for he did not address himself to any one in particular.
When standing in front of our company, he looked at
our lieutenant-colonel severely, and I heard him say:
"Your men are dirty slops!"
Then he walked away, his body weighed down by his belly, dragging his feet, dressed in yellow boots above which red breeches swelled and folded like a skirt.
The rest of the day was devoted to loitering in the taverns of Belhomert. There was such crowding and such noise everywhere, and besides I knew so well these fights in the cabarets, these violent outbursts as a result of drunkenness which often degenerated into general scuffles, that I preferred to go out on the road, far from all these brawls, in the company of a few peaceable comrades.
Just then the weather grew better, dim sunlight came from the sky freed from clouds. We seated ourselves on the side of a sloping hill, bending our backs under the warm sun rays as does a cat under the hand that caresses it. Vehicles kept passing by, heavy carts, dung carts, small carriages with awning hoods, rubbish carts drawn by small mules. Those were the peasants of Chartres valley who were fleeing from the Prussians. . . . Excited by rumors, spread from village to village, of burnings, robberies, murders and all kinds of atrocities committed by the Germans in the invaded territories, they were carrying away in haste their most precious possessions, abandoning their homes and their fields and, utterly bewildered, were proceeding straight ahead, without knowing where they were going. In the evening they would stop at some chance road, near a town, sometimes in the open fields. The horses, unharnessed and fettered, browsed on the river banks, the people ate and slept at God's mercy, guarded by dogs, in storm and rain, in
