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From Cologne we continued on by rail up the valley of the Rhine to Bingebruck, near Bingen, and thence across through Saarbrucken to Remilly, where we left the railway and rode in a hay-wagon to Pont-a-Mousson, arriving there August 17, late in the afternoon.
It was by mere meteorological good luck that we got there, for if the winds had been asleep the guns would have been awake, and when they wake poor Pont-a-Mousson is not at home to visitors. One understood why as one stood in the riverside garden of the great Premonstratensian Monastery which is now the hospital and the general asylum of the town.
Not a day passed now but detachments of prisoners, a thousand to twelve hundred strong, were sent off to the fortresses in Germany. The day but one before they had seen, drawn up in front of the Prussian headquarters, a column of officers of various grades, who were going to Pont-a-Mousson, there to take the railway.
"And suppose we don't find them?" "Then we will breathe on our fingers, for it is mighty cold." They did at last, at Pont-a-Mousson, meet the German re-enforcements, which were being brought up by Prince John Casimir, son of the elector-palatine, and which made Conde's army strong enough for him to continue the war in earnest.
It was Metz, the Promised City, lying there with its fair steeples and towers, like the mystic banner that Constantine saw upon the sky... Through wet vineyards and orchards we scrambled down the hill to the river and entered Pont-a-Mousson.
Lunéville had been occupied on the 22nd after the French failure on the Saar, and on the 23rd fighting began for the Grand Couronné de Nancy defended by Castelnau. The line of battle stretched from St. Dié to Pont-á-Mousson; but although the fiercest attack was still to come, the German thrust had been decisively checked at Mirecourt before Joffre determined to stand on the Marne.
These are beings of the great neuter species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, my peasants, my woods"; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the diligence, live at the cafe, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris through the medium of Pont-A-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, serve no use, and do no great harm.
So through his whim it happened that six days later a little caravan of women crossed the old front lines beyond Pont-a-Mousson as dusk was falling, and as dark was falling entered the gates of Metz. They leant from the ambulance excitedly as the lights of the streets flashed past them, saw windows piled with pale bricks of butter, bars of chocolates, tins of preserved strawberries, and jams.
When the surgeons came, we transferred the wounded to their care, and making our way to Rezonville, there took the Count's carriage to rejoin the King's headquarters, which in the mean time had been moved to Pont-a-Mousson.
If the Infanta was anxious to escape from the frigid courtesies of the Lorraine aristocracy, I also longed to have a short holiday, and to keep away from the Queen, as well for the sake of her peace of mind as for my own. My doctor forbade me to take the Spa waters, as they were too sulphurous; he ordered me those of Pont-a-Mousson.
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