It was not yet noon, and extremely hot for the time of year and for the coldness of the preceding night, when they halted us at a place where the road bent round in a curve and went down a little hollow.  There we dismounted and cleaned things up a little before getting into the town, where we were to find what the French call an etape; that is, the town at which one halts at the end of one’s march, and the word is also used for the length of a march itself.  It is not in general orders to clean up in this way before coming in, and there were some commanders who were never more pleased than when they could bring their battery into town covered with dust and the horses steaming and the men haggard, for this they thought to be evidence of a workmanlike spirit.  But our colonel had given very contrary orders, to the annoyance of our captain, a man risen from the ranks who loved the guns and hated finery.

Then we went at a walk, the two trumpets of the battery sounding the call which is known among French gunners as “the eighty hunters,” because the words to it are, “quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt, chasseurs,” which words, by their metallic noise and monotony, exactly express the long call that announces the approach of guns.  We went right through the town, the name of which is Commercy, and the boys looked at us with pride, not knowing how hateful they would find the service when once they were in for its grind and hopelessness.  But then, for that matter, I did not know myself with what great pleasure I should look back upon it ten years after.  Moreover, nobody knows beforehand whether he will like a thing or not; and there is the end of it.

We formed a park in the principal place of the town; there were appointed two sentinels to do duty until the arrival of the gunners who should relieve them and mount a proper guard, and then we were marched off to be shown our various quarters.  For before a French regiment arrives at a town others have ridden forward and have marked in chalk upon the doors how many men and how many horses are to be quartered here or there, and my quarters were in a great barn with a very high roof; but my Ancient, upon whom I depended for advice, was quartered in a house, and I was therefore lonely.

We groomed our horses, ate our great midday meal, and were free for a couple of hours to wander about the place.  It is a garrison, and, at that time, it was full of cavalry, with whom we fraternised; but the experiment was a trifle dangerous, for there is always a risk of a quarrel when regiments meet as there is with two dogs, or two of any other kind of lively things.

Then came the evening, and very early, before it was dark, I was asleep in my clothes in some straw, very warm; but I was so lazy that I had not even taken off my belt or sword.  And that was the end of the first day’s marching.