The people who could had fled to Sezanne, or had gone westward hurriedly, to escape the raiders.

In the ruined villages and farms they came across many dead bodies of old women, old men and children, with here and there a younger woman whose awful fate filled the old soldier and the young alike with grim and passionate rage.
"Yonder," said Marteau, gloomily pointing westward through the darkness, "lies Aumenier and my father's house." "And mine," added Bullet-Stopper.
There was no need to express the thought further, to dilate upon it.
It had been the Emperor's maxim that war should support war.

His armies had lived off the country.

The enemy had taken a leaf out of his own book.

Even the stupid could not fight forever against Napoleon without learning something.