about three o'clock
The little town is rich , with its numerous factories , its handsome thoroughfare lined with two rows of well-built houses , and its pretty church and _ mairie _ ; but the night before Marshal MacMahon and the Emperor had passed that way with their respective staffs and all the imperial household , and during the whole of the present morning the entire 1st corps had been streaming like a torrent through the main street . The resources of the place had not been adequate to meet the requirements of these hosts ; the shelves of the bakers and grocers were empty , and even the houses of the bourgeois had been swept clean of provisions ; there was no bread , no wine , no sugar , nothing capable of allaying hunger or thirst . Ladies had been seen to station themselves before their doors and deal out glasses of wine and cups of bouillon until cask and kettle alike were drained of their last drop . And so there was an end , and when , about three o'clock , the first regiments of the 7th corps began to appear the scene was a pitiful one ; the broad street was filled from curb to curb with weary , dust-stained men , dying with hunger , and there was not a mouthful of food to give them . Many of them stopped , knocking at doors and extending their hands beseechingly toward windows , begging for a morsel of bread , and women were seen to cry and sob as they motioned that they could not help them , that they had nothing left . At the corner of the Rue Dix-Potiers Maurice had an attack of dizziness and reeled as if about to fall . To Jean , who came hastening up , he said : `` No , leave me ; it is all up with me .