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After we had left Sainte Menehould the sense of the nearness and all-pervadingness of the war became even more vivid. Every road branching away to our left was a finger touching a red wound: Varennes, le Four de Paris, le Bois de la Grurie, were not more than eight or ten miles to the north. Along our own road the stream of motor-vans and the trains of ammunition grew longer and more frequent.
It was near sunset on the second evening, when they had gone about one hundred and seventy miles, that one of the body-guards, mounted and dressed in yellow as a courier, came prancing into the village of Saint Menehould. His dress attracted all eyes; and so did his proceedings. The gazers saw that this odd courier did not know the post-house; for he spurred past it, and had to inquire for it.
To save time he sent forward a fresh rider, on a fresh horse, to stop the fugitives; and this messenger from Châlons brought the news to St. Ménehould, not long after the coach had rolled away. When Drouet started on the ride that made his fortune, he knew that it was the king, and that Paris did not mean him to escape. An hour had been lost, and he met his postboys returning from Clermont.
Long time he look for Medaine. But no. Then " his face suddenly contorted " one night in the cathedral at St. Menehould, I find heem. But Pierre not know his père. He not answer Ba'teese when he call 'Pierre! Pierre! Here, and here, and here " the big man pointed to his breast and face and arms "was the shrapnel. He sigh in my arms then he is gone. Ba'teese ask that night for duty on the line.
A bombarding squadron of Zeppelins which the Germans sent out along the Verdun front to cut railway communications fared badly. The French antiaircraft guns brought down a number of Fokkers and a Zeppelin in flames at Revigny, but the raiders succeeded in cutting the Ste. Ménéhould line, leaving only a narrow-gauge road to supply Verdun.
He ordered his soldiers to mount and follow the king; but the national guards of Sainte Menehould, amongst whom the rumour of the likeness between the travellers and the royal family had been rapidly circulated, surrounded the barracks, closed the stables, and opposed by force the departure of the soldiers.
Ste. Ménehould Sauce is in these days chiefly associated with “pigs’ feet
The man who thus gave orders to his sovereign was Drouet: scarcely had he arrived at Sainte Menehould than he hastened to arouse the young patriotes of the town, to communicate to them his conjectures and his apprehensions.
Menehould, who would make me his duchess any day, if I had but a million of livres for my dowry, to say nothing of the Sieur de Crillon, who declares he is dying for me, and would have married mo long ago, if mamma had not made up her mind that I should have my most uncivil cousin de Beaujardin.
The capture of Verdun would reestablish his somewhat tarnished military reputation and might force an exhausted France to sue for peace. The loss of Verdun and its girdle of forts would have made the situation of the defenders very difficult, they would find it a serious problem to hold back the German hosts while organizing a new line of defense from St. Mihiel to Ste. Ménéhould.
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