peculiar wound, and by the white moustache. The poor marquise wanted to embrace the body, but was held back by the kindhearted Maire, and it was immediately buried in the churchyard in a place which she had chosen.

"At St. Menges we found the curé just returning from visiting one of his sick. He had much to tell of the sufferings of his flock, from the pillage of the Germans who occupied the village for ten days. Only two houses were burnt, and these by the bursting of French shells, which, he added, made it seem all the sadder. In his little ante-room we found the three sacks of coffee and all the loaves our cart had just deposited, and on the table two large knives ready for cutting them up for distribution at eight o'clock the next morning. He told us that the way he had made his list of those who were to receive bread, when he first heard from Mr. Bullock of his offer of sending it, was to go round to the different bakers and beg them to show him their list of their customers. He then asked, 'Are you still supplying all these people with bread?' 'Oh no, to many of them we are obliged to refuse credit; we know they cannot pay us." He therefore then got a list of those families who actually could not buy bread, and to them he distributed that sent by Mr. Bullock. Here also I saw the bakers, and made the same contract with them as at Floing. At another village one of the bakers had lost his son as well as all that he possessed on the day of the battle, and ever since had been so completely disheartened that he had not held up his head nor done a day's work since. The contract was given to him, and it was a comfort to know that, within a few days, with his work his spirits had returned, and that he was quite an altered man. The curé of St. Menges told us of a number of his people who had lost all their clothes, and especially their blankets and sheets. In this village the people are nearly all weavers, so that, till some work begins again, they have no means of retrieving their losses.

"Scarcely a house seems to have been spared. One poor German woman living at Glaire forms a solitary exception, and now owns the only pig in the village, and if the inhabitants had

the misfortune to leave their houses, then the havoc was complete. The curé of Daigny told us that he was only absent twenty-four hours, but returned to find his house bare-not only his plate, his linen, his little batterie de cuisine had been taken, but his very clothes, even his large three-corned hat. Je ne sais pas à quoi leur pouvait servir un chapeau de prêtre, mais ils l'ont pourtant pris,' and the panels of his large wardrobe had been forced out with a chopper, to make boards for the soldiers to cut up their meat upon. And with all these there is a wonderfully resigned and hopeful spirit abroad; so many have said to me, 'Ah, if only it was all over, and we did not see them any more, and could begin to work again, we should forget the past and make a fresh start; but as long as they are here there is no hope of work, and how are we to get through the winter?' In some cases the poor have made a little money by selling a few arms, &c., from the battle-field, but that is pretty well all spent, and the prospect of the winter is very dismal."

"SEDAN, November 23rd.

"This morning, after waiting to despatch some things to Francheval, and ordering another despatch of things to St. Menges. to-morrow, I came on through Francheval, Rubécourt, and La Moncelle to Sedan. At La Moncelle the walls are covered with shot marks, and a part of the houses are burnt. A list which M. de Montagnac has had made gives fifty-nine families burnt out, besides the Maison Communale. As I stood talking to some men at the foot of the street, I counted forty-two bullet-marks on the face of one house. M. de Montagnac's factory is half-way between this and Rubécourt, and when I asked them about bons and cloth, they said that he had kept his mill working twelve hours a week, and had always paid ready money for work or goods."

"November 24th.

"I started at eight o'clock this morning for St. Menges, and found the curé in the midst of his distribution of bread, so waited

while he finished it. He is unfortunate in having no organization in his parish; the last curé had quarrelled with the Maire and the Adjoint, and the Conseillers Municipaux, who are all weavers, and of the 2000 inhabitants not one is a rentier, or in a position to give tone to the Bureau de Bienfaisance, or to be able to devote time to its affairs. There is, consequently, no organization for relief, no subscriptions for a doctor to attend the sick, and the curé is unsupported. He thinks, that by-and-bye, even his schoolmaster and the three sœurs will have to ask for bread. They have but £20 a-year a piece, and even this is not likely to be paid in January.

"As the bread was being issued, I obtained sad details of distress in some of the families—many were ill, and their illness was aggravated by the want of good food. The father of a family of six children, only one of whom could work, was away at Mézières as a Garde Forestier. Two poor women who came for their share had been of the class of pauvres honteuses, whose cases require careful investigation, but now came openly to ask for relief. They had kept the only café of the place, and supported an old mother of ninety-two, but since the first of September all custom had ceased; the Germans had smashed their windows, and taken their beds, and they were, as we should say, 'on the parish;' that is to say, they would be on the parish if the parish had anything to give them.

"The funds of the Bureau de Bienfaisance are usually 500 to 600 francs, and are derived chiefly from some land, and partly from occasional market rents and levies on fêtes at the Maison Communale. This has not been a year for fêtes, and, therefore, the receipts have been small and the expenses large; and the Daily News Society will therefore put 200 francs into the Caisse, in case the doctor is required, and more in case of need of medicine.

"The society is now sufficiently in relations with St. Menges to see to its wants during the winter. It receives now 1500lbs. of bread a week, and 200 lbs. of bacon, and the committee of the

Bureau de Bienfaisance have a store of preserved meat, and 'soup and bouilli,' of coffee and potatoes, to meet special cases. At the mention of coffee the curé said, Ah, monsieur, vous parlez des élégances de la vie. Bread is the chief thing-if only we had bread. There are many who eat nothing else.' After the distribution I visited some of the cloth weavers. With each family the story was the same. Their beds had been taken for the wounded, and soiled with blood, or lost; their clothes had disappeared during the fifteen days' occupation by the German troops; and the pig, which is kept by most of the weavers' families, had been eaten. In each house a little work was going on, but as it is paid for either in cloth or in written promises to pay after the war,' there is a considerable loss to the workman in every case. Before the war a good weaver made sixteen enseignes or eighty-four metres of cloth in twenty-one to twenty-five summer days, and was paid fifty francs for his work, the material being supplied direct from the 'filatures,' which employ 100 persons in addition to the 900 weavers, so that the families which I visited, which had two or three looms a piece, could gain from thirty to fifty francs a week. But they now suffer loss from three causes. Firstly, they are paid by cloth which is taken into Belgium at a loss of ten per cent. duty and at the cost of a long journey on foot; and, secondly, they lose much time both on these journeys and in going to Sedan to fetch the threads which used to be brought to their own doors; but the worst feature of their case is the profound depression into which the invasion of their soil, the loss of their children, and the dread of some greater unknown trouble yet to come, has plunged them. The people of this district are of a gentle and cheerful disposition. The life of a working man was, perhaps, in no part of France more promising; and the existence of a sympathy for their suffering among English people, which is shown in gifts and visits, will be understood by those who know the French character, to have a more than visible influence on their health and spirits under the heavy trials of the winter. The common distress has extinguished much selfish

repining. I have not yet met with a case in which the speaker referred, unasked, to his own peculiar hardship. A poor woman, whose husband was just able to sit up after about fourteen days' fever, showed me the movements of her loom, and after a few strokes, said simply, 'Je n'ai plus la force d'autrefois;' and after trying to quicken the movement left off quite flushed by the exertion. She had been used to work all day, but was weakened by attendance on her husband, and indifferent food. They will both have portion of soup and bouilli in future. She had taken a piece of cloth, valued at twenty-seven francs, into Belgium a few days ago, wrapping it round under her dress to escape the duty, but had only succeeded in getting fifteen francs for it. Her whole house was in wretched disorder and uncleanliness, and had never recovered the invasion of the troops. In another house where two looms were at work, a man had been more fortunate. He had taken his fifty francs' piece of cloth into Belgium, and brought back forty-five francs; but at the cost of two days' travel, which, in good time, would represent two and a half francs more. But the workers at the 'filature' are in the worst condition, as they can do nothing, or next to nothing."

"To-day I have been to Floing.

"November 25th.

Thanks to the last as well as

to the present curé, M. L'Alouette, and to the Maire, M. Amédée de la Brosse, who is greatly respected both here and in Sedan, a capital organization exists in the village.

"M. Alouette himself has a genius for organization, and the sick subscription, which is but five francs a head a year, not only pays the doctor, but also twenty-five per cent. of the medicines. The whole village has a brighter appearance than St. Menges, to which its nearness to Sedan, no doubt, contributes. The population, and the proportion of weavers, are but equal to St. Menges; but at Floing there is a growing disposition among the weavers to lay out their money in acquiring a separate cottage and garden, and this practice, which has not only an excellent moral