There was no political cry or revolutionary outburst. No mob orator
sprang upon a cafe chair to say "Nous sommes trahis!" There was
not even a word of rebuke for those who had doctored the official
communiques and put a false glamour of hope upon hideous facts.
Hurriedly and dejectedly over a million people of Paris fled from the
city, now that the Government had led the way of flight. They were
afraid, and there was panic in their exodus, but even that was not
hysterical, and men and women kept their heads, though they had
lost their hopes. It was rare to see a weeping woman. There was no
wailing of a people distraught. Sadly those fugitives left the city which
had been all the world to them, and the roads to the south were black
with their multitudes, having left in fear but full of courage on the road,
dejected, but even then finding a comedy in the misery of it, laughing
--as most French women will laugh in the hour of peril--even when
their suffering was greatest and when there was a heartache in their
humour.
6
After all the soul of Paris did not die, even in those dark days when so
many of its inhabitants had gone, and when, for a little while, it
seemed a deserted city. Many thousands of citizens remained,
enough to make a great population, and although for a day or two
they kept for the most part indoors, under the shadow of a fear that at
any moment they might hear the first shells come shrieking overhead,
or even the clatter of German cavalry, they quickly resumed the daily
routine of their lives, as far as it was possible at such a time.
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