I recollect
seeing hungry men cutting steaks from the flanks of the dead beasts,
sometimes devouring the horseflesh raw, at others taking it to some
cottage, where the avaricious peasants, who refused to part with a scrap
of food, at least had to let these cold and hungry men warm themselves at
a fire, and toast their horseflesh before it. At one halt three soldiers
knocked a peasant down because he vowed that he could not even give them a
pinch of salt. That done, they rifled his cupboards and ate all they could
find.
Experience had taught me a lesson. I had filled my pockets with ham,
bread, hard-boiled eggs, and other things, before leaving Sainte Suzanne.
I had also obtained a meal at Saint Jean, and secured some brandy there,
and I ate and drank sparingly and surreptitiously whilst I went on,
overtaking one after another batch of weary soldiers. However, the
distance between Saint Jean and Laval is not very great. Judging by the
map, it is a matter of some twenty-five miles at the utmost. Moreover, I
walked only half the distance. The troops moved so slowly that I reached
Soulge-le-Bruant long before them, and there induced a man to drive me to
Laval.
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