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Arrived at a grassy place some five leagues from Vaulx-Courtois, they found a company of some sixty people of all ages, none of whom he knew, except a certain Pierre of Dampmartin and an old woman who was executed, as he had heard, about five years ago for sorcery at Lagny.

Lagny was fortified in the old-fashioned manner, with not very thick walls, and without a terreplain. Its position, however, and its command of the bridge, seemed to render an assault impossible, and De la Fin, who lay there with a garrison of twelve hundred French, had no fear for the security of the place.

A boy of three days old was dying or seemed dead, and the girls of Lagny carried it to the statue of Our Lady in their church, and there prayed over it. For three days, ever since its birth, the baby had lain in a trance without sign of life, so that they dared not christen it. 'It was black as my doublet, said Joan at her trial, where she wore mourning.

For three months past, in Seine et Marne, in "the commune of Meaux, that of Laferte, Lagny, Daumartin, and other principal towns of the canton, they have had only half a pound per head, for each day, of bad bread." In Seine et Oise, "citizens of the neighborhood of Paris and even of Versailles state that they are reduced to four ounces of bread."

We rode northwards, first through lands that I had travelled in before to Orleans, and so into a country then strange to me, passing by way of Lagny, with intent to go to Senlis, where we deemed the King lay.

At the outset of the campaign, success was with the Protestants; forty towns, Orleans, Montereau, Lagny, Montauban, Castres, Montpellier, Uzes, &c., opened their gates to them or fell into their hands. They were within an ace of surprising the king at Monceaux, and he never forgot, says Montluc, that "the Protestants had made him do the stretch from Meaux to Paris at something more than a walk."

All of the people at headquarters except the King's immediate suite were assigned quarters at Lagny; and while Forsyth and I, accompanied by Sir Henry Havelock, of the British army, were driving thither, we passed on the road the representative of the National Defense Government, Jules Favre, in a carriage heading toward Meaux.

Henriette finished the letter, which concluded with a mention of the approach of the German armies. On the 13th, the day when a committee of the Government of National Defense had established its quarters at Tours, their advanced guards had been seen at Lagny, to the east of Paris. On the 14th and 15th they were at the very gates of the city, at Creteil and Joinville-le-Pont.

"I should have thought," Francois said, as he lay down on the straw by Philip's side, "that we should have passed through plenty of places where we could obtain food. Whether we go direct to Paris, or by the road by Lagny, we pass through Nemours and Melun."

Lagny, on the left bank of the river, was within less than a league of him on his right hand. On the other side of the hills, hardly out of cannon-shot, was the camp of the allies. Henry, whose natural disposition in this respect needed no prompting, was most eager for a decisive engagement. The circumstances imperatively required it of him.