about
ten o'clock
Below them , toward the north , Betheniville was visible among the trees , where the Emperor was reported to have slept , and when they reached the Vouziers road the level country of the preceding day again presented itself to their gaze and the lean fields of `` lousy Champagne '' stretched before them in wearisome monotony . They now had the Arne , an insignificant stream , flowing on their left , while to the right the treeless , naked country stretched far as the eye could see in an apparently interminable horizon . They passed through a village or two : Saint-Clement , with its single winding street bordered by a double row of houses , Saint-Pierre , a little town of miserly rich men who had barricaded their doors and windows . The long halt occurred about ten o'clock , near another village , Saint-Etienne , where the men were highly delighted to find tobacco once more . The 7th corps had been cut up into several columns , and the 106th headed one of these columns , having behind it only a battalion of chasseurs and the reserve artillery . Maurice turned his head at every bend in the road to catch a glimpse of the long train that had so excited his interest the day before , but in vain ; the herds had gone off in some other direction , and all he could see was the guns , looming inordinately large upon those level plains , like monster insects of somber mien . After leaving Saint-Etienne , however , there was a change for the worse , and the road from bad became abominable , rising by an easy ascent between great sterile fields in which the only signs of vegetation were the everlasting pine woods with their dark verdure , forming a dismal contrast with the gray-white soil .