Monsieur Segotin's Story
be. It so happened that the soldiers who took possession of us were not a particularly offensive lot of men. They were brutal and overbearing, of course—were they not Germans in a conquered and helpless town?—but they did not massacre us. They invented no pretext for anything of the sort. They requisitioned our food and drink and tobacco and everything else they happened to require, but they spared our women and children and they did not burn our houses over our heads, and there were no fusillades. Hostages they took, of course—was I not one of them?—but we were only required to report ourselves every day and otherwise we were permitted to go about our affairs—such as were left to us—untroubled.
"I suppose they felt that enough had been done, for the time, to terrorise the country. They were still in the full flood of their victorious advance, and expected to be done with the war in a month or two. So long as Saint Hilaire remained quiet they had nothing to gain by murder and arson and rape. At any rate, whatever the cause of it may be, I have no terrible tales of atrocity to communicate to you concerning the early German occupation of Saint Hilaire.
"But I would not have you suppose that we were happy. No; one is not happy when these people are in possession of one's town. Happiness demands at least a certain measure of freedom from apprehension; and apprehension oppressed every one of us from the moment of their arrival. It was like
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