sented my card, told me, in the most
extraordinarily calm voice in the world, as if he had been doing the
same thing every morning:

"Track number 5. Your train leaves at 6.27."

And the train left at 6.27, like any good little train that is on
time. It had left quietly; it was almost empty. It had followed the
Seine, and I had seen Paris lighted up by the peaceable morning glow,
Paris which was still asleep. And I had rubbed my eyes, asking myself
if I wasn't dreaming, if I wasn't asleep. Were we really at war? My
eyes were seeing nothing of it, but my memory kept recalling the fact.
It recalled the unforgettable scenes of those last days--that scene
especially, at four o'clock in the evening on the first of August,
when the crowd along the boulevard had suddenly seen the mobilization
orders posted in the window of a newspaper office. A shout burst
forth, a shout I shall hear until my last moment, which made me
tremble from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. It was a
shout that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, the shout
of a people who, for years, had waited for that moment.

Then the "Marseillaise"! Then a short, imperious demand:

"The flags! We want the flags!"

And flags burst forth from all quarters of Paris, decorated in the
twinkling of an eye as if it were a fete day. Yes, all that had really
happened. All that had taken place. We were really at war.

Little by little the train filled up. It stopped at every station, and
at every station men got aboard. They came in gayly and confidently,
bidding farewell to the women who had accompanied them and who stayed
behind the gate to do their weeping. Everybody was mixed in together
in the compartments without any distinctions of rank, station, class
or anything else. At Argentan I saw some rough Norman farmers enter
the coaches, talking with the same good natured calmness as if they
were going away on a business trip. One expression was repeated again
and again:

"If we've got to go, we've got to go."

One farmer said:

"They are looking after our good. I shall fight until I fall."

The spirit of the whole French people spoke from these mouths. You
felt the firm purpose of the nation come out of the very earth.

The country side presented an unwonted appearance. I remember vividly
the view the broad plains of Beauce offered. They looked as if they
were dead or fallen into a lethargy. Their life had come to an abrupt
end on Sat