So long as no one
spoke to me there was no reason why I should not ride through the
whole of the Prussian army; but though I understood German, for I
had many friends among the German ladies during the pleasant
years that I fought all over that country, still I spoke it with
a pretty Parisian accent which could not be confounded with their
rough, unmusical speech. I knew that this quality of my accent
would attract attention, but I could only hope and pray that I
would be permitted to go my way in silence.
The Forest of Paris was so large that it was useless to think of
going round it, and so I took my courage in both hands and
galloped on down the road in the track of the Prussian army. It
was not hard to trace it, for it was rutted two feet deep by the
gun-wheels and the caissons. Soon I found a fringe of wounded
men, Prussians and French, on each side of it, where Bulow's
advance had come into touch with Marbot's Hussars. One old man
with a long white beard, a surgeon, I suppose, shouted at me, and
ran after me still shouting, but I never turned my head and took
no notice of him save to spur on faster.
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