Wilhelm was obliged to admit that the captain was right, but he could not change his nature.  Capturing, destroying, giving pain, were not to his taste.  From that time he left other people’s property alone, and let the French run if they fell into his hands.  He was excellent on outpost and patrol duties, for then his brains and not his hands were at work—­then he could think and endure.  He could go for twenty-four hours on a bit of bread and a draught of water better than any one, and without a minute’s sleep, stand for hours at a stretch holding a position; he was always the first to explore dangerous roads, signing to his companions if he could answer for their safety, and all this with a natural, quiet self-possession as if he were taking a walk in town, or reading a newspaper at Spargnapani’s.

Weeks and months went by like a dream, in constant excitement, and the exhausting strain of strength.  Christmas passed at the outposts without gifts and with few good wishes, and the thunder of the guns took the place of church bells.  January came in with a hard frost, trying the field troops bitterly, and bringing with it hard work for Wilhelm’s regiment.  The 61st belonged to General Kettler’s brigade, which strategically kept the Garibaldi and Pelissier divisions in check.  By the middle of January the brigade was in full touch with the enemy.  On the 21st the troops broke out from the St. Seine, dashed into the Val Suzon, and after an hour’s conflict with the Garibaldians, drove them out and established themselves on the heights of Daix toward two o’clock.  Before them were the rugged summits of Talant and Fontaine, the last spurs of the Jura Mountains seen in the blue distances both of them crowned, by old villages, whose outer walls looked down a thousand feet below.  The gray walls, the rhomboid towers of the mediaeval churches, brought to one’s mind the vision of robber knights rather than the modest homes of peasants.  Between these two mountains was a narrow valley, through which one caught a glimpse of Dijon, with its red roofs and numbers of towers, and its high Gothic church above all, St. Benigne, well known later to the German soldiers.

There lay before them the great wealthy town, looking as if one could throw a pebble through one of its windows, so near did it seem in the clear winter air.  The smoke went straight up out of its thousand chimneys, exciting appetizing thoughts of warm rooms and boiling pots on kitchen fires.  There were the sheltered streets full of shops, friendly cafes, houses with beds and lamps and well-covered tables—­but the soldiers stood outside on the cold hillside, chilled to the bone by the north wind, so tired that they could hardly stand, and often sinking down in the snow, where they lay benumbed, without energy to rouse themselves.  They had gone for twenty-four hours without food, and had only some black bread remaining for the evening, worth a kingdom in price.  Between their misery