No one believed her. They thought the disaster had affected her mind. And so, while everyone gathered round to listen, she told the whole story from beginning to end, from the arrival of the letter to the last cry of the men burned to death inside. She omitted no detail either of what she had felt or what she had done.

When she came to the end she pulled out two pieces of paper from her pocket. Then, again adjusting her spectacles to see which was which, she said, showing the first: ‘That’s the one about Victor’s death.’

Next, showing them the other and nodding her head towards the red ruins of her home, ‘And that’s their names so you can write to their families.’

To the officer now holding her by the shoulders she calmly passed the sheet of white paper, saying: ‘Tell them exactly what happened and don’t forget to tell their relatives that it was me Victoire Simon, the Sauvage, who did it.’

The officer shouted out some orders in German. She was seized and thrown against the still warm walls of her house. With great despatch, twelve men took up position at a range of twenty metres away from her. She stayed quite still, understanding perfectly, and awaiting her fate. An order rang out, followed immediately by a long burst of fire and one late shot.

The old woman did not fall. She crumpled to the ground as if her legs had been scythed from beneath her. The Prussian officer approached. She had been virtually cut in half and in her clenched fist still held a blood-soaked letter.

My friend Serval added: ‘It was by way of reprisal for this incident that my château was destroyed by the Germans.’

My own thoughts were for the mothers of the four gentle boys burned inside and of the terrible heroism of the other mother executed against the wall before me.

I stooped and picked up a little pebble still blackened from the fire.

MADAME HUSSON’S ROSE KING1

We had just come through Gisors where I had woken at the sound of porters’ voices shouting out the name of the station. I was just about to slide gently back to sleep again when a violent jerk of the train sent me flying into the lap of a stout lady sitting opposite. One of the engine wheels had broken and the engine itself was now lying across the track. The tender and the luggage van, also derailed, lay next to the dying creature as it expired, wheezing and croaking, whistling and spitting the while. Like a horse collapsed in the street with its chest and flanks heaving and nostrils steaming, the whole shuddering body was totally incapable of struggling upright again.