Part 26 (1/2)

”How do you know that, cousin?”

”From an Englishman who came to our house last night.”

”And where has this battle taken place?”

”Wait a moment,” said she. ”At Coulmiers, near Orleans. The Germans are in full retreat; their officers are taking refuge in the mayoralty-office with their men, to escape being slaughtered.”

I asked no more questions, and I ran to Cousin George's, very curious to see this Englishman and hear what he might have to tell us.

As I went in, my cousin was seated at the table with this foreigner.

They had just breakfasted, and they seemed very jolly together. Marie Anne followed me.

”Here is my cousin, the former mayor of this village,” said George, seeing me open the door.

Immediately the Englishman turned round. He was a young man of about five and thirty, tall and thin, with a hooked nose, hazel eyes full of animation, clean shaved, and b.u.t.toned up close in a long gray surtout.

”Ah, very good!” said he, speaking a little nasally, and with his teeth close, as is the habit of his countrymen. ”Monsieur was mayor?”

”Yes, sir.”

”And you refused to post the proclamations of the Governor, Bismarck-Bohlen?”

”Yes, sir.”

”Very good--very good.”

I sat down, and, without any preamble, this Englishman ran on with eight or ten questions: upon the requisitions, the pillaging, the number of carriages and horses carried away into the interior; how many had come back since the invasion; how many were still left in France; what we thought of the Germans; if there was any chance of our agreeing together: had we rather remain French, or become neutral, like the Swiss.

He had all these questions in his head, and I went on answering, without reflecting that it was a very strange thing to interrogate people in this way.

George was laughing, and, when it was over, he said, ”Now, my lord, you may go on with your article.”

The Englishman smiled, and said, ”Yes, that will do! I believe you have spoken the truth.”

We drank a gla.s.s of wine together, which George had found somewhere.

”This is good wine,” said the Englishman. ”So the Prussians have not taken everything.”

”No, they have not discovered everything; we have a few good hiding-places yet.”

”Ah! exactly so--yes--I understand.”

George wanted to question him too, but the Englishman did not answer as fast as we; he thought well over his answers, before he would say yes or no!

It was not from him that Cousin George had learned the latest intelligence; it was from a heap of newspapers which the Englishman had left upon the table the night before as he went to bed--English and Belgian newspapers--which George had read hastily up to midnight: for he had learned English in his travels, which our friend was not aware of.

Besides the battle of Coulmiers, he had learned many other things: the organization of an army in the North under General Bourbaki; the march of the Germans upon Dijon; the insurrection at Ma.r.s.eilles; the n.o.ble declaration of Gambetta against those who were accusing him of throwing the blame of our disasters upon the army, and not upon its chiefs; and especially the declaration of Prince Gortschakoff ”that the Emperor of Russia refused to be bound any longer by the treaty which was to restrain him from keeping in the Black Sea more than a certain number of large s.h.i.+ps of war.”

The Englishman had marked red crosses down this article; and George told me by and by that these red crosses meant something very serious.