In the calm of the evening each spoken word, each order given by the guides came to us clear and distinct. Then came the last vehicles, the last country carts, some stragglers tailing out into a confusion of cyclists and horsemen; and so the interminable convoy went on its way. The vehicles at its head had the appearance of toys on the horizon, of toys designed with the pen on the gold of the sky; and the personnel looked like insects finely traced in the clear atmosphere. The whole thing went quietly on its way like a slow caravan. One would have said that here was a people coming to settle in conquered country and arriving at the end of its journey in the peace of a lovely evening. The same day, at the same moment, General Foch, pushing the thin end of his wedge between the armies of Bülow and those of Hausen, enlarged that fissure which was to prove fatal to the German army which had almost arrived at the Marne. The pursuit was about to begin. These same convoys, whose peaceful aspect wounded our hearts from the insolence of their air of possession on French soil (we were ignorant of course that the dawn of a great victory was about to break)—these same convoys, lashed by terror and by the breath of panic, were going to follow beaten armies in a headlong and wild retreat, leaving on the road their waggons and stores. * * * * * From this moment a vague hope sprang up in our hearts and, as is often the case, we gathered courage when the worst of catastrophes seemed to be heaping on our heads.