No painted beauty of the stage
waved the tricolour to the shout of "A Berlin!" No mob orators jumped
upon the cafe tables to wave their arms in defiance of the foe and to
prophesy swift victories.
The quietness of Paris was astounding, and the first mobilization
orders were issued with no more publicity than attends the delivery of
a trade circular through the halfpenny post. Yet in hundreds of
thousands of houses through France and in all the blocks and
tenements of Paris there was a drama of tragic quietude when the
cards were delivered to young men in civilian clothes, men who sat at
table with old mothers or young wives, or in lowly rooms with some
dream to keep them company, or with little women who had spoilt the
dream, or fostered it, or with comrades who had gone on great
adventures with them between the Quartier Latin and the Mountain of
Montmartre. "It has come!"
10
Fate had come with that little card summoning each man to join his
depot, and tapped him on the shoulder with just a finger touch. It was
no more than that--a touch on the shoulder. Yet I know that for many
of those young men it seemed a blow between the eyes, and, to
some of them, a strangle-grip as icy cold as though Death's fingers
were already closing round their throats.
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