st gale.

* * * * *

Within the last week Pont du Sable has undergone a transformation. The
dead village is alive with soldiers, for it is the time of the
manoeuvres. Houses, barns and cow-sheds are filled by night with the
red-trousered infantry of the French _Republique_. By day, the window
panes shiver under the distant flash and roar of artillery. The air
vibrates with the rip and rattle of musketry--savage volleys, filling
the heavens with shrill, vicious waves of whistling bullets that kill at
a miraculous distance. It is well that all this murderous fire occurs
beyond the desert of dunes skirting the open sea, for they say the
result upon the iron targets on the marsh is something frightful. The
general in command is in a good humour over the record.

Despatch-bearers gallop at all hours of the day and night through Pont
du Sable's single street. The band plays daily in the public square.
Sunburned soldiers lug sacks of provisions and bundles of straw out to
five hundred more men bivouacked on the dunes. Whole regiments return to
the little fishing-village at twilight singing gay songs, followed by
the fisher girls.

Ah! Mesdames--voila du bon fromage!
Celui qui l'a fait il est de son village!
Voila du bon fromage au lait!
Il est du pays de celui qui l'a fait.

Three young officers are stopping at Monsieur le Cure's, who has
returned from the sick roses of his friend; and Tanrade has a colonel
and two lieutenants beneath his roof. As for myself and the house
abandoned by the marsh, we are very much occupied with a blustering old
general, his aide-de-camp, and two common soldiers; but I tremble lest
the general should discover the latter two, for you see, they knocked at
my door for a lodging before the general arrived, and I could not refuse
them. Both of them put together would hardly make a full-sized warrior,
and both play the slide-trombone in the band. Naturally their artistic
temperament revolted at the idea of sleeping in the only available place
left in the village--a cow-shed with cows. They explained this to me
with so many polite gestures, mingled with an occasional salute at their
assured gratefulness should I acquiesce, that I turned them over for
safe keeping to Suzette, who has given them her room and sleeps in the
garret. Suzette is overjoyed. Dream of dreams! For Suzette to have one
real live soldier in the house--but to have two! Both of these