Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott.

Thus had passed the day.  Meanwhile the maire, M. Odent, a good man and greatly beloved, had been arrested at the Hotel de Ville.  His secretary proposed to call his deputies.  “No, no,” replied the maire tranquilly, “one victim is enough.”  He was dragged along the streets to the suburb of Chammont, the headquarters of von Kluck, and his guards buffeted him and spat upon him as he went.  Arrived there, he was condemned to death.  He took his companions in captivity by the hand, embraced them—­“tres dignement,” the concierge had been told—­handed them his papers, and bade them adieu.  Two minutes later he was shot, and his body thrown into a shallow trench with a sprinkling of earth.  The concierge had seen it the next day; the feet were protruding.

All this the concierge told us in a dull, apathetic voice, and always as he told his body twitched and the muscles of his face worked.  And he spoke like a man in a soliloquy as though we were not there.  He seemed to be looking at something which we could not see.  As we bade him adieu he stared at us as though he saw us not, neither did he return our salutation.  We clambered back into our car and turned her head round towards Compiegne.  I shall never see Senlis again.

III

UNOFFICIAL INTERLUDES

XV

A “CONSEIL DE LA GUERRE”

Il y a une convenance et un pacte secret entre la jeunesse et la guerre.  Manier des armes, revetir l’uniforme, monter a cheval ou marcher au commandement, etre redoutable sans cesser d’etre aimable, depasser le voisin en audace, en vitesse, et en grace s’il se peut, defier l’ennemi, connaitre l’aventure, jouer ce qui a peu dure, ce qui est encore illusion, reve, ambition, ce qui est encore une beaute, o jeunesse, voila ce que vous aimez!  Vous n’etes pas liee, vous n’etes pas fanee, vous pouvez courir le monde.—­RENE BAZIN, Recits du temps de la guerre.

Our little town was like the pool of Bethesda—­never had I seen such a multitude of impotent folk.  The lame, the halt, and the blind congregated here as if awaiting some miracle.  I met them everywhere—­Zouaves, Turcos, French infantry of the line, in every stage of infirmity.  Our town was indeed but one vast hospital—­orderly, subdued, and tenebrous.  Every hotel but our own was closed to visitors and flew the Red Cross flag, displaying on its portals the register of wounded like a roll-call.  The streets at night, with their lights extinguished, were subterranean in their darkness, and the single cafe, faintly illuminated, looked like some mysterious grotto within which the rows of bottles of cognac and Mattoni gleamed like veins of quartz and felspar.  We were, indeed, a race of troglodytes, and we were all either very young or very old.  Our adolescence