Moreover, the nights were "drawing
in," the evenings becoming chilly; so why not lay the fires, and place
matches and candles in convenient places for the benefit of the unbidden
guests who would so soon arrive? All those things being done, M. and Mme.
Durand departed to seek the quietude of Fouilly-les-Oies, never dreaming
that on their return to Montfermeil, Palaiseau, or Sartrouville, they
would find their _salon_ converted into a pigstye, their furniture
smashed, and their clocks and chimney-ornaments abstracted. Of course the
M. Durand of to-day knows what happened to his respected parents; he knows
what to think of the good, honest, considerate German soldiery; and, if he
can help it, he will not in any similar case leave so much as a wooden
spoon to be carried off to the Fatherland, and added as yet another trophy
to the hundred thousand French clocks and the million French nick-nacks
which are still preserved there as mementoes of the "grosse Zeit."
On September 15, we heard of some petty skirmishes between Uhlans and
Francs-tireurs in the vicinity of Montereau and Melun; on the morrow the
enemy captured a train at Senlis, and fired on another near Chantilly,
fortunately without wounding any of the passengers; whilst on the same day
his presence was signalled at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, only ten miles
south of Paris.
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