Those who put themselves between the hammer and the anvil, come off generally second best, and I determined to defer my visit to the interesting village before me until the question whether it was to belong to Gaul or Teuton had been definitely decided.

So I turned off to the left and went to St.Denis.
Here everybody was in the streets, asking everybody else for news.

The forts all round it were firing heavily.

On the Place before the Cathedral there was a great crowd of men, women, and children.

The sailors, who are quartered here in great numbers, said that they had carried Le Bourget early in the morning, but that they had been obliged to fall back, with the loss of about a third of their number.