Complete Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant: Ten Volumes in One (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Complete Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant: Ten Volumes in One<br><br>For many days now the fag~end of the army had been straggling through the town. They were not troops but a disbanded horde. The beards of the men were long and filthy their uniforms in tatters and they advanced at an easy pace without ?ag or regiment. All seemed worn-out and back-broken inca pable of a thought or a resolution marching by habit solely and falling from fatigue as soon as they stopped. In short they were a mobilized pacific peo ple bending under the weight of the gun; some little squads or. The alert easy to take alarm and prompt in enthusiasm ready to attack or to ?ee; and in the midst of them some red breeches the remains of a division broken up in a great battle; son e somber artillery men in line with these varied kinds of foot soldiers; and sometimes the brilliant helmet of a dragoon on foot who fol lowed with difficulty the shortest march of the lines.<br><br>Some legions of free-shooters under the heroic names of Avengers of the Defeat Citizens of the Tomb Par takers of Death passed in their turn with the air of bandits.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases an imperfection in the original such as a blemish or missing page may be replicated in our edition. We do however repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.