her voice still more, "you
don't see why? and there are Prussians in the house--in the next room
for all you know!"

He made no reply. This display of patriotic prudery evidently aroused
his failing dignity, for with a brief salute he made for his own door on
tiptoe.

Loiseau deeply thrilled and amused, executed a double shuffle in the
middle of the room, donned his nightcap, and slipped into the blankets
where the bony figure of his spouse already reposed.

The whole house sank to silence. But anon there arose from somewhere--it
might have been the cellar, it might have been the attics--impossible to
determine the direction--a rumbling--sonorous, even, regular, dull,
prolonged roar as of a boiler under high steam pressure: Monsieur
Follenvie slept.

It had been decided that they should start at eight o'clock the next
morning, so they were all assembled in the kitchen by that hour; but the
diligence, roofed with snow, stood solitary in the middle of the
courtyard without horses or driver. The latter was sought for in vain
either in the stables or the coachhouse. The men of the party then
resolved to beat the country round for him, and went out accordingly.
They found themselves in the public square with the church at one end,
and low-roofed houses down each side in which they caught sight of
Prussian soldiers. The first one they came upon was peeling potatoes;
farther on another was washing out a barber's shop; while a third,
bearded to the eyes, was soothing a crying child and rocking it to and
fro on his knee to quiet it. The big peasant woman whose men were all
"with the army in the war" were ordering about their docile conquerors
and showing them by signs what work they wanted done--chopping wood,
grinding coffee, fetching water; one of them was even doing the washing
for his hostess, a helpless old crone.

The Count, much astonished, stopped the beadle, who happened to come out
of the vestry at that moment, and asked the meaning of it all.

"Oh," replied the old church rat, "these are not at all bad. From what I
hear they are not Prussians, either; they come from farther off, but
where I can't say; and they have all left a wife and children at home. I
am very sure the women down there are crying for their men, too, and it
will all make a nice lot of misery for them as well as for us. We are
not so badly off here for the moment, because they do not harm and are
working just as if they were in their own homes