“What did they sing, Monsieur le Cure?—­Deutschland ueber alles’?”

“Oh, no, madame, not at all.  They sang hymns.  It was an extraordinary sight.  They seemed possessed.  They were certain that in a few hours they would be in Paris.  They passed through the town, and then, just south of the town, they stopped.  Our people show the place.  It was the nearest they ever got to Paris.

“Presently, an officer, with an escort, a general apparently, rode through the town, pulled up at the Hotel de Ville, and asked for the Maire—­angrily, like a man in a passion.  But the Maire—­M.  Odent—­was there, waiting, on the steps of the Hotel de Ville.

“Monsieur Odent was my friend—­he gave me his confidence.  He had resisted his nomination as Mayor as long as he could, and accepted it only as an imperative duty.  He was an employer, whom his workmen loved.  One of them used to say—­’When one gets into M. Odent’s employ, one lives and dies there.’  Just before the invasion, he took his family away.  Then he came back, with the presentiment of disaster.  He said to me—­’I persuaded my wife to go.  It was hard.  We are much attached to each other—­but now I am free, ready for all that may come.’

“Well, the German general said to him roughly: 

“‘Is your town quiet?  Can we circulate safely?’

“M.  Odent said, ‘Yes.  There is no quieter town in France than Senlis.’

“‘Are there still any soldiers here?’

“M.  Odent had seen the French troops defiling through the town all the morning.  The bombardment had made it impossible to go about the streets.  As far as he knew there were none left.  He answered, ‘No.’

“He was taken off, practically under arrest, to the Hotel, and told to order a dinner for thirty, with ice and champagne.  Then his secretary joined him and proposed that the adjoints, or Mayor’s assistants, should be sent for.

“‘No,’ said M. Odent, ‘one victim is enough.’  You see he foresaw everything.  We all knew what had happened in Belgium and the Ardennes.

“The German officer questioned him again.

“’Why have your people gone?—­why are these houses, these shops, shut?  There must be lights everywhere—­all through the night!’

“Suddenly—­shots!—­in the Rue de la Republique.  In a few seconds there was a furious fusillade, accompanied by the rattle of machine guns.  The officer sprang up.

“’So this is your quiet town, Monsieur le Maire!  I arrest you, and you shall answer with your life for the lives of my soldiers.’

“Two men with revolvers were set to guard him.  The officer himself presently took him outside the town, and left him under guard, at the little village of Poteau, at the edge of a wood.”

* * * * *

What had happened?  Unluckily for Senlis and M. Odent, some of the French rear-guard—­infantry stragglers, and a small party of Senegalese troops—­were still in the southern quarter of the town when the Germans entered.  They opened fire from a barrack near the Paris entrance and a sharp engagement followed which lasted several hours, with casualties on both sides.  The Germans got the better, and were then free to wreak their fury on the town.