blows with a riding-whip at everyone within his reach.  Until we arrived at the railway, it was the same at every place where we met soldiers.  We reached Marche after a nine hours’ journey.  We were conducted to a room marked as having accommodation for 100 soldiers, but they put 400 of us in there.  The people of the place sent us slices of bread and butter, but it was the Germans who ate them.  The latter gave us crusts of bread to eat.  We were abominably cramped; a few managed to stretch themselves out, but the air was so poisonous that they could not remain in that position.  At Melreux station we changed guards.  They drove us with the butt-ends of their rifles to a spot where a train of cattle trucks was standing in the yard, and we had to get in.  The previous occupants had been cattle, and the trucks had been cleaned in a very perfunctory fashion.  There was neither straw nor seats.  Off we went.  Every time we stopped at a station the soldiers on guard there insulted us.  It was even worse when once we arrived in Germany.  They opened the doors on the platform side, and if we were on a line between two platforms, they opened the doors on both sides so as to rejoice German hearts by the sight of us.  They treated us like wild beasts in a menagerie, and the officers and soldiers set the example while the women and children were not behindhand with abuse, and made threatening gestures.  Our guards were applauded as if they were doing something heroic.  At one station we saw a woman looking out of her window and shouting ‘Hurrah!’ The journey took 35 hours, and during the whole of that time we were only given food and drink once, and that thanks only to the Red Cross.[20] We arrived at Wilhelmshoehe (Cassel) at 3 a.m. on the 28th August, and were made to walk quickly through the streets.  Our arrival had been notified, and in spite of the early hour, a hostile crowd, abusive and threatening, lined the route.  The old and the lame could not keep up the pace at which we marched.  Their companions helped and dragged them along, constantly beaten with butt-ends.  At length, we arrived at the gaol, where they shut us in the cells in lots of three or four at a time.  M. Brichet (Inspector of Forests) wanted to take his son (aged 14) with him, but the gaoler said, ‘Not the father and son together.’  The prison authorities showed their surprise at the sort of criminals who had been entrusted to them, as the bulk of them were shopkeepers and artisans.

“Included in the number were the burgomaster of Dinant, a sheriff, professors, barristers, and judges.  An imbecile, a dozen children of about 13, and some old men (one of whom was 81) made up the party.  At the end of a week, we were assembled in a yard and told that we were not under sentence, but were detained in the interests of public safety.”