y small and mean preoccupation,
cleared the moral air as the streets had been cleared, and made the
spectator feel as though he were reading a great poem on War rather
than facing its realities.

Something of this sense of exaltation seemed to penetrate the
throngs who streamed up and down the Boulevards till late into the
night. All wheeled traffic had ceased, except that of the rare
taxi-cabs impressed to carry conscripts to the stations; and the
middle of the Boulevards was as thronged with foot-passengers as an
Italian market-place on a Sunday morning. The vast tide swayed up
and down at a slow pace, breaking now and then to make room for one
of the volunteer "legions" which were forming at every corner:
Italian, Roumanian, South American, North American, each headed by
its national flag and hailed with cheering as it passed. But even
the cheers were sober: Paris was not to be shaken out of her
self-imposed serenity. One felt something nobly conscious and
voluntary in the mood of this quiet multitude. Yet it was a mixed
throng, made up of every class, from the scum of the Exterior
Boulevards to the cream of the fashionable restaurants. These
people, only two days ago, had been leading a thousand different
lives, in indifference or in antagonism to each other, as alien as
enemies across a frontier: now workers and idlers, thieves, beggars,
saints, poets, drabs and sharpers, genuine people and showy shams,
were all bumping up against each other in an instinctive community
of emotion. The "people," luckily, predominated; the faces of
workers look best in such a crowd, and there were thousands of them,
each illuminated and singled out by its magnesium-flash of passion.

I remember especially the steady-browed faces of the women; and also
the small but significant fact that every one of them had remembered
to bring her dog. The biggest of these amiable companions had to
take their chance of seeing what they could through the forest of
human legs; but every one that was portable was snugly lodged in the
bend of an elbow, and from this safe perch scores and scores of
small serious muzzles, blunt or sharp, smooth or woolly, brown or
grey or white or black or brindled, looked out on the scene with the
quiet awareness of the Paris dog. It was certainly a good sign that
they had not been forgotten that night.

II

WE had been shown, impressively, what it was to live through a
mobilization; now we were to learn that mob