oldiers.

At Triaucourt the Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses.
Angered doubtless by the remark which an officer had addressed to a
soldier, against whom a young girl of 19, Mlle. Helene Proces, had
made complaint on account of the indecent treatment to which she had
been subjected, they burned the village and made a systematic massacre
of the inhabitants. They began by setting fire to the house of an
inoffensive householder, M. Jules Gand, and by shooting this
unfortunate man just as he was leaving his house to escape the flames;
then they dispersed among the houses in the streets, firing their
rifles on every side. A young man of 17, Georges Lecourtier, who tried
to escape, was shot. M. Alfred Lallemand suffered the same fate; he
was pursued into the kitchen of his fellow-citizen, Tautelier, and
murdered there, while Tautelier received three bullets in his hand.

Fearing, not without reason, for their lives, Mlle. Proces, her
mother, her grandmother of 71, and her old aunt of 81, Mlle. Laure
Mennehand, tried with the help of a ladder to cross the trellis which
separates their garden from a neighboring property. The young girl
alone was able to reach the other side and to avoid death by hiding in
the cabbages. As for the other women, they were struck down by rifle
shots. The village cure collected the brains of Mlle. Mennehand on the
ground on which they were strewn, and had the bodies carried into
Proces's house. During the following night the Germans played the
piano near the bodies.

While the carnage raged, the fire rapidly spread and devoured
thirty-five houses. An old man of 70, Jean Lecourtier, and a child of
two months perished in the flames. M. Igier, who was trying to save
his cattle, was pursued for 300 meters by soldiers, who fired at him
ceaselessly. By a miracle this man had the good fortune not to be
wounded, but five bullets went through his trousers. When the cure,
Viller, expressed his indignation at the treatment inflicted upon his
parish to the Duke of Wuerttemburg, who was lodged in the village, the
latter replied: "What would you have? We have bad soldiers just as you
have."

In the same commune an attempt at rape was made which was unsuccessful
by reason of the obstinate and courageous resistance of the victim.
Three Germans made the attempt on Mme. D., 47 years old. Further, an
old woman of 75, Mme. Maupoix, was kicked so violently that she died a
few days afterward. While som