s was standing by the base of the bronze statue of Turenne,
making heroic efforts to keep his eyes open. When he recognized Jean he
murmured:

"Ah, is it you, corporal? Where are your men?"

Jean, by a gesture expressive in its vagueness, intimated that he did
not know, but Pache, pointing to Lapoulle, answered with tears in his
eyes:

"Here we are; there are none left but us two. The merciful Lord have
pity on our sufferings; it is too hard!"

The other, the colossus with the colossal appetite, looked hungrily at
Jean's hands, as if to reproach them for being always empty in those
days. Perhaps, in his half-sleeping state, he had dreamed that Jean was
away at the commissary's for rations.

"D----n the luck!" he grumbled, "we'll have to tighten up our belts
another hole!"

Gaude, the bugler, was leaning against the iron railing, waiting for the
lieutenant's order to sound the assembly; sleep came to him so suddenly
that he slid from his position and within a second was lying flat on his
back, unconscious. One by one they all succumbed to the drowsy influence
and snored in concert, except Sergeant Sapin alone, who, with his little
pinched nose in his small pale face, stood staring with distended eyes
at the horizon of that strange city, as if trying to read his destiny
there.

Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse and
seated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order.

"Corporal, you will--you will--"

And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips,
and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber.

Jean, not caring to share his comrades' fate and pillow his head on the
hard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in which to sleep.
At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite side of
the square, he caught a glimpse of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already
half-undressed and on the point of tasting the luxury of clean white
sheets. Why should he be more self-denying than the rest of them? he
asked himself; why should he suffer longer? And just then a name came
to his recollection that caused him a thrill of delight, the name of
the manufacturer in whose employment Maurice's brother-in-law was. M.
Delaherche! yes, that was it. He accosted an old man who happened to be
passing.

"Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?"

"In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can't
mistake it; it is