September 10th.
. . . I had just finished breakfasting on the lawn—on my word, an excellent breakfast too!—fresh eggs, and grapes gathered from my beautiful purple vine. I was sitting there, idly dreaming, basking in the light, warmth, and silence, very busy looking at the smoke of my pipe and at my painted plates, on which a stray wasp was furiously attacking the emptied stalks. Around me on that clear autumn day, under a deep and pure blue sky, even more beautiful than the summer skies so often veiled and dimmed by hot mists, I felt the same hush of Nature, the same all-pervading sense of peace . . . When suddenly a formidable explosion in my immediate vicinity shook the house, rattled the windows, and stirred the leaves, sending forth on all sides the sound of wild flutterings, screams, alarms, and galloping . . . This time it was not the bridge at Corbeil that was blown up, but our own, our little bridge at Champrosay. It meant: “The Prussians are here!” Immediately my heart stood still, and a veil seemed to pass over the sunlight. Then the thought crossed my mind that to-morrow, this evening maybe, the forest roads would be invaded, darkened by these wretches; that I should be compelled to bury myself alive, and never stir out again. And I longed to see once more my beloved forest, of which I had been deprived for the last two months.
The lanes in the woods were lovely, widened by freedom from the long summer weeds, and showing at the top, through the young branches, a long ray of light. At the cross-roads, bathed in sunlight, the faded pink heather was flowering in tufts; and in the thickets, among the black stems, like a small forest beneath a large one, the ferns displayed their microscopic trees with their peculiar foliage. What a silence! Generally a thousand vague sounds greeted me from afar: the trains passing by and marking the distant horizon, the digging of the quarrymen, the cart-wheels slowly turning in the ruts, the strident call-whistle of the gang. And to-day, not a sound—not even that perpetual murmur which seems like the breathing of a slumbering forest—that stir of the leaves, that humming of the insects, that pretty “frrrt!” like the unfolding of a fan, made by birds among the foliage. It seemed as if the loud report just now had stupefied all Nature.
Slightly weary, I had seated myself under a thick oak-tree, when I heard a rustling in the branches. At last! . . . I expected to see a hare or a roedeer scamper across the path; but through the parted bushes, about ten paces from me on the road, jumped a big fellow, dressed all in black, with his gun on his shoulder, a revolver in his belt, and his head covered by a large Tyrolese hat. I was startled. I thought it was some Bavarian or Saxon rifleman. It was, however, a Parisian franc-tireur. At that time there were some twenty of them in the forest, retreating day by day before the Prussians, lying in ambush to watch their line of march, and to knock over from time to time an Uhlan of the advance-guard. While the man was talking to me, his comrades, coming out of the coppice, joined us. They were nearly all old soldiers, working-men from the faubourgs of Paris. I took them back to the Hermitage, and made them drink a few bottles of wine.
They told me the Prince of Saxony’s division had reached Montereau, one stage distant from here. I learnt also from them about the defensive operations begun round Paris—the organisation of the troops; and to hear them speak with such calm, such confidence, and especially hearing their Parisian accent, warmed my heart. Ah, brave fellows! if I could only have gone off with them, stuck on my head their ridiculous headgear, and fought in their ranks, under the walls of the good city! . . . But, alas! to have walked merely twenty steps in the woods had swollen my leg, and I was in pain. Ah, well! I was grieved when they left me. They are probably the last Frenchmen that I shall see for some time . . .
They left at dusk, cheered by my sour wine. I gave them a hen, . . . they carried off four . . .
