e certified public
accountants would have had a hard time doing.

He did it! Every captain in the French Army did it. And the next
morning at six o'clock our little machine was ready to go and take its
place in the operations of the big machine. The following day, at six
o'clock, we entrained again; but no longer was it the confused and
disorganized crowd that it had been the evening before. It was a
company with arms and leaders; a company which had already made the
acquaintance of discipline. That was proved by the silence reigning
everywhere. At the moment of departure the Colonel had commanded:

"Silence!"

There was not a sound. The long train, crowded with soldiers, was a
silent train which passed through the open country, the towns and the
villages all the way to Paris without a sound except the puffing of
the engine. In the evening, silent always, we detrained at Paris and
marched to a barracks situated to the north of the capital. We were
to stay there a month.

* * * * *

The story of Paris during the month of August, 1914, is an
extraordinary one that would deserve an entire volume to itself. That
feverish city has never lived through hours that were more calm and
peaceful. During the first two weeks Paris seemed to be in a sweet,
peaceful dream, in which the citizens listened eagerly for sounds of
victory coming from the far distant horizon. On the twenty-fifth of
August Paris, which had heard only vague echoes of the Battle of
Charleroi, awakened with a jolt when it read the famous communique
beginning with the words: "_De la Somme aux Vosges_...."

So the enemy was already at the Somme, a few days' march from the
capital! But the awakening was as free from disturbance as the dream
had been. Paris felt absolute confidence in the army, in Joffre; and
the Parisian reasoning was expressed in one phrase, "The army has
retreated, but it is neither destroyed nor beaten; as long as the
army is there, Paris has nothing to fear...." And when Sunday the
thirtieth of August came, Paris was as calm and confident as it was
on the first day of the war.

I shall remember the thirtieth of August for a long time.

They had posted on all the walls two notices. One of them was large,
the other small. The large one was a proclamation of the Government
announcing the departure of its officials for Bordeaux:

FRENCHMEN!

For several weeks our troops and the enemy's army have