At the
outset of the siege it had been suggested that the more harmless inmates
should be released rather than remain exposed to harm from chance German
shells; but the director of the establishment declared that in many
instances insanity intensified patriotic feeling, and that if his patients
were set at liberty they would at least desire to become members of the
Government. So they were suffered to remain in their exposed position.
We went on, skirting the estate of Charentonneau, where the park wall had
been blown down and many of the trees felled. On our right was the fort of
Charenton, armed with big black naval guns. All the garden walls on our
line of route had been razed or loopholed. The road was at times
barricaded with trees, or intersected by trenches, and it was not without
difficulty that we surmounted those impediments. At Petit Creteil we were
astonished to see a number of market-gardeners working as unconcernedly as
in times of peace. It is true that the village was covered by the fire of
the Charenton fort, and that the Germans would have incurred great risk in
making a serious attack on it. Nevertheless, small parties of them
occasionally crept down and exchanged shots with the Mobiles who were
stationed there, having their headquarters at a deserted inn, on reaching
which we made our first halt.
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