The travellers could not fail to be aware of the vast movement of men and material which surrounded them the moment they entered Prussia.  The campaign of Jena had just begun.  Laurence and the marquis beheld the magnificent divisions of the French army deploying and parading as if at the Tuileries.  In this display of military power, which can be adequately described only with the words and images of the Bible, the proportions of the Man whose spirit moved these masses grew gigantic to Laurence’s imagination.  Soon, the cry of victory resounded in her ears.  The Imperial arms had just obtained two signal advantages.  The Prince of Prussia had been killed the evening before the day on which the travellers arrived at Saalfeld on their endeavor to overtake Napoleon, who was marching with the rapidity of lightning.

At last, on the 13th of October (date of ill-omen) Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne was skirting a river in the midst of the Grand Army, seeing nought but confusion, sent hither and thither from one village to another, from division to division, frightened at finding herself alone with one old man tossed about in an ocean of a hundred and fifty thousand armed men facing a hundred and fifty thousand more.  Weary of watching the river through the hedges of the muddy road which she was following along a hillside, she asked its name of a passing soldier.

“That’s the Saale,” he said, showing her the Prussian army, grouped in great masses on the other side of the stream.

Night came on.  Laurence beheld the camp-fires lighted and the glitter of stacked arms.  The old marquis, whose courage was chivalric, drove the horses himself (two strong beasts bought the evening before), his servant sitting beside him.  He knew very well he should find neither horses nor postilions within the lines of the army.  Suddenly the bold equipage, an object of great astonishment to the soldiers, was stopped by a gendarme of the military gendarmerie, who galloped up to the carriage, calling out to the marquis:  “Who are you? where are you going? what do you want?”

“The Emperor,” replied the Marquis de Chargeboeuf; “I have an important dispatch for the Grand-marechal Duroc.”

“Well, you can’t stay here,” said the gendarme.

Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and the marquis were, however, compelled to remain where they were on account of the darkness.

“Where are we?” she asked, stopping two officers whom she saw passing, whose uniforms were concealed by cloth overcoats.

“You are among the advanced guard of the French army,” answered one of the officers.  “You cannot stay here, for if the enemy makes a movement and the artillery opens you will be between two fires.”

“Ah!” she said, with an indifferent air.

Hearing that “Ah!” the other officer turned and said:  “How did that woman come here?”

“We are waiting,” said Laurence, “for a gendarme who has gone to find General Duroc, a protector who will enable us to speak to the Emperor.”