for the simple
townsfolk than did the officers of the Chasseurs who had drunk in the
same cafes the year before. Nevertheless there was a something in the
air; something subtle and indefinable, an intolerably unfamiliar
atmosphere like a widely diffused odor--the odor of invasion. It filled
the private dwellings and the public places, it affected the taste of
food, and gave one the impression of being on a journey, far away from
home, among barbarous and dangerous tribes.

The conquerors demanded money--a great deal of money. The inhabitants
paid and went on paying; for the matter of that, they were rich. But the
wealthier a Normandy tradesman becomes, the more keenly he suffers at
each sacrifice each time he sees the smallest particle of his fortune
pass into the hands of another.

Two or three leagues beyond the town, however, following the course of
the river about Croisset Dieppedalle or Biessard, the sailors and the
fishermen would often drag up the swollen corpse of some uniformed
German, killed by a knife-thrust or a kick, his head smashed in by a
stone, or thrown into the water from some bridge. The slime of the river
bed swallowed up many a deed of vengeance, obscure, savage, and
legitimate; unknown acts of heroism, silent onslaughts more perilous to
the doer than battles in the light of day and without the trumpet
blasts of glory.

For hatred of the Alien is always strong enough to arm some intrepid
beings who are ready to die for an Idea.

At last, seeing that though the invaders had subjected the city to their
inflexible discipline they had not committed any of the horrors with
which rumor had accredited them throughout the length of their triumphal
progress, the worthy tradespeople took heart of grace and the commercial
spirit began once more to stir within them. Some of them who had grave
interests at stake at Havre, then occupied by the French army, purposed
trying to reach that port by going overland to Dieppe and there taking
ship.

They took advantage of the influence of German officers whose
acquaintance they had made, and a passport was obtained from the general
in command.

Having therefore engaged a large diligence with four horses for the
journey, and ten persons having entered their names at the livery stable
office, they resolved to start on the Tuesday morning before daybreak,
to avoid all public remark.

For some days already the ground had been hard with frost, and on the
Monday, a