Nobody was punished. With commendable forethought some officers of the rear-guard escorting the army train had caused the knapsacks and guns bestrewing either side of the roads to be picked up. Only a small number was missing, and the men were re-armed at daybreak, furtively as it were, so as to hush up the affair. Orders had been given to raise the camp at five o'clock, but the men were roused at four, and the retreat on Belfort was hastened, the commanders being convinced that the Prussians were now only two or three leagues away. The men had to content themselves with biscuit, and with nothing to warm their stomachs they remained quite foundered after that brief, feverish night. And again that morning anything like an orderly march was prevented by the precipitate departure.
The day was an infinitely sad one, far worse than the day before. The character of the scenery had changed; they had entered a mountainous country, the roads climbed and descended slopes planted with fir trees; and the narrow valleys, bushy with furze, were spangled with golden flowers. But across that stretch of country so bright in the August sunrays, panic, growing more and more frenzied, had been sweeping since the previous day. A fresh despatch, instructing the mayors to warn the inhabitants to place their valuables in safety, had brought the general terror to a climax. Was the enemy at hand then? Would they even have time enough to escape? And they all fancied they could hear the roar of the invasion coming nearer and nearer; that sound like the dull roll of an overflowing river which had been swelling in volume ever since their departure from Mulhausen, and which now, at each village they came to, was increased by some fresh scene of terror, fraught with wailing and uproar.
Maurice marched along like a somnambulist, with his feet tingling, and his shoulders crushed by his gun and knapsack. He no longer thought of anything; at the sights that met his gaze he fancied himself in a nightmare; and he was no longer conscious of his comrades' tramp, realising merely that Jean was at his side, worn out with the same weariness and the same grief as himself. The villages they passed through presented a lamentable, pitiful aspect, such as to fill the heart with poignant anguish. As soon as the retreating troops, the worn-out, footsore, straggling soldiers appeared, the inhabitants began to bestir themselves, and hasten their flight. They had felt so easy in mind only a fortnight previously; all Alsace, indeed, had awaited the war with a smile, convinced that the fighting would take place in Germany. But now France was invaded, and the tempest was falling upon their heads, around their houses, and over their fields like one of those terrible hail and thunder storms which ruin an entire province in a couple of hours.