It is easy to imagine the influx of Frenchmen, hurrying in from ten miles round, at Vallorbes station that morning, the second of August; the procession of omnibuses, the piles of trunks, the pack of distracted families overrunning the waiting-rooms, crowding round the ticket offices, demanding directions and details which no one could possibly have given them. The express, which turned up at the usual time, was taken by storm. When would it get to Paris? They would guarantee nothing as to that.
I had the luck to find myself a place as eighth in a second-class carriage. Opposite me two old maids never stopped talking, in a whisper, probably about everything on earth but the news of the day. A bourgeois couple with a crew of sulky children argued for hours about opening the windows.
There was a minute inspection of the baggage at the Pontarlier custom-house. Nothing occurred. We got back into the train. The speed was fast until D?le; there we slowed down noticeably.
[Pg 41]
There was a long stop at Dijon. The station already seemed to be under military occupation. Very few civilians on the platforms, but behind the gates, the murmur of a crowd come for news, kept back by sentries with fixed bayonets.
The news-seller, despoiled of her wares, was hawking round nothing but some illustrated comic and sporting papers; I bought two or three from her, but did not read them.
We left Dijon towards eleven o'clock. From there onwards, mad rushes, sudden stoppages, and breathless progress, alternated.
Laroche at last.
There, the Paris papers had just arrived. We threw ourselves upon them. I managed to get one. I was surrounded at once. People squashed up against me to get at least a glimpse of the stop-press and headlines. I was not very accommodating about exhibiting my paper, and I soon succeeded in shaking them off, and getting back to my carriage.
The train started off again.
Standing up in the corridor, I admit that I read and re-read the leading article without skipping a single line.
I expected a good leader and was not disappointed. I relished the indispensable paragraph on the past and future of France, on the sacred union in face of the enemy.
My neighbour nudged me with his elbow.
"Oh! Isn't it just what everyone is thinking?"
"Yes, yes."
Exact information was what I really thirsted for. I remember two headlines: "To-morrow?" and "A Day at the Quai d'Orsay." In a prominent position the President's Proclamation. The article was a[Pg 42] success: the obvious thing to say. "Mobilisation is not war." But there was no mistaking it; the spark had caught, the fire was already crackling.
I learnt the news of the preceding days, including the assassination of Jaurès, merely from allusions—to me they were so many claps of thunder!
One main point stood out: Germany's declaration of war on Russia. Like a shot France was dragged in, automatically. A well-laid scheme on the part of the Wilhelmstrasse. The odious article from the Cologne Gazette which was reproduced everywhere had been a final eye-opener.
One amusing detail: Hervé asking to be allowed to go! Another rather shocked me: Telegrams from various places on "the Enthusiasm in the Provinces...." I had just come from the provinces!
I had finished reading. It was evident that my neighbour was dying to talk. Feeling charitably disposed I gave him an opening. In five minutes I had learnt all there was to know about his antecedents, his family, and his profession. He had passed his legal examinations, taking the degree of licentiate, and was the son of a lawyer. He was coming back from Autun, the home of his maternal grandfather. What times we were living through, sir! The day before when the official telegram had arrived, ah, what enthusiasm there had been; I ought to have seen the factory hands rushing out shouting: "To the front!"
"You saw them then?"
"Oh no, I didn't!"
He had read this description in the Mémorial d'Autun.
He asked me childish questions about our chances, and the schemes at headquarters.
[Pg 43]
I sententiously put forward the idea of an offensive in Alsace. He jumped at it.
"To take the offensive. Yes, yes. That was the only thing to be done."
He had not many brains. It did not take him three minutes to regain the Lost Provinces.
He confided in me that he too was a non-commissioned officer in the reserves, attached to the 74th Rouens. He was to rejoin the next day. He asked my name, and gave me his address. He offered me his friendship as a brother-in-arms. I was tempted to be touched by the thought that here was one of the young men of my own age, who would fight, and perhaps fall, at my side on the plains of Lorraine. But my scepticism and coldness offered too strong a resistance, and when I heard him exclaim: "If we've got to be killed, we've got to be, and that's all about it!" my indignation was aroused. Sincere! He was sincere enough; a puppet who came near to being a hero! There were such beings, incapable of reasoning for themselves, always ready to set out to fight for never mind which side. Yesterday for the Church. To-day for the State. To-morrow for some social chimera. If it had only been themselves they disposed of!... But they were in the majority, it was they who oppressed us.
Much irritated, I wickedly said to myself: "Let him sell his life cheaply! It certainly isn't worth much!"
I escaped from him and gained a distant door, whither he did not follow me.
Our journey was drawing to an end. The train had put on speed. With shrieks of pride and whirling smoke and sparks, our powerful engine dragged us towards the City, the huge magnet which, at this time was rallying so many friendly forces. The intoxication of this attrac[Pg 44]tion made itself felt twenty kilometres away. The six-fold rails gleamed in the sun on the sand embankments. We thundered along, without slackening our speed, through the suburb stations, whose names were slurred by our haste. Crowds of people huddled together on the platforms, gazed at us in respectful silence. Maisons-Alfort, Charenton. We went ahead of ten trains which were crawling along the side lines, and speeding up their connecting-rods in vain. Smoke darkened the air. We passed by high houses, grimy with soot, whose windows, where the washing was put out to dry overhung our cutting. Then came the metallic crash of the double bridge flung across the rivers where they join,—the moat outside the walls—Paris! We were in Paris!
I was thrilled with excitement. Capital of the civilised world, head of a great nation at war! From here had leaped out the old call to arms! Leaning out, I tried to distinguish beyond the line of railway-carriages, sidings and signal-boxes, in the streets skirting the line, in the avenues we crossed on heavy iron bridges, the residents, and passers-by, all those who had just lived through such rousing hours here.
I was impatient to mingle with them.