ntention being obvious. Moreover, a French hussar,
who had been wounded in the arm and taken prisoner, said to the
priest, while asking him for absolution: "I am going to be shot, and
it will be your turn next." After having done as the soldier asked
him, the priest, unbuttoning his cassock, went and took his place
between the Mayor and another of his fellow-citizens, against a wall
along which the hostages were lined up; but at this moment two French
_chasseurs a cheval_ suddenly arrived, and the doctors, with their
ambulance staff, surrendered to these soldiers, near whom the hussar
had hastened to place himself.

As showing the responsibility of officers of high rank for these
proceedings, it is interesting to note that the schoolmaster at Sancy,
when he was about to be taken off with the others, was allowed to
retain his freedom as a favor by General von Dutag, who was quartered
on him.

On the 6th of the same month, after having set on fire some of the
houses in Courtacon, a body of soldiers, believed to belong to the
Imperial Guard, took five men and a child of thirteen out into the
fields, and exposed them to the French fire so long as the engagement
lasted. In the confines of the same commune, Edmond Rousseau, liable
to serve in the 1914 class, was arrested for the sole reason that his
age marked him out as being on the eve of being called up to the
colors, and was murdered under tragic circumstances.

The Mayor, who was one of the hostages, when questioned as to the
position of this youth from the military point of view, replied that
Rousseau had passed the medical examination, that he had been declared
fit for service, but that his class had not yet been called up. The
Germans thereupon made the prisoner strip, in order to satisfy
themselves of his physical condition, then put his trousers on again,
and shot him within fifty meters of his fellow-citizens.

The town of Coulommiers has suffered considerable pillage. Plate,
linen, and boots were taken away, principally from empty houses, and a
large number of bicycles were loaded on motor wagons. The Germans
occupied this place from the 5th to the 7th of September. On this day
before they left they arrested, without any pretext, the Mayor and the
Procureur de la Republique, and an officer grossly insulted them.
These two officials were kept in custody until the next morning,
together with the Secretary of the Mairie. Guards were set over the
Procureur during