husiastic over his resistance, and was ready
to back up their pastor and to risk anything, as they looked upon that
silent protest as the safeguard of the national honor. It seemed to the
peasants that thus they had deserved better of their country than
Belfort and Strassburg, that they had set an equally valuable example,
and that the name of their little village would become immortalized by
that; but with that exception, they refused their Prussian conquerors
nothing.

The commandant and his officers laughed among themselves at that
inoffensive courage, and as the people in the whole country round showed
themselves obliging and compliant towards them, they willingly tolerated
their silent patriotism. Only little Baron Wilhelm would have liked to
have forced them to ring the bells. He was very angry at his superior's
politic compliance with the priest's scruples, and every day he begged
the commandant to allow him to sound "ding-dong, ding-dong," just once,
only just once, just by way of a joke. And he asked it like a wheedling
woman, in the tender voice of some mistress who wishes to obtain
something, but the commandant would not yield, and to console _herself_,
Mademoiselle Fifi made _a mine_ in the chateau.

The five men stood there together for some minutes, drawing in the moist
air, and at last, Lieutenant Fritz said, with a laugh: "The ladies will
certainly not have fine weather for their drive." Then they separated,
each to his own duties, while the captain had plenty to do in seeing
about the dinner.

When they met again, as it was growing dark, they began to laugh at
seeing each other as dandified and smart as on the day of a grand
review. The commandant's hair did not look so gray as it was in the
morning, and the captain had shaved, and had only kept his moustache
on, which made him look as if he had a streak of fire under his nose.

In spite of the rain, they left the window open, and one of them went to
listen from time to time, and at a quarter past six the baron said he
heard a rumbling in the distance. They all rushed down, and soon the
wagon drove up at a gallop with its four horses, which were splashed up
to their backs, steaming and panting, and five women got out at the
bottom of the steps, five handsome girls whom a comrade of the captain,
to whom _Le Devoir_ had taken his card, had selected with care.

They had not required much pressing, as they were sure of being well
paid, for they had got