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The deputies were summoned, and introduced according to the order established in 1614. The clergy were conducted to the right, the nobility to the left, and the commons in front of the throne at the end of the hall. The deputations from Dauphiné, from Crépy-en-Valois, to which the Duke of Orleans belonged, and from Provence, were received with loud applause.
Afterwards, they stole everything they could find, and with their comrades swept the shops clean of shirts, boots, groceries, and everything they could lay their hands on. They even took the hearses out of an undertaker's yard and filled them with loot. Before they left Crepy-en-Valois, they fired deliberately, I was told, upon Red Cross ambulances containing French wounded.
Crepy-en-Valois, more fortunate than some of the towns, whose mayors were dismissed for revealing "a lamentable absence of sang-froid," had a mayor who stuck to his post.
Bridge the enemy has none, and northward and eastward all is open. Be of better heart, Heaven helps France." "We have sent to summon the Maid," said he, "from Crepy-en-Valois. In her is all my hope; but you speak lightly, for you are young, and war is your trade." "And praying is yours, father, wherefore you should be bolder than I." But he shook his head.
As we left Crépy-en-Valois we entered the Forest of Compiègne, a forest of noble beeches which rose tall and straight and grey like the piers of Beauvais Cathedral, their arms meeting overhead in an intricate vaulting through which we saw the winter sun in a sapphire sky. We met two Chasseurs d'Afrique, mounted on superb Arabs and wearing red fez-like caps and yellow collar-bands.
Even in Crepy-en-Valois, which had suffered less than other towns through which the enemy had passed, I saw a wilful, wanton, stupid destruction of men no worse I think than other men, but with their passions let loose and unrestrained.
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