In our old dining room under the stiff surveillance of our over-painted ancestors, with mother opposite to me, and Hortense bustling in every minute, with new contributions of les bonnes bouches, I sat enjoying to the uttermost the good dinner, while I told mother of the Yvettes, and of Paris, of the soldiers, the anticipated invasion of the Germans, and how the high and low, the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, were standing shoulder to shoulder in the immense effort to preserve la patrie!
Ah! that was a famous night! How we all talked, and how I rehearsed all I had seen, all I had heard, all that I thought and, all that Yvette heard, and saw, and thought too. How defiant was the captain, how grieving the Père Antoine—who half thought that the threatened death of the Pope might stop the war!—how impatient Père Grandin, how attentive and silent was Gabrielle—waiting for them all to go to besiege me with questions and offers—and how we all became silent, stifled with a fearful dread, when the invasion of the Huns was thought of, as reaching St. Choiseul. I argued against that likelihood. The wish was indeed then the father to the thought.
"The tide of approach will be more to the north and east, and if the worst happens before our men can check the deluge, the enemy's hordes will sweep into the Paris environs directly from the east and north. Our position north-west of Paris must protect us for some time, but—of course there are possibilities."
"It can't be done," the old captain strode into the centre of the room and swung round to us as he made his point clear. "It can't be done—c'est impossible. Why? Because with each retreat our armies are rolled up into thicker lines, and the Germans must broaden their wings to save themselves from being out-flanked and to protect their lines of retreat and supply. It can't be done—c'est impossible. Je vous le dit."
Perhaps we were not persuaded—so many things might happen—but we all felt better by making up our minds that St. Choiseul was rather out of the path of danger. Then we went over plans to help, and the suggestion was made by Père Antoine that I speak at the church house, and all of St. Choiseul and Briois and the country-side around be assembled there, and a committee be formed, and work started to gather and make material for the hospitals, the Red Cross missions, and to send gifts and warm underwear to the camps.
Now it was surprising, and it gave me an almost unpleasant shock of disillusionment, that throughout the night Privat Deschat had said nothing—absolument. Glances fell upon him from the company, as if his voice in the talk would be welcomed, and yet, listening with an absorbed earnestness, he "never opened his mouth" (Americain)—jamais il ouvrait son bouche—and it produced the disagreeable effect of alienation, of indifference. It could not be believed. Ah—God be blessed—that cloud of doubt was quite dissolved. About, as the morning sent its streaks of red over the east, and a fresher scent invaded us from the windows, Privat Deschat stood up at the corner of the group, where he had been sitting in his, to us, unfathomable taciturnity, and in a low voice, his big face moving with unconcealed emotion said these words. It closed our council:
"You wonder that I have kept silent. It seems to you a treachery. It is not. I can say but little. I know nothing. My heart beats with yours, with that of France, but neither your hearts nor the noble heart of France will force conclusions in this matter. Fate," he cast a momentary amused glance at Père Antoine, "is not concerned with the wishes of nations, any more than with the wishes of men and women. But after all Fate can be COERCED," he spoke the word with a simulated cry of anguish—it made me start. "Force and Strength and Devotion can put Fate to flight. You may not believe it, because Fate, or the way things go, is to you," he paused, as weighing the possibility of his inclusion, "all—the will of God. It may be in the meanings of Fate to destroy France, but our FAITH in France—and that means Force and Strength and Devotion will put that Fate to flight."