In the Avenue de Pontlieue the commandeered horses were standing in line. There were hundreds of them, heavy, pot-bellied, docile animals, with splendid manes and shaggy fetlocks. They were held by men in smocks, standing motionless on the curb, chafing at the delay and longing for their dinner. Near-by, along the wall of the artillery barracks, was collected a heterogeneous medley of carts and lorries, also requisitioned. A motley crowd was thronging the avenue--women in light-coloured summer dresses and soldiers in uniform and canvas clothing presenting an incongruous appearance. Reservists were arriving in groups. Almost all looked quiet and undisturbed, and some even wore a cheerful air. One or two were obviously drunk, and others looked as though they were. I only saw one who was crying. He was sitting on a heap of straw, engaged in fixing a brand-new yellow strap to his revolver-holster, and tears were falling on his clumsy fingers as he fumbled with the stiff leather. I put a hand on his shoulder, whereupon he half turned round and said, with a jerk of his head: "Oh, my God! My wife died in childbed last week.... There's the baby-girl--only eight days old--left all alone with nobody to look after her!" "What have you done with her?" "Well, the only thing I could ... took her to the Infants' Home." * * * * * It is when the post comes in that the men look saddest. * * * * * We are confined to quarters, but the non-commissioned officers are allowed to take the men, two or three at a time, to the _abreuvoir_ as the café opposite is called. _Tuesday, August 4_ Yesterday evening at nine o'clock, by way of a purely theoretical roll-call, the Lieutenant opened the door of our den. "Every one all right in there?" "Yes, sir, thank you! Warm as pies!" "Nothing you want?" "Yes, sir, we'd like to start!" "Oh! to start, would you?" This morning Pelletier, the trumpeter, a Parisian who seems able to turn his hands to almost anything, began sharpening our swords. Standing in front of a bench in his shirt-sleeves, he worked an enormous file with a horrible screeching noise which sent cold shudders down one's spine and set one's teeth on edge. From time to time he paused in his work, and, with furious thrusts and slashes, tried the points and edges by cutting up some old deal cases lying in a corner. From the depths of our quarters, where we live in an atmosphere alive with the most ridiculous rumours, waiting for orders to entrain, the tumult of the general mobilization in the streets and on the neighbouring Paris-Brest railway line sounds like incessantly reverberating thunder in an atmosphere charged with electricity.