"How on earth these people have ever grown to a great nation!" muttered John Turner, who sat in his carriage. A man clambered on the box beside the coachman. "I will sing you the Marseillaise!" he shouted. "Thank you," replied John Turner. But already the humour of the throng was changing, and some began to reflect. In a few minutes doubt swept over them like a shower of rain, and the expression of their faces altered. Almost immediately it was announced that the news of the victory had been a hoax. "I am going to my office," said Turner, curtly. "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I may have some advice to give you." In the evening I saw Madame, and told her that things were going badly on the frontier; but I did not know that the Germans were, at the time of speaking, actually on French territory, and that MacMahon had been beaten at Metz. "Get the women out of the country," said John Turner to me the next morning, "and don't bother me." I went back to the Hotel Clericy and there found Alphonse Giraud. He was in the morning-room with the two ladies. "I have come," he said, "to bid you all good-by, as I was just telling these ladies. "You remember," he went on, taking my hand and holding it in his effusive French way--"you remember that I said I would buy myself a commission? The good God has sent me one, but it is a rifle instead of a sword." "Alphonse has volunteered to fight as a common soldier!" cried Lucille, her face glowing with excitement. "Is it not splendid? Ah, if I were only a man!" Madame looked gravely and almost apprehensively at her daughter. She did not join in Giraud's proud laugh. "There is bad news," she said, looking at my face. "What is it?" "Yes, there is bad news, and it is said that Paris is to be placed under martial law. You and Mademoiselle must leave." Alphonse protested that it was only a temporary reverse, and that General Frossard had but retreated in order to strike a harder blow. He nodded and winked at me, but I ignored his signals; for I have never held that women are dolls or children, that the truth must be withheld from them because it is unpleasant. So Alphonse Giraud departed to fight for his country. He was drafted into a cavalry regiment, "together with some grooms and hostlers from the stables of the Paris Omnibus Company," as he wrote to me later in good spirits. He proved himself, moreover, a brave soldier as well as a true and honest French gentleman.