with the tone of sadness pervading the old town whose glory
has departed, the clang of the wooden shoes on the rough pavement, and
the infrequent beat of hoofs as a detachment of cavalry moves by,
unnatural stillness seems to prevail.

Of street music there was none, though once an old couple wailing a
plaintive duet passed under our windows. Britain is not esteemed a
melodious nation, yet the unclassical piano is ever with us, and even in
the smallest provincial towns one is rarely out of hearing of the
insistent note of some itinerant musician. And no matter how far one
penetrates into the recesses of the country, he is always within reach
of some bucolic rendering of the popular music-hall ditty of the year
before last. But never during our stay in Versailles, a stay that
included what is supposedly the gay time of the year, did we hear the
sound of an instrument, or--with the one exception of the old couple,
whom it would be rank flattery to term vocalists--the note of a voice
raised in song.

With us, New Year's Day was a quiet one. A dozen miles distant, Paris
was welcoming the advent of the new century in a burst of feverish
excitement. But despite temptations, we remained in drowsy Versailles,
and spent several of the hours in the little room where two pallid
Red-Cross knights, who were celebrating the occasion by sitting up for
the first time, waited expectant of our coming as their one link with
the outside world.

[Illustration: The Presbytery]

It was with a sincere thrill of pity that at _dejeuner_ we glanced round
the _salle-a-manger_ and found all the Ogams filling their accustomed
solitary places. Only Dunois the comparatively young, and presumably
brave, was absent. The others occupied their usual seats, eating with
their unfailing air of introspective absorption. Nobody had cared enough
for these lonely old men to ask them to fill a corner at their tables,
even on New Year's Day. To judge by their regular attendance at the
hotel meals, these men--all of whom, as shown by their wearing the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honour, had merited distinction--had little
hospitality offered them. Most probably they offered as little, for,
throughout our stay, none ever had a friend to share his breakfast or
dinner.

The bearing of the hotel guests suggested absolute ignorance of one
another's existence. The Colonels, as I have said in a previous chapter,
were exceptions, but even they held intercourse only w