“She never stopped chattering for a moment while she was walking through the streets with the captain, telling a long rigmarole about her travels; but she used her eyes as well as I used mine. The town was horribly knocked to pieces--houses falling down, the streets encumbered with rubbish, and several breaches made in the walls. They had managed to repair the breaches after a fashion, for the French understand fortifications better than we do; but there was no doubt, from what we saw in that walk at nine o’clock at night, that the town and fortifications had suffered terribly. And there were no women or children to be seen, which showed that they had sent them all away, for some will remain in a besieged town as long as there is anything to feed them on.