The soldiers mused and brooded.  Since the war began they had undergone a great psychic transformation.  Stationed at the very center of a sustained fiery crisis, they lost their feeling of acquiescence in the established order and in the place of their own class therein.  In the sight of death they had been stirred to their depths and volcanic fires were found burning there.  Resignation had thereupon made way for a rebellious mood and rebellion found sustenance everywhere.  The poilu demobilized retained his military spirit, nay, he carried about with him the very atmosphere of the trenches.  He had rid himself of the sentiment of fear and the faculty of reverence went with it.  His outlook on the world had changed completely and his inner sense reversed the social order which he beheld, as the eye reverses the object it apprehends.  Respect for persons and institutions survived in relatively few instances the sacredness of life and the fear of death.  He was impressed, too, with the all-importance of his class, which he had learned during the war to look upon as the Atlas on whose shoulders rest the Republic and its empire overseas.  He had saved the state in war and he remained in peace-time its principal mainstay.  With his value as measured by these priceless services he compared the low estimate put upon him by those who continued to identify themselves with the state—­the over-fed, lazy, self-seeking money-getters who reserved to themselves the fruits of his toil.

One can well imagine—­I have actually heard—­the poilus putting their case somewhat as follows:  “So long as we filled the gap between the death-dealing Teutons and our privileged compatriots we were well fed, warmly clad, made much of.  During the war we were raised to the rank of pillars of the state, saviors of the nation, arbiters of the world’s destinies.  So long as we faced the enemy’s guns nothing was too good for us.  We had meat, white bread, eggs, wine, sugar in plenty.  But, now that we have accomplished our task, we have fallen from our high estate and are expected to become pariahs anew.  We are to work on for the old gang and the class from which it comes, until they plunge us into another war.  For what?  What is the reward for what we have achieved, what the incentive for what we are expected to accomplish?  We cannot afford as much food as before the war, nor of the same quality.  We are in want even of necessaries.  Is it for this that we have fought?  A thousand times no.  If we saved our nation we can also save our class.  We have the will and the power.  Why should we not exert them?” The purpose of the section of the community to which these demobilized soldiers mainly belonged grew visibly definite as consciousness of their collective force grew and became keener.  Occasionally it manifested itself openly in symptomatic spurts.