Soon, the cry of victory resounded in her ears.
The Imperial arms had just obtained two signal advantages.

The Prince of Prussia had been killed the evening before the day on which the travellers arrived at Saalfeld on their endeavor to overtake Napoleon, who was marching with the rapidity of lightning.
At last, on the 13th of October (date of ill-omen) Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne was skirting a river in the midst of the Grand Army, seeing nought but confusion, sent hither and thither from one village to another, from division to division, frightened at finding herself alone with one old man tossed about in an ocean of a hundred and fifty thousand armed men facing a hundred and fifty thousand more.

Weary of watching the river through the hedges of the muddy road which she was following along a hillside, she asked its name of a passing soldier.
"That's the Saale," he said, showing her the Prussian army, grouped in great masses on the other side of the stream.
Night came on.

Laurence beheld the camp-fires lighted and the glitter of stacked arms.

The old marquis, whose courage was chivalric, drove the horses himself (two strong beasts bought the evening before), his servant sitting beside him.