t--"

Speech failed; he walked away, waving his arms, his rusty silk hat on
the back of his head.

A few moments later drums began to roll from the square. Speed,
passing, called out to me that the conscripts were leaving for
Lorient; so I walked down to the bridge, where the crowd had gathered
and where a tall gendarme stood, his blue-and-white uniform distinct
in the early evening light. The mayor was there, too, dressed in his
best, waddling excitedly about, and buttonholing at intervals a young
lieutenant of infantry, who appeared to be extremely bored.

There were the conscripts of the Garde Mobile, an anxious peasant
rabble, awkward, resigned, docile as cattle. Here stood a farmer,
reeking of his barnyard; here two woodsmen from the forest, belted and
lean; but the majority were men of the sea, heavy-limbed, sun-scorched
fellows, with little, keen eyes always half closed, and big, helpless
fists hanging. Some carried their packets slung from hip to shoulder,
some tied their parcels to the muzzles of their obsolete muskets. A
number wore the boatman's smock, others the farmer's blouse of linen,
but the greater number were clad in the blue-wool jersey and cloth
beret of the sailor.

Husbands, sons, lovers, looked silently at the women. The men uttered
no protest, no reproach; the women wept very quietly. In their hearts
that strange mysticism of the race predominated--the hopeless
acceptance of a destiny which has, for centuries, left its imprint in
the sad eyes of the Breton. Generations of martyrdom leave a cowed and
spiritually fatigued race which breeds stoics.

Like great white blossoms, the spotless head-dresses of the maids of
Paradise swayed and bowed above the crowd.

A little old woman stood beside a sailor, saying to anybody who would
listen to her: "My son--they are taking my son. Why should they take
my son?"

Another said: "They are taking mine, too, but he cannot fight on
land. He knows the sea; he is not afraid at sea. Can nobody help us?
He cannot fight on land; he does not know how!"

A woman carrying a sleeping baby stood beside the drummers at the
fountain. Five children dragged at her skirts and peered up at the
mayor, who shrugged his shoulders and shook his fat head.

"What can I do? He must march with the others, your man," said the
mayor, again and again. But the woman with the baby never ceased her
eternal question: "What can we live on if you take him? I do not mean
to complain