_November 6th._—And to-morrow I am to pass into the sweet, broad valley of the Thur and there dwell. I ask neither how nor why, knowing it will be vastly pleasant, though a somewhat startled feeling overtakes me at the thought of leaving Masevaux, _tout ce qui finit est si court_. For a fleeting, nostalgic moment I think, too, “What am I about, binding sheaves in this rich corner of the earth that is not mine?” As we gather for lunch, some one reads the sweeping clauses of the conditions of the armistice with Austria-Hungary. Nothing is left save hunger and disorder. I wonder if those to whom one of the “first aims of the war is the dismemberment of the Dual Monarchy” see, in their passion, what it will mean to surround the centripetal force of Germany with floating, unsteady bits, that inevitably will be drawn to it. Some one hazarded the remark, evidently not so trite as we once thought it, that “if Austria didn’t exist, she would have to be invented.” Passion seems more than ever to be its own blind end, and, looking at those men, I thought, have we not fought and died the good death for other and further ends? Then Laferrière began reading the American _communiqué_. We are but five miles from the Sedan-Metz line, one of the principal lines of communication of the Germans! As in a dream I listen to the deeds of _my_ soldiers, recited in the most beautiful of French, as many deeds of many men have been recited to many women through the ages. “_Ce matin la Ière Armée a repris son attaque. En dépit d’une résistance désespérée nos troupes [américaines] ont forcé le passage de la Meuse à Brieulles et à Cléry-le-Petit._” ... “_Beaumont, nœud de routes important, est tombé devant nos troupes victorieuses qui se sont avancées jusqu’au Bois de l’Hospice à deux milles au nord de Beaumont. Au cours de leur avance elles se sont emparées de Létanne. A Beaumont, nous avons délivré 500 citoyens français qui ont salué nos soldats comme leurs libérateurs...._ “_L’avance des deux derniers jours a amené en certains points notre ligne à cinq milles de la voie ferrée Sedan-Metz, une des principales lignes de communication des armées allemandes._”[14] As we sit down the commandant tells me they had been picking all sorts of strange things out of the air that morning, the ether stamped with unaccustomed names. He had just got a message, not meant for French ears, bearing a new signature, Ebert; the day before he had got one bearing that of Scheidemann. It is like a further dream of a dream, these things that are borne “upon the sightless couriers of the air.” At two o’clock I started out with Bernard and Laferrière, the latter on the errand of rounding up an actor in one of those obscure yet deadly village dramas. “Generally I have little to do; they know they are well off,” he said, and we agreed that it was indeed a pity to be pursued by original sin even unto these pleasant valleys.