Here, nothing was known as yet: the telegraph-and telephone-wires were blocked. But, at eight o'clock, a first telegram got through: groups of people had raised manifestations outside the German embassy. On the Place de la Concorde, the statue of the city of Strasburg was covered with flags and flowers.
Then the telegrams flowed in.
Questioned in the Chamber, the prime minister had replied, amid the applause of the whole house:
"We ask, we claim your absolute confidence, your blind confidence. If some of you refuse it to the minister, at least grant it to the Frenchman. For it is a Frenchman who speaks in your name. And it is a Frenchman who will act."
In the lobby outside the house, a member of the opposition had begun to sing the Marseillaise, which was taken up by all the rest of the members in chorus.
And then there was the other side of the question: telegrams from Germany; the yellow press rabid; all the evening-papers adopting an uncompromising, aggressive attitude; Berlin in uproar....
***
They drove back at midnight; and, although they were both seized with a like emotion, it aroused in them ideas so different that they did not exchange a word. Morestal himself, who was not aware of the divorce that had taken place between their minds, dared not indulge in his usual speeches.
The next morning, the Börsweilener Zeitung announced movements of troops towards the frontier. The emperor, who was cruising in the North Sea, had landed at Ostende. The chancellor was waiting for him at Cologne. And it was thought that the French ambassador had also gone to meet him.
Thenceforward, throughout that Friday and the following Saturday, the inmates of the Old Mill lived in a horrible nightmare. The storm was now shaking the whole of France and Germany, the whole of quivering Europe. They heard it roar. The earth cracked under its fury. What terrible catastrophe would it produce?