st duties on a
portion of the line there. The troops have been having a pretty hard
time of it, and have been pushed backward once or twice, though they
have always ended by winning back the ground they had lost. We have a
reputation of keeping our eyes open, and the General told me this
morning that I might consider it as a compliment we were sent there."

They were marched to a small cluster of houses and relieved two
companies of the line who had been on duty there during the night. It
was the first time a specific post had been assigned to them, and the
men were in high spirits at what they considered an honor. The
authorities treated the Franc-tireurs as being valueless for any real
fighting: as being useful to a certain extent for harassing the enemies'
outposts, but not to be counted upon for any regular work, and so
omitted them altogether in the orders assigning the positions to be
occupied. The corps therefore considered it a feather in their caps to
be assigned a position by the side of the regulars. The fires of the
troops were still burning, and the men were soon at work cooking their
breakfast, one company being thrown out in the front of the village.

The houses all bore signs of the strife. Some were almost unroofed,
others had yawning holes in the walls, the work of shell from the
Prussian field-guns, while all were pitted with scars of bullets on the
side facing the enemy. Scarce a pane of glass remained intact. The
floors had been torn up for firing and the furniture had shared the same
fate. A breastwork had been thrown up some fifty yards in front of the
village and the houses had been connected by earthen walls, so that if
the outwork were taken the place could be defended until reinforcements
came up.

A hundred yards to the left there was a battery of six guns, and another
on a mound four or five hundred yards to the right. In the daytime their
fire covered the village, and there was little chance of the Germans
attempting an attack until after nightfall. The enemy occupied in force
a village of some size five hundred yards away, and had covered it with
strong earthworks. Their outposts faced those of the French with an
interval of some two hundred yards between them. The sentries on duty
were stationed at distances varying from ten to twenty paces apart,
behind walls or banks of earth. The enemies' outposts were similarly
protected.

Shots were exchanged at intervals throughout the day betwe