The census indicates that in 1914 the total number of inhabitants within this little village was seven hundred and fifty. Of these, one hundred and forty men were mobilised, and forty-five have already been killed. The masculine element, therefore, has been reduced to a minimum.
Thevenet, the carpenter, grocery man and choir leader, gifted with a strong voice and a shock of curly black hair, but lame in both legs, is certainly, when seated behind his counter, the noblest specimen of the stronger sex that the village possesses.
His pupil, disciple and companion, called Criquet, is, as his pseudonym indicates, extremely small of stature, and though he regularly presents himself before the draft boards, he has invariably been refused as far too small to serve his country in the ranks.
Of course, there are quite a number of sturdy old men, who have had ample occasion to do their bit by helping their daughters or their sons' wives on their farms. So in the village itself there remains hardly any one.
Old man Magnier is so bent with rheumatism that each movement is accompanied by an alarming cracking of his bones, and one is tempted to ask him not to stir for fear of suddenly seeing him drop to pieces, as would an antiquated, over-dry grandfather clock, on being removed from a long stay in the garret.
Monsiau, the inn-keeper, is ready and willing to do almost anything but he is so terribly stout that the slightest physical effort causes him to turn purple and gasp for breath. He therefore remains seated, nodding like a big Buddha, half dozing over the harangues of his friend Chavignon, the tailor, whose first name, by the way, is Pacifique. But in order to belie this little war-like appellation, Chavignon spends most of the time he owes to the trade dreaming of impossible plans and preparing ghastly tortures, to which the Kaiser shall be submitted when once we have caught him.
Bonnet, the hardware dealer, in spite of his seventy-eight years, comes and goes at a lively pace—coughing, grumbling, mumbling—always in a hurry, though he never has anything special to attend to.
And finally there is Laigut; Laigut whom one consults when at his wits' end, simply because he knows everything in general, and nothing in particular, his knowledge covering all the arts and sciences as resumed in the Grand Encyclopedia. He is a little man with spectacles, and a short grey beard, costumed winter and summer alike in the same suit of worn brown velvet, a rabbit skin cap on his head, his feet shoved into wooden sabots.
His reputation before the war was not what one would call spotless. His passion for fowl (other people's on principle) had led to his being strongly suspected. He was a poacher, as well, always ready to bring you the hare or the pike you needed, at a fixed date and hour, more especially when the shooting and fishing seasons were closed.
His was one of those hidden geniuses which the war had revealed. Otherwise we should never on earth have suspected him of being so capable. But be it requested that he repair a sewing machine, a bicycle or a watch; sharpen a pair of scissors, put in a pane of glass, make over mattresses, shear a horse, a dog or a human, paint a sign, cover an umbrella, kill a pig or treat a sprain, Laigut never hesitates, Laigut is always found competent. Add to this his commerce in seeds and herbs, his talent for destroying snakes and trapping moles, the fact that he is municipal bell ringer and choir boy, and you will have but a feeble idea of the activities of this man whose field seems so unlimited.