into the room and orders us to put on our campaign clothes
and to buckle on our knapsacks.

We learn ten minutes later that the Prussians are marching on Chalons.

A gloomy amazement reigns in the quarters. Until now we have had no
doubts as to the outcome of passing events. We knew about the too
celebrated victory of Sarrebrueck, we do not expect the reverses which
overwhelm us. The major examines every man; not one is cured, all
had been too long gorged with licorice water and deprived of care.
Nevertheless, he returns to their corps the least sick, he orders others
to lie down completely dressed, knapsack in readiness. Francis and I are
among these last. The day passes, the night passes. Nothing. But I have
the colic continually and suffer. At last, at about nine o'clock in the
morning, appears a long train of mules with "cacolets,"{5} and led by
"tringlots."{6}

5 Panier seats used in the French army to
transport the wounded.

6 Tringlots are the soldiers detailed for this duty.

We climb two by two into the baskets. Francis and I were lifted onto
the same mule, only, as the painter was very fat and I very lean, the
arrangement see-sawed; I go up in the air while he descends under the
belly of the mule, who, dragged by the head, and pushed from behind,
dances and flings about furiously. We trot along in a whirlwind of dust,
blinded, bewildered, jolted, we cling to the bar of the cacolet, shut
our eyes, laugh and groan. We arrive at Chalons more dead than alive;
we fall to the gravel like jaded cattle, then they pack us into the cars
and we leave Chalons to go--where? No one knows.

It is night; we fly over the rails. The sick are taken from the cars and
walked up and down the platforms. The engine whistles, slows down and
stops in a railway station--that of Reims, I suppose, but I can not be
sure. We are dying of hunger, the commissary forgot but one thing: to
give us bread for the journey. I get out. I see an open buffet, I run
for it, but others are there before me. They are fighting as I come
up. Some were seizing bottles, others meat, some bread, some cigars.
Half-dazed but furious, the restaurant-keeper defends his shop at the
point of a spit. Crowded by their comrades, who come up in gangs, the
front row of militia throw themselves onto the counter, which gives
way, carrying in its wake the owner of the buffet and his waiters. Then
followed a regular pillage; everything went