A few days back, crowds of passionately-excited men had filled the streets, and every kind of daring enterprise was to be read on their wild faces.
Where was now the haughty defiance, the thirst of battle, that inspired all those thousands?
The crowds of peasants, the swarming town populace, the soldiers of the patriot army, had vanished like ghosts scared by the presence of an enchanter.

The few men to be seen were foreign soldiers.

But their gay uniforms did not improve the aspect of the town.

True, the fire was quenched, whose clouds of smoke had darkened the sky.

But there stood the houses in the pale light, looking as if they had been gutted.