her
end of the valley in which it lay by two enormous fires of burning
houses. But, above, the stars shone down peacefully from the blue vault
of heaven on the terrible picture of carnage below; and, as the smoke of
the gunpowder cleared away, the different points of the struggle could
be clearly picked out by reason of the heaps of corpses and dead horses,
piled beneath overturned cannon and broken limbers, shattered needle-
guns and chassepots, all of which were scattered around pell-mell in
endless profusion.

"Water, water, for the love of God!" was the heartrending cry that
proceeded everywhere from yet living men hidden among hecatombs of the
slain, as they heard the footsteps of the ambulance corps and their
helpers. Really, the task was an endless one, to try to relieve the
misery around; for, hardly had one wounded wretch been saved from being
buried alive in the mountain of dead under which he writhed, than an
appeal for aid was heard in another direction--and yet again another,
until the bearers and relief corps themselves became exhausted. Each
required forty pairs of hands instead of one!

It was terrible work to go over the scene of slaughter in cold blood,
with no fever of excitement to blot out the hideous details, now
displaying themselves in all their naked reality! Conspicuously, in
front of La Villette, were to be seen the white trimmings of the
uniforms of the Prussian Imperial Guards; the red trousers of the French
line; the shining helmets of the cuirassiers, whose breastplates were
all torn and dented with shot, as if they had been ploughed over; while
the wind, now rising as the night progressed towards morning, rustled
the myriad leaves of white paper that had escaped from out of the French
staff carriages, blowing them across the valley, like a flock of sea-
gulls fluttering on the bosom of the breeze.

As the day broke, the bright beams of the rising sun lit up the field of
battle, only to disclose its horrors the more unmistakably. The rays of
light, flashing on the exposed sword blades and bayonet points,
reflected little radiant gleams of brightness; but, the hands of those
who wielded them so valiantly not many hours agone were now cold and
cramped in the agony of death, alas! Sad bruised eyes glared out from
disfigured faces under torn-open breasts, appearing to look up to where
the stars only so recently twinkled down, vainly asking Providence why
it had put the lightning into