ly represents a small
proportion of the acts of the same kind in the Department of
Seine-et-Marne, was accomplished without the least tendency to
rebellion or the smallest act of resistance being recorded against the
inhabitants of the localities which are today more or less completely
destroyed. In some villages the Germans, before setting fire to them,
made one of their soldiers fire a shot from his rifle so as to be able
to pretend afterward that the civilian population had attacked them,
an allegation which is all the more absurd since at the time when the
enemy arrived the only inhabitants left were old men, sick persons, or
people absolutely without any means of aggression.

Numerous crimes against the person have also been committed. In the
majority of the communes hostages have been taken away; many of them
have not returned. At Sermaize-les-Bains, the Germans carried off
about 150 people, some of whom were decked out with helmets and coats
and compelled, thus equipped, to mount guard over the bridges.

At Bignicourt-sur-Saulx thirty men and forty-five women and children
were obliged to leave with a detachment. One of the men--a certain
Emile Pierre--has not returned nor sent any news of himself. At
Corfelix, M. Jacquet, who was carried off on the 7th of September with
eleven of his fellow-citizens, was found five hundred meters from the
village with a bullet in his head.

At Champuis the cure, his maid-servant, and four other inhabitants,
who were taken away the same day as the hostages of Corfelix, had not
returned at the time of our visit to the place.

At the same place an old man of 70, named Jacquemin, was tied down in
his bed by an officer and left in this state without food for three
days. He died a little time after.

At Vert-la-Gravelle a farm-hand was killed. He was struck on the head
with a bottle and his chest was run through with a lance.

The garde champetre Brulefer of le Gault-la-Foret was murdered at
Maclaunay, where he had been taken by the Germans. His body was found
with his head shattered and a wound on his chest.

At Champguyon, a commune which has been fired, a certain Verdier was
killed in his father-in-law's house. The latter was not present at the
execution, but he heard a shot and next day an officer said to him,
"Son shot. He is under the ruins." In spite of the search made the
body has not been found among them. It must have been consumed in the
fire.

At Sermaize, the roa