ds were up
and you could hear the bullets patter against them. The insurgents,
all covered with powder, would sneak over and get a drink--and when
finally their barricade was taken, it was the Republican soldiers who
sat in our chairs and drank beer and lemonade! _Their_ guns, humph!
Let them bark!"

It is at this selfsame cafe that gather all the important men of our
district, much as the American would go to his club. They are serious
_bourgeois_, well along in the fifties, just a trifle ridiculous,
perhaps on account of their allure and their attire. But should one
grow to know them better he would soon realise that most of them are
shrewd, hard-working business men, each burdened with an anxiety or a
sorrow which he never mentions.

They too love strategy. Armies represented by match safes, dominoes
and toothpicks have become an obsession--their weakness. They are
thorough Frenchmen and their critical sense must be unbridled. They
love their ideas and their systems. They would doubtless not hesitate
to advise Foch. Personally, if I were Foch, I should turn a deaf ear.
But if I were a timid, vacillating, pessimistic spirit, still in doubt
as to the final outcome, I should most certainly seat myself at a
neighbouring table and listen to their conversation that I might come
away imbued with a little of their patience, abnegation, and absolute
confidence.

Nor does the feminine opinion deviate from this course. I found the
same ideas prevalent in the store of a little woman who sold umbrellas.
Before the war Madame Coutant had a very flourishing trade, but now her
sales are few and far between, while her chief occupation is repairing.
She is a widow without children, and no immediate relative in the war.
Because of this, at the beginning she was looked down upon and her
situation annoyed and embarrassed her greatly. But by dint of search,
a most voluminous correspondence, and perhaps a little bit of intrigue,
she finally managed to unearth two very distant cousins, peasant boys
from the Cevennes, whom she frankly admitted never having seen, but to
whom she regularly sent packages and post cards; about whom she was at
liberty to speak without blushing, since one of them had recently been
cited for bravery and decorated with the _Croix de Guerre_.

This good woman devotes all the leisure and energy her trade leaves
her, to current events. Of course, there is the official _communique_
which may well be con