However, let me go on with my proper theme. Immediately the darkness set in on the 3rd, the cannonading ceased. This night we snatched but a few hours' sleep; for, at the first dawn of daylight, a repetition of yesterday's performance began with redoubled vigour. From the belfry tower of our church, during the past two days, we had been able to get a fair idea how the battle was going. It commanded a fine view of the country around. But now that the Germans had driven the French back on the outskirts of the town we could see much more of the contest. Early on the 4th we beheld the whole cavalry, numbering about 3000 men, come down the Rue Royale and pass over the bridge on the Quai du Châtelet,--some at a swinging trot, others at a gallop. It was a rare sight, for here were represented men of every regiment in France--Cuirassiers, Lancers, Chasseurs d'Afrique and the rest. This host of armed men and horses, extending as far as the eye could reach (which was certainly half a mile), formed a _coup d'oeil_ not easily forgotten; and the clatter they made on the pavement, during their stampede, was loud enough to have been heard far outside the town. Towards evening I availed myself of a few minutes' leisure to ascend the church tower and watch the battle, which still continued. The roar of the fighting, which was now going on in the vineyards and entrenchments at the end of the Faubourg Bannier, baffles description. The heavy French marine guns were all going simultaneously, while on each side of the town the infantry also were in close conflict. Quite near us, at the end of our own Faubourg St. Vincent, just where the convent stood in which Miss Pearson and Miss McLoughlin were at work, the fighting seemed heaviest. On some portion of the ground that was not so thickly covered with vineyards, the dead were strewn in heaps, many being the victims of their own mitrailleuses which the Germans had captured, and were now using with more precision and deadly effect than their original possessors. But all this time, the French, though retreating, kept up a continuous and well-directed fire upon the advancing Prussians, whose losses, as we afterwards discovered, were quite as great as those of the vanquished. This they attributed themselves to the great tact and ability which the French marines displayed in the management of their heavy guns. But for these, indeed, as I have heard the French say, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for them to have covered the retreat of their army.