Workmen digging drains in the village of Buxiéres-les-Froncles, a hundred-odd miles from Paris, last week uncovered the bones of five men, each with his skull cracked, each wrapped in the shreds of a long-outmoded uniform. The mayor, the local schoolteacher and five policemen investigated the strange discovery, got a thorough explanation from the village's oldest inhabitant, 91-year-old Emilie Guillaumot. Her story:
"It was in the summer of 1871, during the Prussian occupation. Five Prussian Uhlans were billeted in our house. One night the five went down to my father's wine cellar and got...