Having secured a couple of beds, and ordered some dinner at one of the inns, my father and I strolled about the town, which was full of Uhlans and Hussars. The old stone bridge across the Seine had been blown up by the French before their evacuation of the town, and a part of the railway line had also been destroyed by them. But the Germans were responsible for the awful appearance of the railway-station. Never since have I seen anything resembling it. A thousand panes of glass belonging to windows or roofing had been shivered to atoms. Every mirror in either waiting or refreshment-rooms had been pounded to pieces; every gilt frame broken into little bits. The clocks lay about in small fragments; account-books and printed forms had been torn to scraps; partitions, chairs, tables, benches, boxes, nests of drawers, had been hacked, split, broken, reduced to mere strips of wood. The large stoves were overturned and broken, and the marble refreshment counter--some thirty feet long, and previously one of the features of the station--now strewed the floor in particles, suggesting gravel. It was, indeed, an amazing sight, the more amazing as no such work of destruction could have been accomplished without extreme labour. When we returned to the inn for dinner, I asked some questions. "Who did it?" "The first German troops that came here," was the answer. "Why did they do it?--was it because your men had cut the telegraph wires and destroyed some of the permanent way?" "Oh no! They expected to find something to drink in the refreshment-room, and when they discovered that everything had been taken away, they set about breaking the fixtures!" Dear, nice, placid German soldiers, baulked, for a few minutes, of some of the wine of France!
In the morning we left Mantes by moonlight at the appointed hour, unaccompanied, however, by any escort. Either the Commandant had forgotten the matter, or his men had overslept themselves. In the outskirts, we were stopped by a sentry, who carried our pass to a guard-house, where a noncommissioned officer inspected it by the light of a lantern. Then on we went again for another furlong or so, when we were once more challenged, this time by the German advanced-post. As we resumed our journey, we perceived, in the rear, a small party of Hussars, who did not follow us, but wheeled suddenly to the left, bent, no doubt, on some reconnoitering expedition. We were now beyond the German lines, and the dawn was breaking. Yonder was the Seine, with several islands lying on its bosom, and some wooded heights rising beyond it. Drawing nearer to the river, we passed through the village of Rolleboise, which gives its name to the chief tunnel on the Western Line, and drove across the debatable ground where French Francstireurs were constantly on the prowl for venturesome Uhlans. At last we got to Bonnières, a little place of some seven or eight hundred inhabitants, on the limits of Seine-et-Oise; and there we had to alight, for the vehicles, which had brought us from Saint Germain, could proceed no further.