The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June, the feast of Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same inauspicious place which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the rain fell in torrents.

The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on which the harvest was green.

The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to the Meuse.

All the roads became swamps.

The trenches were so deep in water and mire that it was the business of three days to move a gun from one battery to another.