The hired vehicles were now sent back to Paris, and after a brief interval
we went on again, passing through an aperture in a formidable-looking
barricade. We then readied Creteil proper, and there the first serious
traces of the havoc of war were offered to our view. The once pleasant
village was lifeless. Every house had been broken into and plundered,
every door and every window smashed. Smaller articles of furniture, and so
forth, had been removed, larger ones reduced to fragments. An infernal
spirit of destruction had swept through the place; and yet, mark this, we
were still within the French lines.
Our progress along the main street being suddenly checked by another huge
barricade, we wound round to the right, and at last reached a house where
less than a score of Mobiles were gathered, protected from sudden assault
by a flimsy barrier of planks, casks, stools, and broken chairs. This was
the most advanced French outpost in the direction we were following. We
passed it, crossing some open fields where a solitary man was calmly
digging potatoes, risking his life at every turn of his spade, but knowing
that every pound of the precious tuber that he might succeed in taking
into Paris would there fetch perhaps as much as ten francs.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236