Well I got Sebastien away from Compiègne—and it was only about six days later that the Germans swarmed over this region—and after delays in the trains, crowded with the wounded, brought him to Paris. The city was in a suppressed excitement with a seething exodus of citizens going on, who stood in lines at the stations ten abreast and almost half a mile long waiting their turns to get away to the south. I stayed some days in Paris, putting Sebastien in one of the well equipped hospital échoppes in the Champ de Mars. He was yet weak and nervous, and his breast caused him much pain. I saw him every night, and we went over the orders and the news of each day together.
The government left Paris for Bordeaux, on September second, and it was thought that there might soon be a pitched battle around the Paris forts before a week was over. The enemy was pushing its outposts nearer and nearer, with the main advance directed against the left flank of the French centre. On September eighth the allied armies were more than holding their own from Ourcq to Verdun. Preparations went on furiously all over Paris, and the Bois de Boulogne was turned into a cattle ranch, and the ratio of available provisions to the population—then over two million—carefully calculated. The use of gas for cooking was prohibited, and its use confined to lighting. East of Paris were lines of refugees, filling the roads from Verdun, almost seventy kilometres (about 43 miles) long; the Chateau de Bizy was transformed into a hospital, and also the Chateau des Penitents at Vernonnet.
It was evident that St. Choiseul for the present was comparatively safe from invasion, the current of investment moving to the south-east, although a letter I received from Gabrielle said that German military motors had been seen near Briois and that their occupants had rifled the wine cellars of M. Villiers. Sebastien was impatient to get away, and I feeling too excited to remain with him, concluded to send him at once to St. Choiseul, writing to Gabrielle that we would come together. My intention to return to St. Choiseul was further quickened by some indefinite statements by my sister that father and mother had partly lost their memories. I instinctively divined that the relentless pall of paralysis was closing about them, and the miserable sombreness of this thought with all of the present darkness about me, plunged me into a dull speechless misery.
The autumn lights shone upon the fair lands about St. Choiseul and shone upon the gardens, thicketed with early chrysanthemums of the sweet village itself, with a lovelier tenderness. It was altogether charming, and as we rode from Briois gently—very gently—Sebastien caught my shoulders and head in his arms, and hid his face on my breast, sobbing softly. The poor boy's heart was full of memories and full too doubtless of presaging fears. The happiness snatched from his life by the nation's peril, the yet unfaded impressions of the dreadful conflict painted to his eyes with the darkest, deadliest colors of suffering, the returning familiar beauty of his old home, and the rising flood of anticipation before the realization of his welcome, mingled together in a torrent of emotion too strong for his composure. I clasped him warmly, and the sympathy of my own bereaved soul covered him as with a benediction. Slowly we moved on amid the splendid fruitage of the fall, where, on either side, the richly laden fields bore their golden crops, and where too—another note of the country's extremity—the hardy old men and the children, and the silent devoted women, toiled almost alone at the deeply needed task of the generous harvest.
Mais, voila, qui arrive! We have reached the little bridge, from whose moss encrusted arches rises the low hill of the dear village, and just over there, half way up, stands the old chestnut tree. And, coming down to meet us, is the whole entourage of old men and women and children, a mimic army bearing flags, the banners of the church, and singing, while an improvised little group of musicians at their head, sent far over the wayside the throb of the drums and the shrill whistles of the fifes.
It was indeed Quintado's welcome home. Our horse recoiled, snorted and reared at the unusual spectacle, and the stirring accompaniment, and the next moment the throng was all about us, and there were cheers and salutations, and waving caps, and a happy bubbling merriment, that made poor Sebastien half wild, and so bewildered him with pride and joy that the poor fellow was speechless, and almost in tears. I spoke a little for him, and the good people then ranged themselves around the carriage, and the horse, led by the head, to prevent his sudden bolting away from the noise and clamor, brought us into St. Choiseul.
Quintado had whispered to me with a blush on his cheeks and with a faltering voice, "But Dora is not here?"
"Ah, Sebastien," I cried, "the best comes last. Wait. You shall see. I think I know that Dora was afraid. Yes really afraid. It would be too much joy. Remember she has heard that you were wounded, and perhaps—surely you understand—"
I did not finish my assurance. His good arm was about my neck, and just to see him so overcome, without knowing the reason, pleased the good friends, marching happily in his company, and the smiling children, so that these, his pupils, broke out in a loud chorus that he had taught them at school; a gay barcarolle from Moliere, that reflected the buoyant unimpeded liveliness of young and loving spirits, though indeed I felt some scruples as to its propriety just now, when we bowed to the dark menace of a punishing destiny: