Within the last week Pont du Sable has undergone a transformation. The dead village is alive with soldiers, for it is the time of the manœuvres. Houses, barns and cow-sheds are filled by night with the red-trousered infantry of the French République. By day, the window panes shiver under the distant flash and roar of artillery. The air vibrates with the rip and rattle of musketry—savage volleys, filling the heavens with shrill, vicious waves of whistling bullets that kill at a miraculous distance. It is well that all this murderous fire occurs beyond the desert of dunes skirting the open sea, for they say the result upon the iron targets on the marsh is something frightful. The general in command is in a good humour over the record.
Despatch-bearers gallop at all hours of the day and night through Pont du Sable's single street. The band plays daily in the public square. Sunburned soldiers lug sacks of provisions and bundles of straw out to five hundred more men bivouacked on the dunes. Whole regiments return to the little fishing-village at twilight singing gay songs, followed by the fisher girls.
Ah! Mesdames—voilà du bon fromage!
Celui qui l'a fait il est de son village!
Voilà du bon fromage au lait!
Il est du pays de celui qui l'a fait.
Three young officers are stopping at Monsieur le Curé's, who has returned from the sick roses of his friend; and Tanrade has a colonel and two lieutenants beneath his roof. As for myself and the house abandoned by the marsh, we are very much occupied with a blustering old general, his aide-de-camp, and two common soldiers; but I tremble lest the general should discover the latter two, for you see, they knocked at my door for a lodging before the general arrived, and I could not refuse them. Both of them put together would hardly make a full-sized warrior, and both play the slide-trombone in the band. Naturally their artistic temperament revolted at the idea of sleeping in the only available place left in the village—a cow-shed with cows. They explained this to me with so many polite gestures, mingled with an occasional salute at their assured gratefulness should I acquiesce, that I turned them over for safe keeping to Suzette, who has given them her room and sleeps in the garret. Suzette is overjoyed. Dream of dreams! For Suzette to have one real live soldier in the house—but to have two! Both of these red-eared, red-trousered dispensers of harmony are perfect in deportment, and as quiet as mice. They slip out of my back gate at daylight, bound for the seat of war and slip in again at sundown like obedient children, talk in kitchen whispers to Suzette over hot cakes and cider, and go punctually to bed at nine—the very hour when the roaring old general and his aide-de-camp are toasting their gold spurs before my fire.
The general is tall and broad-shouldered, and as agile as a boy. There is a certain hard, compact firmness about him as if he had been cast in bronze. His alert eyes are either flashing in authority or beaming in gentleness. The same play between dominant roughness and tenderness is true, too, of his voice and manner.
"Madame," he said, last night, after dinner, as he bent and graciously kissed Alice de Bréville's hand, "forgive an old savage who pays you homage and the assurance of his profound respect." The next moment my courtyard without rocked with his reprimand to a bungling lieutenant.
To-night the general is [in an] uproar of good humour after a storm, for did not some vagabonds steal the danger-posts intended to warn the public of the location of the firing-line, so that new ones had to be sent for? When the news of the theft reached him his rage was something to behold. I could almost hear the little slide-trombonists shake as far back as Suzette's kitchen. Fortunately, the cyclone was of short duration—to-night he is pleased over the good work of his men during the days of mock warfare and at the riddled, twisted targets, all of which is child's play to this veteran who has weathered so many real battles.
To-night he has dined well, and his big hand is stroking the Essence of Selfishness who purrs against his medalled chest under a caress as gentle as a woman's. He sings his favourite airs from "Faust" and "Aïda" with gusto, and roars over the gallant stories of his aide-de-camp, who, being from the south of La belle France, is never at a loss for a tale—tales that make the general's medals twinkle merrily in the firelight. It is my first joyful experience as host to the military, but I cannot help being nervous over Suzette and the trombonists.