On the fine-crushed gravel of the terrace, at the bottom of the steps that led to the house, was a merry company.  Arranged in order around a marble-topped table were a sofa and some easy-chairs in sky-blue satin, forming a sort of fantastic open-air drawing-room, which must have been thoroughly soaked by the rain of the preceding day.  Two zouaves, seated in a lounging attitude at either end of the sofa, seemed to be laughing boisterously.  A little infantryman, who occupied one of the fauteuils, his head bent forward, was apparently holding his sides to keep them from splitting.  Three others were seated in a negligent pose, their elbows resting on the arms of their chairs, while a chasseur had his hand extended as if in the act of taking a glass from the table.  They had evidently discovered the location of the cellar, and were enjoying themselves.

“But how in the world do they happen to be here?” murmured Prosper, whose stupefaction increased as he drew nearer to them.  “Have the rascals forgotten there are Prussians about?”

But Silvine, whose eyes had dilated far beyond their natural size, suddenly uttered an exclamation of horror.  The soldiers never moved hand or foot; they were stone dead.  The two zouaves were stiff and cold; they both had had the face shot away, the nose was gone, the eyes were torn from their sockets.  If there appeared to be a laugh on the face of him who was holding his sides, it was because a bullet had cut a great furrow through the lower portion of his countenance, smashing all his teeth.  The spectacle was an unimaginably horrible one, those poor wretches laughing and conversing in their attitude of manikins, with glassy eyes and open mouths, when Death had laid his icy hand on them and they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life.  Had they dragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die in one another’s company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of the Prussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circle about the table, out of derision for the traditional gayety of the French nation?

“It’s a queer start, though, all the same,” muttered Prosper, whose face was very pale.  And casting a look at the other dead who lay scattered about the avenue, under the trees and on the turf, some thirty brave fellows, among them Lieutenant Rochas, riddled with wounds and surrounded still by the shreds of the flag, he added seriously and with great respect:  “There must have been some very pretty fighting about here!  I don’t much believe we shall find the bourgeois for whom you are looking.”