“The Germans,” he said, “had the elite of their army engaged against us, including the 10th Army Corps and the Imperial Guard.  But the heroism of our troops was sublime.  Every man knew that the safety of France depended upon him, and was ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, with a joyful enthusiasm.  They not only resisted the enemy’s attack but took the offensive, and, in spite of their overpowering numbers, gave them a tremendous punishment.  They had to recoil before our guns, which swept their ranks, and their columns were broken and routed.  Hundreds of them were bayoneted, and hundreds more hurled into the river, while the whole front of battle was outlined by the dead and dying men whom they had to abandon.  Certainly their losses were enormous, and when I fell the German retreat was in full swing, and for the time being we could claim a real victory.”  Nevertheless the inevitable happened.  Owing to the vast reserves the enemy brought up fresh divisions, and the French were compelled to fall back upon Laon and La Fere.

On Tuesday the German skirmishers with light artillery were coming southwards to Beauvais, and the sound of their field guns greeted my ears in this town, which I shall always remember with unpleasant recollections, in spite of its old-world beauty and the loveliness of the scene in which it is set.

Beauvais lies directly between Amiens and Paris, and it seemed to me that it was the right place to be in order to get into touch with the French army barring the way to the capital.  As a matter of fact it seemed to be the wrong place from all points of view.

8

I might have suspected that something was wrong by the strange look on the face of a friendly French peasant whom I met at Gournay.  He had described to me in a very vivid way the disposition of the French troops on the neighbouring hills who had disappeared in the undulation below the sky-line, but when I mentioned that I was on the way to Beauvais he suddenly raised his head and looked at me in a queer, startled way which puzzled me.  I remember that look when I began to approach the town.  Down the road came small parties of peasants with fear in their eyes.  Some of them were in farm carts, and they shouted to tired horses and put them to a stumbling gallop.  Women with blanched faces, carrying children in their arms, trudged along the dusty highway, and it was clear that these people were afraid of something behind them—­something in the direction of Beauvais.  There were not many of them, and when they had passed the countryside was strangely and uncannily quiet.  There was only the sound of singing birds above the fields which were flooded with the golden light of the setting sun.

Then I came into the town.  An intense silence brooded there, among the narrow little streets below the old Norman church—­a white jewel on the rising ground beyond.  Almost every house was shuttered, with blind eyes, but here and there I looked through an open window into deserted rooms.  No human face returned my gaze.  It was an abandoned town, emptied of all its people, who had fled with fear in their eyes like those peasants along the roadway.