Now the difficulty was to find a place where I could lodge poor Melchers. I tried at the neighbouring houses, but all that were not occupied by invalids were full of the rank and file of the army now billeted through the town. Not a nook could I discover anywhere. In the yard, however, there was an empty stable, and into this I had no choice but to have Melchers conveyed. In order to give the place a less dreary appearance--it was dismal enough--I procured some straw, and had it laid on the pavement. He was then brought down on his mattress, and I never shall forget the poor fellow's face when he caught the first glimpse of those new quarters which he felt that he should not long occupy. When he found himself laid on the straw, alone, and separated from his companions perhaps for ever, the utter desolation of his fate dawned upon him, and he sobbed audibly. Yet he was a fine brave young fellow, with piercing black eyes, dark hair and whiskers, and a very high forehead. We were the best of friends; and I did all in my power, little enough as it was, to comfort him. I persuaded one of our nursing sisters, a native of Luxemburg, who belonged to the convent of Notre Dame de Recouvrance, to sit beside him on the straw, and talk to him for a while. However, both Soeur Berthe and I had soon to go about our own business, and leave him to himself. Day after day he complained bitterly of being where he was, in the damp and cold, but there was no help for it; his presence in the neighbourhood of any other wounded must have meant the death of many, if not of all. Once he called the sister and me to his bedside, and said: "My end is now not far off; I should die happy had I but one half-hour with my comrades, behind my gun, with a thousand Frenchmen in front of me". Another day and this poor fellow, after having bidden us a touching farewell,--for he knew that we could not help his unhappy position,--died in a manner and in a place that I should not have liked his poor old mother away across the Rhine to have seen. Yet melancholy as were the circumstances attending the death of this dauntless soldier, still more pitiable was the fate of many others as brave as he, who were condemned to drag out the last few hours of their existence on some bleak and lonely hillside, or in the thick brushwood skirting some silent forest, or in the swampy sedge beside some rivulet. Such tragedies were not uncommon during that stern winter which was now setting in, as I can but too surely bear witness. Always we were expecting to hear of an engagement taking place in our neighbourhood; but none happened until Thursday, the 24th November, when we learned from the military in command that hostilities had begun in the direction of Neuville. During the evening of this day, some of us were told off for field service, and made preparations to depart. I was among the number.