t at this death and
destruction which had made a hell of his little village in which peace
had reigned so long.

And while he wept merry music played, and its lively notes rattled out
into the quiet night from an open window quite close to where dead
bodies lay. The German soldiers enjoyed themselves that night in
Triaucourt. Like so many Neros on a smaller scale, they played and
sang while flames leapt up on either side of them. Thirty-five houses
in this village were burnt to cinders after their old timbers had blazed
fiercely with flying sparks which sparkled above the helmets of
drunken soldiery. An old man of seventy named Jean Lecourtier, and
a baby who had been only two months in this strange world of ours
were roasted to death in the furnace of the village. A farmer named
Igier, hearing the stampede of his cattle, tried to save these poor
beasts, but he had to run the gauntlet of soldiers who shot at him as
he stumbled through the smoke, missing him only by a hair's-breadth,
so that he escaped as by a miracle, with five holes in his clothes. The
village priest, Pere Viller, leaving the body of his old friend, went with
the courage of despair to the Duke of Wurtemberg, who had his
lodging near by, and complained to him passionately of all these
outrages. The Duke of Wurtemberg shrugged his shoulders. "Que
voulez-vous?" he said. "We have bad soldiers, like you have!"

9

At Montmirail a man named Francois Fontaine lived with his widowed
daughter, Mme. Naude, and his little grandchild Juliette. A German
noncommissioned officer demanded lodging at the house, and on the
night of September 5, when all was quiet, he came undressed into
the young widow's room and, seizing her roughly, tried to drag her
into his own chamber. She cried and struggled so that her father
came running to her, trembling with fear and rage. The Unter-qffizier
seems to have given some signal, perhaps by the blowing of a
whistle. It is certain that immediately after the old man had left his
room fifteen or twenty German soldiers burst into the house and
dragged him out into the street, where they shot him dead. At that
moment the child Juliette opened her bedroom window, looking out
into the darkness at this shadow scene. It was not Romeo but Death
who called this little Juliette. A bullet hit her in the stomach, and
twenty-four hours later she died in agony.

I need not add to these stories, nor plunge deeper into the vile
obscenity of