Mademoiselle Fifi | Page 8

trace of her passage.
The General, who had been notified, ordered to hush the matter up so
as not to give a bad example in the Army, and he disciplined the
Commander who, in turn, punished his subordinates. The General had
said: "We do not go to war to indulge in orgies and caress prostitutes."
And exasperated Graf Farlsberg resolved to take revenge on the
country.
As he needed a pretext to take drastic measures without constraint, he
summoned the Priest and ordered him to ring the Church bell at the
burial of Markgraf von Eyrik.

Contrary to general expectation, the priest showed himself docile,
humble, full of attention. And when the body of Mademoiselle Fifi,
carried by soldiers, preceded, surrounded and followed by soldiers,
who marched with loaded rifles, left the Chateau d'Urville, on the way
to the cemetery, for the first time the bell sounded the knell in a gay
tone, as if a friendly hand had been fondling it.
It rang also in the evening, and the next day and every day; it chimed as
much as they wanted. Sometimes also, in the dead of night, it would
ring all alone and throw two or three notes in the darkness, seized by a
singular mirth, awakened one knew not why. All the peasants in the
neighborhood then thought that the bell had been bewitched; and no
one except the Priest and the Sexton came near the bell-tower.
A poor girl was living up there, in fear and solitude, secretly fed by
those two men.
She remained there until the German troops departed. Then, one
evening, the Priest having borrowed the baker's cart, drove himself and
the prisoner as far as the Gate of Rouen. When they reached the Gate,
the Priest kissed her; she got off the cart and quickly went back to the
disreputable house, the keeper of which had thought that she was dead.
She was taken out of the house of prostitution shortly afterwards by a
patriot without prejudice, who loved her for her brave act, and then,
having loved her for herself, married her and made of her a lady as
good as many others.

Boule de Suif

For several days in succession the remnants of a routed army had been
passing through the City. They were not troops, but disorganized
hordes. The men had long, dirty beards and tattered uniforms; they
walked with a listless gait, without flag nor formation. All seemed
exhausted, worn out, incapable of thought or resolve, marching only by

force of habit and dropping with fatigue as soon as they stopped. One
saw for the most part hastily mobilized men, peaceful business men and
rentiers, bending under the weight of their rifles; young snappy
volunteers, easily scared, but full of enthusiasm, ready to attack as well
as to retreat; then, among them, a few red trousers, fragments of a
division decimated in a great battle; despondent artillery men aligned
with these non-descript infantrymen; and there and there the shining
helmet of a heavy footed dragon who had difficulty in keeping step
with the quicker pace of the soldiers of the line.
Legions of francs-tireurs with heroic names: "Avengers of
Defeat"--"Citizens of the Tombs"--"Brothers in Death"--passed in their
turn looking like bandits.
Their leaders, former drapers or grain merchants, tallow or soap dealers,
warriors for the circumstance, who had been commissioned officers on
account of their money or the length of their mustaches; covered with
arms, flannel and stripes, they were talking in a high-sounding voice,
discussing plans of campaign, and claiming that they alone supported
on their shoulders agonizing France; as a matter of fact, these braggarts
were afraid of their own men, scoundrels often brave to excess, but
always ready for pillage and debauch.
It was rumored that the Prussians were going to enter Rouen.
The National Guard who, for the past two months, had been very
carefully reconnoitering in the neighboring woods, at times shooting
their own sentries and getting ready to fight when a little rabbit rustled
in the bushes, had been mustered out and returned to their homes. Their
arms, uniforms, all their deadly apparel, with which they had recently
frightened the milestones along the national highways for three leagues
around, had suddenly disappeared.
The last of the French soldiers had just crossed the Seine to go to
Pont-Andemer by Saint Sever and Bourg-Achard; and following them
all, their general, desperate, unable to attempt anything with such
non-descript wrecks, himself dismayed in the crushing debacle of a
people accustomed to conquer and now disastrously defeated despite

their legendary bravery, was walking between two orderlies.
Then a profound calm, a trembling and silent expectancy hovered over
the City. Many corpulent well to do citizens, emasculated by the
business life they had led, were anxiously waiting for