I was afraid to end up with a high-flown tirade. I uttered my closing sentences in a softer voice, as if out of breath. I was still quivering and, with my eyes on the ground, I threw some pebbles from one hand to the other, backwards and forwards. There was a silence. Laraque broke it with a joke. "An aeroplane!" he announced. And it was a hawk! Other frivolous remarks followed. Suddenly chilled, I asked myself whether my words had missed fire. I had no more fear about it a moment afterwards, as we went back to billets--slight, striking indications--they all had more life in their movements, something firmer in their tones. Fortin had murmured: "I think Dreher's right." We were just about to disperse near our school, when some cavalry turned out of a side street. We saluted the officer at their head, a colonel. He urged his mount towards us: "Hi, there, you foot-sloggers, read that!" He held out a paper, which Fortin handed to me without a word. Why me? I hesitated about unfolding it. The others shouted: "Yes, yes, give it to Dreher, that's it!" I felt as if I were in a dream. At the first glance I understood. A proclamation signed "Joffre." I said: "Call the others!" The signal had already been given. A torrent of men flowed in from all the different companies. There was a bench just by. I got up on to it. From there I dominated the crowd which was gathering round me in increasing numbers. Soon half the regiment was there, and some passers-by joined on. There were shouts of: "Listen! Listen!" Then a dead silence. I began to read, subconsciously approving the way in which I raised my voice and scanned each syllable. It was the famous order of the day, which has so often been reproduced since then. "At the moment in which a battle is beginning upon which the fate of the nation hangs.... Troops which can no longer advance must be killed where they stand rather than give ground." Not a syllable escaped me. Not a soul asked for it to be read again. A ripple ran over this dumb throng. I jumped to the ground, and got lost in the crush. What intuition urged me to make a dash for our billets? Hardly had I crossed the threshold--how quickly things happened!--before a whistle was blown. Humel, who was corporal of the day, ran by like a flash. "Come along! On with your pack!" "Are we off again?" "That's it!" Guillaumin appeared. "Off we go!" De Valpic was the next to turn up: "You read that splendidly!" I soon noticed a sort of irresolution among the men, due to surprise more than anything else. Start again! When they thought they were going to have several days' rest! And they had felt so sure that there would be no more fighting in the open for them! Some of them had instinctively gathered round me: Judsi, Bouillon, Corporal Bouguet, Icard, and Gaudéreaux. They were puzzled, too, but only asked to have things explained. They asked me about the paper that I had read out. Several of them had not been there.