ached, woke him out of this paralyzed condition, and
it is remarkable that, in breaking, like a moth from a chrysalis, out
of his network of futile and sterile sophisms, it was immediately on
the contingency of war that he fixed his thoughts. The news of his
mother's death, by a strange and rapid connexion of ideas, reminded
him of his future responsibility as an officer in the coming struggle.
He wrote, in 1913, "Je m'effraie en pensant a cette responsabilite qui
pesera certainement un jour sur moi, car je considere la guerre comme
a peu pres certaine a bref delai."

Having once formed this conviction, a complete revolution affected the
character of the young Violand. His melancholy ceased; his uncertainty
fell from him; it seemed as though his soul threw off her fetters.
From the close of 1913, when the chancelleries of Europe were still
profoundly unconscious of the tremendous upheaval which was in store
for them, this young man, hitherto so timorous and irresolute, is seen
to be filled with a species of prophetic ecstasy:--

_"The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness!
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
.........the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind"_

This remarkable change of character was encouraged by the military
discipline which now regulated his life, and which he accepted with
rapture and devotion. His mother's one aim had been to make of Camille
a soldier and a Christian, and he became the very type of that
combination.

To use a striking phrase of M. Henri Bordeaux, the war found Camille
Violand in a state of preparedness. He saw it arrive, not with anxiety
or trepidation, but with solemn joy. His father was placed in command
of a brigade of dragoons, and he himself, at another part of the
frontier line, was given the rank of second lieutenant and a command
which filled him with the pride of responsibility. Three weeks later
he was wounded in the head at the battle of Virton, but not until he
had seen the Germans, after a hard fight, retire before the attack of
his men. "Il a connu l'ivresse de la victoire: il a vu fuir
l'ennemi"--so a friend announced it. He was taken back to the hospital
at Limoges, but the victory of the Marne intoxicated him, and it was
found impossible to hold him back. With a head still bandaged, he made
his appearance once more in his beloved regiment, which wa