About one o'clock in the afternoon
We passed through a large and beautiful village , pillaged and abandoned also . Farther on we met some peasants , who scowled at us from the road-side . We must have had ill-looking faces , especially Buche with his head bound up , and his beard eight days old , thick and hard as the bristles of a boar . About one o'clock in the afternoon we re-crossed the Sambre , by the bridge of Chatelet , but as the Prussians were still in pursuit we did not halt there . I was quite at ease , thinking : `` If they are still pursuing us , they will follow the bulk of the army , in order to take more prisoners and pick up the cannon , caissons , and baggage . '' This was the manner in which we were compelled to reason , we , who three days before had made the world tremble . I recollect that when we reached a small village about three o'clock in the afternoon , we stopped at a blacksmith 's shop to ask for water .