_21st August._—Landelies; rest; we satisfy our hunger; we expect to pass a quiet day and night. At four o’clock we are off to an alarm; we are in the saddle all night and arrive in a little village, whose name I forget, half dead with hunger and cold. The peasants give us bread. We have been all day on horseback.
_22nd August._—Are we going to have a little rest? No, we were out of bed all night and we are at it again. We do not understand the movements we are carrying out. _Are we retreating?_ The fatigue is becoming insupportable. We get to Bousignies at three in the morning. On the road I lost my horse during a halt and I found myself alone in the night and on foot. I had all the trouble in the world to catch up the squadron on foot. We slept two hours in the rain in a field of beetroot. Off again at 9 o’clock. Loud firing twenty kilomètres off. All the peasants are clearing out. They say that Charleroi is on fire.
And so it goes on each day till the end of the month. The 26th we marched in the direction of Cambrai; we put up at Epehy, which the enemy burnt the following day. The peasants replied by themselves setting fire to the crops to prevent their falling into the enemies’ hands.
At Roisel, a whole train of goods blazed in the midday heat. We went on to Péronne. The 28th we were at Villers-Carbonel, where I was present at an unforgettable artillery combat. I saw shells throw some French skirmishers in the air by groups of three and four at a time. We left Villers-Carbonel in flames, and, from that moment, we beat a rapid retreat towards Paris, passing by Sourdon, Maisoncelle, Beauvais, Villers-sur-Thère, Breançon, Meulan, Les Alluets-le-Roi, and, after a last and painful stage, we put up at Loges-en-Josas, four kilomètres from Versailles, where the fortune of war brought me to one of our own estates.
Thus it came about that my mother, who believed me to be at the other end of Belgium, caught sight of me one fine morning coming up the central drive to the château on foot, leading my horse, my lance on my shoulder, followed by a long file of troopers.
HOW WE CROSSED THE GERMAN LINES—THE CHARGE OF GILOCOURT—THE ESCAPE IN THE FOREST OF COMPIÈGNE
Having left Versailles we arrived at Saint-Mard on the 6th of September to find ourselves in the thick of the battle of the Marne. The struggle extended all around us, from one horizon to the other, and if it was incomprehensible to our officers it was still more so to us private soldiers. In the evening, from Loges-en-Josas, where we had been billeted, we heard the guns. Everyone was sure that Paris would be invested within the next two days, and then we were suddenly sent off to be stranded some forty kilomètres to the north-east of Paris. We were ignorant of the movements going on, and we were amazed and quite out of our reckoning, hardly daring to believe that the enemy, who the evening before was thought to be at the gates of Paris, was now in retreat.