ped them to
prepare a trap, the Germans sacked the whole of the village.

"Naturally there was a panic. All the inhabitants--mostly women and
children, because since the mobilization there have been only nine men
in Courtacon--rushed from their cottages and many of them, lightly clad,
fled across the fields and hid themselves in the neighboring woods.

"In several cottages Germans, revolvers in hand, compelled the poor
peasants to bring matches and themselves set fire to their homes. In
less than an hour the village was like a furnace, the walls toppling
down one by one. And all this time the fighting continued. It was a
horrible spectacle.

"Several of us were dragged to the edge of the road to be shot, and
there we remained for some hours, believing our last day had come. A
young village lad of 21 years, who was just going to leave to join the
colors, was shot. Then the retreat was sounded, the Germans fled
precipitately, and we were saved."

I asked whether the cottages had not been fired by artillery.

"Not a cannon shot fell here," he replied. "All that"--pointing to the
ruined huts--"was done by incendiaries." And then he added:

"Last Tuesday two French officers came in automobiles and brought with
them a superior German officer whom they had made prisoner. They
compelled him to become a witness of the mischief of which his
fellow-countrymen had been guilty."

A peasant woman passed, pushing a wheelbarrow containing some
half-burned household goods and followed by her two small children.

"Look," she said, "at the brutality of these Germans! My husband has
gone to war and I am alone with my two little ones. With great
difficulty we had managed to gather our crop, and they set fire to our
little farm and burned everything."

Half an hour later we were at La Ferte Gaucher, a small town on the
Grand Morin, now first made famous by the fact that it was here that the
German flight began after the severe fighting last Monday. The invaders
had arrived only on Saturday and had the disagreeable surprise of
finding that the river bridges had been broken down by the retreating
French. The German commandant informed the municipal officials that if
the sum of 60,000 francs ($12,000) was not produced he would burn the
town. Then he compelled the people to set about rebuilding the bridge,
and they worked day and night at this job under the eyes of soldiers
with revolvers and rifles ready to shoot down any shirker.