While these things were taking place, the Perignon family, which lived next door to us, was massacred.
When they were no longer shooting at us, I tried to wash my baby, who was covered with blood, in the brook; but a soldier prevented me, shouting, "Get away from there."
Finally we got to the road. Meanwhile they were driving M. Aufiero out of the cellar. The Germans, who spoke French after a fashion, said to his wife, "Come see your husband get shot." The poor man, on his knees, asked for mercy, and as his wife shrieked "My poor Côme," the soldiers said to her, "Shut your mouth." His execution took place very near us.
The Bavarians sent me, my children, Mme. Aufiero and her daughter to a meadow near the Pont-de-l'Etang. A general ordered that we be shot, but I threw myself at his feet, begging him to be merciful. He consented. At this moment an officer, wearing a great gray cloak with a red collar, said, as he pointed to the dead body of my child, "There is one who will not grow up to fight our men."
The next day, in my flight to Barrière Zeller, an officer came up and told me that the body of my dead child smelled badly and that I must get rid of it. Since I could find no one to make a coffin, I found in the canteen two rabbit hutches. I fastened one of these to the other, and there I laid the little body. It was buried in my garden by two soldiers, and I had to dig the grave myself.
HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY
In the first days of April, 1916, the following notice, bearing the signature of the German commander, was posted on all the walls of Lille, the great town in the north of France which has been occupied by the Germans since the beginning of the war.
All the inhabitants of the town, except the children under fourteen years of age, their mothers, and the old men, must prepare to be transported within an hour and a half.
An officer will decide definitely which persons shall be conducted to the camps of assembly. For this purpose, all the inhabitants must assemble in front of their homes, in case of bad weather they shall be permitted to stay in the lobbies. The doors of the houses must be left open. All complaints will be unavailing. No inhabitant of a house, even those who are not to be transported, can leave the house before eight o'clock in the morning (German time).