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After crossing the bridge of Pontlieue, they divided into three columns. One of them proceeded up the Rue du Quartier de Cavalerie in the direction of the Place des Jacobins and the cathedral. The second also went towards the upper town, marching, however, by way of the Rue Basse, which conducted to the Place des Halles, where the chief hotels and cafes were situated.
Colomb's fragmentary force, apart from Paris's division, was still to cover Le Mans towards the north-east. Barry's men, on their expected arrival, were to serve as reserves around Pontlieue. The morning of January 11 was bright. The snow had ceased falling, but lay some inches thick upon the ground.
In vain did their officers try to stop the fugitives, even striking them with the flats of their swords, in vain did Lalande and his staff seek to intercept them at the Rond Point de Pontlieue. Nothing could induce them to stop. They threw away their weapons in order to run the faster. At La Tuilerie not a gun was fired at the Germans.
But it ended disastrously for the French, one of their brigades losing as many as 1400 men, and the Germans taking altogether some 2000 prisoners. Jouffroy's troops then fell back to Pontlieue, the southern suburb of Le Mans, in a lamentable condition, and took care to place the Huisne between themselves and the Germans.
They made no attempt at defence; hungry though they were, they abandoned even their pots and pans, and fled in the direction of Pontlieue, which formed, as it were, a long avenue, fringed with factories, textile mills, bleaching works, and so forth.
Jaureguiberry had reached the southern suburb of Pontlieue at about nine o'clock that morning after a night march from Ecommoy. He had divided his miscellaneous force of 9000 men into three brigades. As they did not seem fit for immediate action, they were drafted into the reserves, so that their arrival was of no particular help that day.
The line of the Chemin des Boeufs and the position of Change was at first entrusted by Chanzy to the 16th Corps, whose commander, Jaureguiberry, had his headquarters at the southern suburb of Pontlieue, an important point affording direct access to Le Mans by a stone bridge over the Huisne.
On securing possession of the station, however, the Germans still found there about 200 vans and carriages, and at least a dozen locomotive engines. The last train left at 2.45 p.m. General de Roquebrune having, at last, been compelled to withdraw from the vicinity of the Chemin des Boeufs, the Germans came on to the long avenue of Pontlieue.
Nowadays, both at Auvours and at Pontlieue, there are monuments to those who fell fighting for France around Le Mans, and doubtless the town, in becoming more Republican, has become more patriotic also. Before relating how I escaped from Le Mans on the day when the retreat was ordered, there are a few other points with which I should like to deal briefly.
In the fighting before Le Mans, however, the German loss in killed and wounded was only 3400 200 of the number being officers, whom the French picked off as often as possible. On the morning of the 12th all was confusion at Pontlieue. Guns, waggons, horsemen, infantrymen, were congregated there, half blocking up the bridge which connects this suburb with Le Mans.
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