This does not confine itself alone to food for the horses and people, but to every piece of portable property, not an absolute fixture, which, if of any value, we are directed to appropriate and `nail' fast! "Through the desertion of most of the castles here in the neighbourhood by their legitimate proprietors, the entry to all of them is open to us; and now everything is taken out of them that is worth taking at all.
The wine-cellars in particular are searched; and I may say that our division has drank more champagne on its own account than I ever remember to have seen in the district of Champagne, when I visited it last year before the war.
"In the second place, our light-fingered forces carry off all the horses we can take with us; all toilet things, glasses, stockings, brushes, boots and shoes, linen--in a word, everything is `stuck to!' "The officers, I may add, are no exception to the private soldiers, but steal in their proper precedence, appropriating whatever objects of art or pictures of value they can find in the mansions we visit in these archaeological tours of ours.

Only yesterday, the adjutant of my regiment, a noble by birth, but I am sorry to say not a gentleman either by manners or moral demeanour, came to me and said, `Fritz Dort, do me the favour to steal for me all the loot you can bring me.

We will at all events show Moltke that he has not sent us into this war for nothing.' Of course, this being an order from a superior officer, I could not say anything but `At your command, your highness!' But what will come of it all only God knows! I'm afraid, when there is nothing left to lay our hands on, we will begin to appropriate the goods and chattels of each other; although, little mother, I will endeavour to keep my fingers clean, if only for your sake!" Fritz, however, soon had something more exciting to think about than the morals of his comrades; for, only a few days after he joined his regiment, he went into action again at the battle of Amiens, when the Germans drove back Faidherbe's "army of the north," routing them with much slaughter, and taking many prisoners, besides thirteen cannon.

A French regiment of marines was ridden down by a body of German Hussars, who were almost decimated by the charge--which resembled that of Balaclava, the "sea soldiers" standing behind entrenchments with their guns.
Later on, too, Fritz was in a more memorable engagement.

It occurred on the morning of the 23rd of December at Pont Noyelles, where the army of General Manteuffel, numbering about fifty thousand men with some forty guns, attacked a force of almost double the strength, commanded by Faidherbe, the last of the generals on whom the French relied outside of Paris.