nd have been at the gates of the Prussian capital
in less time than they had spent camped with the enemy right before
them. Still, it was not for a soldier to question, and he reported for
a week's extra guard duty a man who ventured to complain in his presence
that the marshal knew as little as the men. Extra guard duty did no
good. The army was losing heart.

Thus it was for several weeks. But at last, one evening, it was apparent
that some change was at hand: the army stirred and shook itself as a
great animal moves and stretches, not knowing if it will awake or drop
off to sleep again.

During the night it became wide awake. It was high time. The Prussians
were almost on them. They had them in a trap. They held the higher
grounds and hemmed the French in. All night long the tents were being
struck, and the army was in commotion. No one knew just why it was. Some
said they were about to be attacked; some said they were surrounded.
Uncertainty gave place to excitement. At length they marched.

When day began to break, the army had been tumbled into line of battle,
and the regiment in which the old Sergeant and Pierre were was drawn
up on the edge of a gentleman's park outside of the villages. The line
extended beyond them farther than they could see, and large bodies of
troops were massed behind them, and were marching and countermarching
in clouds of dust. The rumor went along the ranks that they were in
the advanced line, and that the Germans were just the other side of
the little plateau, which they could dimly see in the gray light of the
dawn. The men, having been marching in the dark, were tired, and most
of them lay down, when they were halted, to rest. Some went to sleep;
others, like Pierre, set to work and with their bayonets dug little
trenches and threw up a slight earthwork before them, behind which they
could lie; for the skirmishers had been thrown out, looking vague and
ghostly as they trotted forward in the dim twilight, and they supposed
that the battle would be fought right there. By the time, however, that
the trenches were dug, the line was advanced, and the regiment was moved
forward some distance, and was halted just under a knoll along which ran
a road. The Sergeant was the youngest man in the company; the sound of
battle had brought back all his fire. To him numbers were nothing. He
thought it now but a matter of a few hours, and France would be at the
gates of Berlin. He saw once more the f