he seat of Government. Quietly and without a word of
warning the French Ministry had stolen away, after a Cabinet meeting
at which there had been both rage and tears, and after a frantic
packing up of papers in Government offices. This abandonment
came as a paralysing shock to the citizens of Paris and was an
outward and visible sign that the worst thing might happen--a new
siege of Paris, with greater guns than those which girdled it in the
terrible year.

A rumour had come that the people were to be given five days' notice
to leave their houses within the zone of fortifications, and to add to
the menace of impending horrors an aeroplane had dropped bombs
upon the Gare de l'Est that afternoon. There was a wild rush to get
away from the capital, and the railway stations were great camps of
fugitives, in which the richest and the poorest citizens were mingled,
with their women and children. The tragedy deepened when it was
heard that most of the lines to the coast had been cut and that the
only remaining line to Dieppe would probably be destroyed during the
next few hours. From the crowds which had been waiting all day for a
chance to get to the guichets in the rear of other and greater crowds,
there rose a murmur which seemed to me like a great sigh from
stricken hearts. There were many old men and women there who
knew what a siege of Paris meant. To younger people they told the
tale of it now--the old familiar tale--with shaking heads and trembling
forefingers. "Starvation!" "We ate rats, if we were lucky." "They would
not hesitate to smash up Notre Dame." "It is not for my sake I would
go. But the little ones! Those poor innocents!"

They did not make much noise in those crowds. There was no loud
sound of panic. No woman's voice shrieked or wailed above the
murmurs of voices. There was no fighting for the station platforms
barred against them all. A few women wept quietly, mopping their
eyes. Perhaps they wept for sheer weariness after sitting encamped
for hours on their baggage. Most of the men had a haggard look and
kept repeating the stale old word, "Incroyable!" in a dazed and dismal
way. Sadness as well as fear was revealed in the spirit of those
fugitives, a sadness that Paris, Paris the beautiful, should be in
danger of destruction, and that all her hopes of victory had ended in
this defeat.

Among all these civilians were soldiers of many regiments and of two
nations--Turcos and Zouaves, chasseurs and infa