I GO BACK BY TRAIN
It is easy to imagine the influx of Frenchmen, hurrying in from ten miles round, at Vallorbes station that morning, the second of August; the procession of omnibuses, the piles of trunks, the pack of distracted families overrunning the waiting-rooms, crowding round the ticket offices, demanding directions and details which no one could possibly have given them.
The express, which turned up at the usual time, was taken by storm. When would it get to Paris? They would guarantee nothing as to that.
I had the luck to find myself a place as eighth in a second-class carriage. Opposite me two old maids never stopped talking, in a whisper, probably about everything on earth but the news of the day. A bourgeois couple with a crew of sulky children argued for hours about opening the windows.
There was a minute inspection of the baggage at the Pontarlier custom-house. Nothing occurred. We got back into the train. The speed was fast until Dôle; there we slowed down noticeably.
There was a long stop at Dijon. The station already seemed to be under military occupation. Very few civilians on the platforms, but behind the gates, the murmur of a crowd come for news, kept back by sentries with fixed bayonets.
The news-seller, despoiled of her wares, was hawking round nothing but some illustrated comic and sporting papers; I bought two or three from her, but did not read them.
We left Dijon towards eleven o'clock. From there onwards, mad rushes, sudden stoppages, and breathless progress, alternated.