We finished our dinner, which was good and not costly, and started to walk to our hotel. Hardly had we turned the corner of the Place, when the life of Bordeaux went out like a torch extinguished by the wind. It was still early in the evening, there was a sound of an orchestra somewhere behind, yet ahead of us, lonely and still, with its shops closed and its sidewalks deserted, was one of the greater streets of Bordeaux. Through the drawn curtains of second stories over little groceries and baker-shops shone the yellow light of lamps. What had happened to the Jean, Paul, and Pierre of this dark street since the war began? What tragedies of sorrow and loneliness might these silent windows not conceal? And every French city is much the same; one notices in them all the subtle lack of youth, and the animation of the great squares in contrast to the somber loneliness of streets and quarters which once were alive and gay. At the Place de l'Opéra in Paris, the whirlpool of Parisian life is still turning, but the great streets leading away from the Place de l'Étoile are quiet. Young and old, laborer and shopkeeper, boulevardier and apache are far away holding the tragic lines. The next morning at the station, I had my first glimpse of that mighty organization which surrounds the militaire. There was a special entrance for soldiers and a special exit for soldiers, and at both of these a long file of blue-clad poilus waited for the countersigning of their furlough slips and military tickets. The mud of the trenches still stained the bottom edges of their overcoats, and their steel helmets were dented and dull. There was something fine about the faces collectively; there was a certain look of tried endurance and perils bravely borne. I heard those on furlough telling the names of their home villages to the officer in charge,--pleasant old names, Saint-Pierre aux Vignes, La Tour du Roi. A big, obese, middle-aged civilian dressed in a hideous greenish suit, and wearing a pancake cap, sat opposite me in the compartment I had chosen. There was a hard, unfriendly look in his large, fat-encircled eyes, a big mustache curved straight out over his lips, and the short finger nails of his square, puffy fingers were deeply rimmed with dirt. He caught sight of me reading a copy of an English weekly, and after staring at me with an interest not entirely free from a certain hostility, retreated behind the pages of the "Matin," and began picking his teeth. Possibly he belonged to that provincial and prejudiced handful to whom England will always be "Perfidious Albion," or else he took me for an English civilian dodging military service. The French press was following the English recruiting campaign very closely, and the system of volunteer service was not without its critics. "Conscription being considered in England" (On discute la conscription en Angleterre), announced the "Matin" discreetly.