We arrived at the Opera. He jumped to the sidewalk and put out his hand. "Good-by," he said, smiling. "May we meet again." I wrung his hand and watched him dive down the stairs to the subway station.
I remained at the office as the afternoon slipped into evening and evening into night, writing my despatches on the actual outbreak of war. As I sat by the window, I suddenly realized that instead of the dazzling illumination of the boulevards I was gazing into the darkness. I investigated this phenomenon and I wrote another despatch upon the new aspect of the city of Paris on the first night of the war. It was a cable describing the death of the old "Ville Lumière" and the birth of the new French spirit. For not only were the boulevards dark, but the voices of the city were hushed. It began to rain—a gentle, warm, summer rain; the gendarmes put on their rubber capes and hoods and melted into the shadows.
I went out to take my despatches to the cable office. The streets were quiet as death. A forlorn fiacre ambled dismally out of a gloomy side street, the bell on the horse's neck giving forth a hollow-sounding tinkle. I climbed in. The driver turned immediately off the boulevard into a back street, when suddenly the decrepit horse fell to his haunches in the slippery road. At once I felt, for I could scarcely see, four silent figures surrounding us. The night before I would have scented danger; but now I had a different feeling entirely. The four shadowy figures remained silent, at attention, as the driver hauled the kicking and plunging horse to his feet.
"He thinks of the war," said the driver.
A quiet chuckle came from the quartet, and I could now distinguish that they were gendarmes.
"You travel late," one of them said, addressing me.
"La presse," I replied briefly.
"Bien!" was the reply. We drove down the dark street, I astonished at this city that had found itself; this nation that had got quietly and determinately to business, at the very signal of conflict, to the amazement of the entire world.