nge of company in the carriage, the democrats being
turned into a third-class carriage to make way for half a dozen officers
of various grades and branches. I had new types to study and was
surprised by the calmness and quietude of these men--mostly of
middle age--who had just left their homes for active service. They
showed no signs of excitement but chatted about the prospects of the
war as though it were an abstract problem. The attitude of England
was questioned and again I was called upon to speak as the
representative of my country and to assure Frenchmen of our
friendship and co-operation. They seemed satisfied with my
statements and expressed their belief that the British Fleet would
make short work of the enemy at sea.

One of the officers took no part in the conversation. He was a
handsome man of about forty years of age, in the uniform of an
infantry regiment, and he sat in the corner of the carriage, stroking his
brown moustache in a thoughtful way. He had a fine gravity of face
and once or twice when his eyes turned my way I saw an immense
sadness in them.

20

As our train passed through France on its way to Nancy, we heard
and saw the tumult of a nation arming itself for war and pouring down
to its frontiers to meet the enemy. All through the night, as we passed
through towns and villages and under railway bridges, the song of the
Marseillaise rose up to the carriage windows and then wailed away
like a sad plaint as our engine shrieked and raced on. At the sound of
the national hymn one of the officers in my carriage always opened
his eyes and lifted his head, which had been drooping forward on his
chest, and listened with a look of puzzled surprise, as though he
could not realize even yet that France was at war and that he was on
his way to the front. But the other officers slept; and the silent man,
whose quiet dignity and sadness had impressed me, smiled a little in
his sleep now and then and murmured a word or two, among which I
seemed to hear a woman's name.

In the dawn and pallid sunlight of the morning I saw the soldiers of
France assembling. They came across the bridges with glinting rifles,
and the blue coats and red trousers of the infantry made them look in
the distance like tin soldiers from a children's playbox. But there were
battalions of them close to the railway lines, waiting at level crossings,
and with stacked arms on the platforms, so that I could look into their
eyes and w