found one for
me; he made me a soldier through the maladroitness of his policy.

The war with Prussia broke out. To tell the truth I did not understand
the motives that made that butchery of armies necessary. I felt neither
the need of killing others nor of being killed by them. However that
may be, enrolled in the _Garde mobile_ of the Seine, I received orders,
after having gone in search of an outfit, to visit the barber and to be
at the barracks in the Rue Lourcine at seven o'clock in the evening.

I was at the place punctually. After roll-call part of the regiment
swarmed out of the barrack gates and emptied into the street. Then the
sidewalks raised a shout and the gutters ran.

Crowding one against another, workmen in blouses, workmen in tatters,
soldiers strapped and gaitered, without arms, they scanned to the clink
of glasses the Marseillaise over which they shouted themselves hoarse
with their voices out of time. Heads geared with kepis {1} of incredible
height and ornamented with vizors fit for blind men and with tin
cockades of red, white and blue, muffled in blue-black jackets with
madder-red collars and cuffs, breached in blue linen pantaloons with a
red stripe down the side, the militia of the Seine kept howling at the
moon before going forth to conquer Prussia. That was a deafening uproar
at the wine shops, a hubbub of glasses, cans and shrieks, cut into here
and there by the rattling of a window shaken by the wind. Suddenly the
roll of the drum muffled all that clamor; a new column poured out of the
barracks; there was carousing and tippling indescribable. Those soldiers
who were drinking in the wine shops shot now out into the streets,
followed by their parents and friends who disputed the honor of carrying
their knapsacks; the ranks were broken; it was a confusion of soldiers
and citizens; mothers wept, fathers, more contained, sputtered wine,
children frisked for joy and shrieked patriotic songs at the top of
their shrill voices.

1 Military hats.

They crossed Paris helter-skelter by the flashes of lightning
that whipped the storming clouds into white zigzags. The heat was
overpowering, the knapsack was heavy; they drank at every corner of the
street; they arrived at last at the railway station of Aubervilliers.
There was a moment of silence broken by the sound of sobbing, dominated
again by a burst of the Marseillaise, then they stalled us like cattle
in the cars. "Good night, Jules! may w