Next day it was our business to report to Captain Brackenbury. After filling up forms, answering questions, and submitting to a deal of red tape, we were handed our pay up to date and a month in advance. Here we learned that the French Society, under whose patronage we had started from Paris, was now disorganised, and had stopped supplies. Not only were its funds exhausted, but its Ambulances had failed to render efficient service on the field of battle. Although we had now joined the English Society, and, in consequence, were associated also with the Prussians, it was a graceful act on the part of the Vice-President of the French Association to make his acknowledgments, as he did, for the assistance which we had given to his countrymen in our Hospitals around Sedan. At noon on the 8th of October, we received orders to hold ourselves in readiness; and great excitement arose when it was noised abroad that the Prussians had cut the line between Lille and Brussels. Thus, we might have to go round by London, in order to reach Paris. We ascertained, however, that the line had not yet been injured, although the enemy had come into its immediate neighbourhood near the town of Lille. In the evening, therefore, we quitted Brussels by train, taking with us stores, waggons, and horses. The journey to Lille was a short one, and from thence we travelled by Douai and Arras to Amiens, where we halted for a few hours to eat and sleep until the next train set out for Rouen. At daybreak we resumed our expedition, and as we entered Normandy the whole aspect of the country, which had been hitherto flat and monotonous, changed for the better. The red-brick houses, some tiled, some thatched, reminded me a little of villages I had remarked in my journey from London to Holyhead; but here most of the houses had timber built into them, which made them more quaint and picturesque. CHAPTER XI. AT ROUEN.--ON THE ROAD TO PARIS.--IN THE WOODS AMONG THE FRANCS-TIREURS.--TAKEN FOR SPIES.--A REFUGEE FENIAN.--TO MANTES. We arrived in Rouen at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th, and found the town full of Gardes Mobiles, who were marching about in civilian dress, but armed to the teeth. Our few hours of sight-seeing next day were not long in coming to an end; but on going to the Railway Terminus, we heard that a telegram had just been received, saying that the Prussians had torn up the line to Paris, and we could travel no further.