The number of
guards had greatly increased during the owner's absence. He saw an
entire regiment of infantry encamped in the park. Thousands of men
were moving about under the trees, preparing the dinner in the movable
kitchens. The flower borders of the gardens, the exotic plants, the
carefully swept and gravelled avenues were all broken and spoiled by
this avalanche of men, beasts and vehicles.
A chief wearing on his sleeve the band of the military administration
was giving orders as though he were the proprietor. He did not even
condescend to look at this civilian walking beside the lieutenant with
the downcast look of a prisoner. The stables were vacant. Desnoyers saw
his last animals being driven off with sticks by the helmeted shepherds.
The costly progenitors of his herds were all beheaded in the park like
mere slaughter-house animals. In the chicken houses and dovecotes, there
was not a single bird left. The stables were filled with thin horses who
were gorging themselves before overflowing mangers. The feed from the
barns was being lavishly distributed through the avenue, much of it lost
before it could be used. The cavalry horses of various divisions were
turned loose in the meadows, destroying with their hoofs the canals,
the edges of the slopes, the level of the ground, all the work of
many months. The dry wood was uselessly burning in the park.
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