But the news soon spread beyond the barracks. Rheims, although some twenty minutes’ walk away, somehow learned it, and almost immediately all the town flocked to the barrack gates. I say all the town because all classes together hurried there pell-mell—not only those with a brother or son or a friend amongst the troops about to set off, but those who were drawn by ties of friendship with the regiment, and those who came from mere curiosity. The crowd, which got larger and larger, beat upon the iron gates like waves breaking vast and black on a rocky shore. Old women came to give a last kiss to their sons; old men, too, pensioners who had fought in ’70, whose hands trembled as they pressed those of their boys, distracted little shop girls who held their lovers passionately in their arms—silk frocks and broadcloth mingled together in one vast crowd swayed by deep emotion, brave and placid, though its heart was near breaking—every sob was stifled, every mouth drawn with sorrow yet tried to laugh, and it was cheerily that the last partings took place, the last touching and heartfelt “God speed” was said. How great a country to possess such children! Soon the gates could no longer bar the passage of the crowd which swept like a torrent through the outer square, overwhelmed the sentries, and threatened to engulf everything. As the hour of departure grew nearer, the farewells became more animated. Then the bugles sounded through the barracks the order for “majors to join the Colonel,” next captains and others of commissioned rank; there was a scurrying of officers to and fro before the orderly room, and Colonel Robillot himself could be seen standing on the doorstep watching the scene with a look of pride and indulgence in his eyes. At nine o’clock, as I was standing some distance apart in a corner of the square with friends who had come to bid me a last farewell, a non-commissioned officer, touching me on the shoulder, warned me that my troop was about to fall in, and I had to break off my adieux. From that moment I was to think no more of myself. All was over with affairs that bound heart or fancy. The supreme moment had come when words no longer count, and when the eyes try to fill themselves with one last gaze upon those whom one is leaving—goodbye to family, to love, to self, to the joy of the living—all one’s soul goes out in this last gaze. This look would say, “Farewell, I will be brave, never doubt it, don’t cry, don’t suffer regrets.” This look embraces all that life has meant up to now, whether of joy or sorrow. It is final—a farewell, a promise—it signifies the end—all one’s very soul is in one’s eyes.