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Updated: May 6, 2025
They were said to be 5,000, but this is probably an exaggeration. They came from the Buttes Chaumont, where many of them have been kept two days and a half without food. A more villainous collection of faces I never beheld. There were many women, among them some in men's clothes, some as cantinières or ambulancières, and very young boys and old men.
Two cantinières arrived from the village; and, as I had yet a few crowns remaining, I offered Klipfel and Zébédé a glass of brandy each, to counteract the effects of the fogs of the night. I also presumed to offer one to Sergeant Pinto, who accepted it, saying that bread and brandy warmed the heart. We felt quite happy, and no one suspected the horrors the day was to bring forth.
Staff officers, all aglitter with crosses, galloped past; mules, laden with green maize and driven by lean, brown Bedouins, swept past the plate-glass windows of bonbon shops; grave, white-bearded sheiks drank petits verres in the guinguettes; sapeurs, Chasseurs, Zouaves, cantinieres all the varieties of French military life mingled with jet-black Soudans, desert kings wrathful and silent, Eastern women shrouded in haick and serroual, eagle-eyed Arabs flinging back snow-white burnous, and handling ominously the jeweled halts of their cangiars.
No rations had been distributed, and all were seeking something to eat and drink. As we defiled by a large house, we saw behind the wall of a court two cantinières, who were giving the soldiers drink from their wagons.
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