This Robert was a husky young fellow who, to use his own words, was “emancipated from boss tyranny,” and was working independently in his own home.  A tiny, almost subterranean room was serving him for dwelling and workshop.  A woman he called “my affinity” was looking carefully after his hearth and home, with a baby boy clinging to her skirts.  Desnoyers was accustomed to humor Robert’s tirades against his fellow citizens because the man had always humored his whimseys about the incessant rearrangement of his furniture.  In the luxurious apartment in the avenue Victor Hugo the carpenter would sing La Internacional while using hammer and saw, and his employer would overlook his audacity of speech because of the cheapness of his work.

Upon arriving at the shop he found the man with cap over one ear, broad trousers like a mameluke’s, hobnailed boots and various pennants and rosettes fastened to the lapels of his jacket.

“You’ve come too late, Boss,” he said cheerily.  “I am just going to close the factory.  The Proprietor has been mobilized, and in a few hours will join his regiment.”

And he pointed to a written paper posted on the door of his dwelling like the printed cards on all establishments, signifying that employer and employees had obeyed the order of mobilization.

It had never occurred to Desnoyers that his carpenter might become a soldier, since he was so opposed to all kinds of authority.  He hated the flics, the Paris police, with whom he had, more than once, exchanged fisticuffs and clubbings.  Militarism was his special aversion.  In the meetings against the despotism of the barracks he had always been one of the noisiest participants.  And was this revolutionary fellow going to war naturally and voluntarily? . . .

Robert spoke enthusiastically of his regiment, of life among comrades with Death but four steps away.

“I believe in my ideas, Boss, the same as before,” he explained as though guessing the other’s thought.  “But war is war and teaches many things—­among others that Liberty must be accompanied with order and authority.  It is necessary that someone direct that the rest may follow—­willingly, by common consent . . . but they must follow.  When war actually comes one sees things very differently from when living at home doing as one pleases.”

The night that they assassinated Jaures he howled with rage, announcing that the following morning the murder would be avenged.  He had hunted up his associates in the district in order to inform them what retaliation was being planned against the malefactors.  But war was about to break out.  There was something in the air that was opposing civil strife, that was placing private grievances in momentary abeyance, concentrating all minds on the common weal.