the
general, Felix Douay, had with him at the time. The 1st division had
been ordered to Froeschwiller the day before; the 3d was still at Lyons,
and it had been decided to leave Belfort and hurry to the front with
the 2d division, the reserve artillery, and an incomplete division
of cavalry. Fires had been seen at Lorrach. The _sous-prefet_ at
Schelestadt had sent a telegram announcing that the Prussians were
preparing to pass the Rhine at Markolsheim. The general did not like
his unsupported position on the extreme right, where he was cut off from
communication with the other corps, and his movement in the direction
of the frontier had been accelerated by the intelligence he had received
the day before of the disastrous surprise at Wissembourg. Even if he
should not be called on to face the enemy on his own front, he felt that
he was likely at any moment to be ordered to march to the relief of the
1st corps. There must be fighting going on, away down the river near
Froeschwiller, on that dark and threatening Saturday, that ominous 6th
of August; there was premonition of it in the sultry air, and the stray
puffs of wind passed shudderingly over the camp as if fraught with
tidings of impending evil. And for two days the division had believed
that it was marching forth to battle; the men had expected to find the
Prussians in their front, at the termination of their forced march from
Belfort to Mulhausen.

The day was drawing to an end, and from a remote corner of the camp the
rattling drums and the shrill bugles sounded retreat, the sound dying
away faintly in the distance on the still air of evening. Jean Macquart,
who had been securing the tent and driving the pegs home, rose to his
feet. When it began to be rumored that there was to be war he had left
Rognes, the scene of the bloody drama in which he had lost his wife,
Francoise and the acres that she brought him; he had re-enlisted at the
age of thirty-nine, and been assigned to the 106th of the line, of which
they were at that time filling up the _cadres_, with his old rank of
corporal, and there were moments when he could not help wondering how
it ever came about that he, who after Solferino had been so glad to quit
the service and cease endangering his own and other people's lives, was
again wearing the _capote_ of the infantry man. But what is a man to do,
when he has neither trade nor calling, neither wife, house, nor home,
and his heart is heavy with mingled ra