After the Germans had posted their infantry within the squares formed by the cavalry, they dragged guns and ammunition up the height of Wechem, in the rear of our hills. Then the thoughts of Jacob, and all our poor lads, whom they were going to shell, came upon us, and mother began to cry bitterly. Gredel, too, thinking of her Jean Baptiste, had become furious; if, by misfortune, we had had a gun in the house, she would have been quite capable of firing upon the Prussians, and so getting us all exterminated; she ran upstairs and downstairs, put her head out at the window, and a German having raised his head, saying, "Oh! what a pretty girl!" she shouted, "Be sure always to come out ten against one, or it will be all up with you!" I was downstairs, and you may imagine my alarm. I went up to beg her to be quiet, if she did not want the whole village to be destroyed; but she answered rudely, "I don't care--let them burn us all out! I wish I was in the town, and not with all these thieves." I went down quickly, not to hear more. The rain had begun to fall again, and these Prussians kept pouring in, by regiments, by squadrons: more than forty thousand men covered the plain; some formed in the fields, in the meadows, trampling down the second crop of grass and the potatoes--all our hopes were there under their feet! others went on their way; their wheels sunk into the clay, but they had such excellent horses that all went on under the lashes of their long whips, as the Germans use them. They climbed up all the slopes; the hedges and young trees were bent and broken everywhere. When might is right, and you feel yourself the weakest, silence is wisdom. The report ran that they were going to attack Phalsbourg in the afternoon; and our poor Mobiles, and our sixty artillery recruits pressed to serve the guns, were about to have a dreadful storm falling upon them, as a beginning to their experience. Those heaps of shells they were hurrying up to Wechem forced from us all cries of "Poor town! poor townspeople! poor women! poor children!" The rain increased, and the river overflowed its banks down all the valley from Graufthal to Metting. A few officers were walking down the street to look for shelter; I saw a good number go into Cousin George's, principally hussars, and at the same moment a gentleman in a round hat, black cloak and trousers, stepped before the mill and asked me: "Monsieur le Maire?" "I am the mayor." "Very good. I am the army chaplain, and I am come to lodge with you." I thought that better than having ten or fifteen scoundrels in my house; but he had scarcely closed his lips when another came, an officer of light horse, who cried: "His highness has chosen this house to lodge in." Very good--what could I reply? A brigadier, who was following this officer, springs off his horse, goes under the shed, and peeps into the stable. "Turn out all that," said he. "Turn out my horses, my cattle?" I exclaimed.