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Then they placed themselves at the head of their escort of dragoons, the lackeys fell in behind them, and they started at a fast pace. "Do you know where the first relays are?" one of the officers asked the sergeant in charge of the escort, after they had ridden three or four miles. "The first is at Rethel, monsieur, the second at Rheims, the third at Chateau-Thierry, the fourth at Meaux."
A week later came the news that Sir Clugnet de Brabant, who styled himself Admiral of France, had gathered two thousand men from the Orleanist garrisons and, with scaling-ladders and other warlike machines, had attacked the town of Rethel.
He had taken the rank of commanding officer in Rethel, and, seeing that all the young men had gone off to the war, he had enlisted all the others who were in favor of resisting an attack. Fat men now invariably walked the streets at a rapid pace, to reduce their weight and improve their breathing, and weak men carried weights to strengthen their muscles. And they awaited the Prussians.
On September 3 the King removed from Vendresse to Rethel, where he remained two days; in the mean while the Germans, 240,000 strong, beginning their direct march to Paris.
Jean Meslier, born 1678, in the village of Mazerny, dependency of the duchy of Rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the country, he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the priesthood. At the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he devoted himself to the system of Descartes.
Subsequently it became known that on that day the 5th and 12th corps had got up to Rethel, where the headquarters of the army were established, and the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, possessed with a mad desire to see the Emperor, had inaugurated a hegira toward that town, taking with them everything in the way of provisions; so that when the 7th corps came up they found themselves in a land of nakedness: no bread, no meat, no people, even.
Upon 29th August the French centre fell back behind Rethel, the Germans crossed the Aisne, occupied Rheims and Châlons, while the British contingent on the left and the French 6th Army now protecting its flank continued also to fall back towards Paris. And on Sedan day, 2nd September, we may regard the great movement as having reached its end.
They made a triumphal entry into Rethel. Monsieur Lavigne was decorated as a reward for having captured a Prussian advance guard, and the fat baker received the military medal for wounds received at the hands of the enemy. Every Sunday, as soon as they were free, the little soldiers would go for a walk.
But their left flank had been turned by Von Hausen's victory and the fall of Namur; and on the 27th Von Hausen, wheeling to his left, rolled up the French left wing while the Duke of Württemberg and the Crown Prince attacked all along the front. Ruffey had to seek safety in the Argonne, while Langle's army made for Rethel on the Aisne.
Her husband had been called upon to serve in the army at the beginning of the Prussian invasion, and the two women had remained alone with the old father, a keeper named Nicolas Pichon, sometimes called Long-legs, who refused obstinately to leave his home and take refuge in the town. This town was Rethel, an ancient stronghold built on a rock.
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