But what was my rage and indignation, when a captain, in the rear, who carried in his hand not a sword, but a thick cane, belaboured with it, again and again, any unfortunate who did not keep up with the rest! One of these poor fellows made a sign to me for something to drink. Swiftly as possible, I seized a large can of water which stood beside the window, and poured it slowly on the footway. Several that were near put their mouths under the little jet, and then began a sort of scramble for what one of them told me he had not tasted during fourteen hours. But their gallant leader, having dealt half a dozen blows at random with his stick among this thirsty crowd, dispersed them, indulging the while in strong language, and gesticulated at me in the most excited manner. However, the frame of mind I was in--to say nothing of my safe position--made me equal to the occasion. I complimented him on the able style in which _Monsieur le Maréchal_ used his _bâton_; and he slunk away, muttering curses, as he did so, at me and his men. This piece of excitement over, I went to the pontoon bridge, where the stream of soldiers continued to pour across. Although I had been on duty the previous night and all that day, I could not but stay up to watch this historic and interesting spectacle,--the retreat of 200,000 men, composing the whole Army of the Loire, across that river. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and they had been passing for hours. But the living current flowed on unceasingly during the night, until the last of the troops were over. When this had been accomplished, then the silence of the frosty scene was broken by the sound of hammers, hatchets, and saws; and the air resounded with the hacking and the chopping of the sappers, who were busily engaged cutting the moorings and the cross planks, while others set fire to the bridge in about a dozen places. Just at the same hour, there was a great tramp and rattle of horses and waggons over the permanent bridge to our right, caused by a number of batteries of artillery, which galloped furiously onwards in headlong career. They were the last of the fugitive army. The battle of Patay had been lost and won.