"What harm can
they do to us--old people?" No doubt that had been the instinctive
feeling among those who had remained to face the invasion.
But the Germans were not content without wreaking the instinct--which is
the savage instinct--to break and crush and ill-treat something which
has thwarted you, on the women of Vareddes also. They gathered them out
of the farmyard to which they had come, in the hopes of being allowed to
stay with the men, and shut them up in a room of the farm. And there,
with fixed bayonets, the soldiers amused themselves with terrifying
these trembling creatures during a great part of the night. They made
them all kneel down, facing a file of soldiers, and the women thought
their last hour had come. One was seventy-seven years old, three
sixty-seven, the two others just under sixty. The eldest, Madame
Barthelemy, said to the others--"We are going to die. Make your
'contrition' if you can." (The Town Librarian of Meaux, from whose
account I take these facts, heard these details from the lips of poor
Madame Barthelemy herself.
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