further down the valley of the Ill. The troops which had descended the previous day on Thann also advanced by way of Cernay, and along the twelve-mile front between Thann and Altkirch the whole way to Mulhouse no trace of the Germans was seen except their deserted entrenchments. At one o’clock a small patrol of dragoons trotted up to the Hotel de Ville, and after a momentary halt clattered away again to report that not a single German soldier was left in the town. As a matter of fact, they were not, however, very far off, and the dragoons had hardly disappeared when a squad of Bavarian infantry marched into the principal square, seized a tramway car which was standing in front of the town-hall, and forced the driver to follow the dragoons, breaking the windows of the car as they went to make convenient rests for their rifles. By chance, however, they took the Brunstatt or south road out of the town, whereas the dragoons had gone west along the Dornach road, so that after a short and fruitless journey, they thought it wiser to turn back and join the main body on the further side of the town, once more leaving it empty of all but the civilian inhabitants, who by this time were in a state of the wildest excitement. After that there was another long wait till after six o’clock, and then, at last, a couple of platoons of dragoons and Chasseurs-à-cheval came riding in along the Dornach road, and the whole population turned out to greet them and the main body, which followed a quarter of an hour behind them, with the same extravagant manifestations of delight and enthusiasm as at Altkirch on the previous day. That was on the Saturday evening, during which the French took up their position on the heights at Rixheim, about two miles east of the town, their front protected by the road and railway which curve down southwards to Basle, the Germans being a few miles north of them along the Rhone-Rhine canal towards Neu-Brisach and also in the Hardt (a big forest about twenty miles long between Mulhouse and the Rhine) on their right.