There, the Paris papers had just arrived. We threw ourselves upon them. I managed to get one. I was surrounded at once. People squashed up against me to get at least a glimpse of the stop-press and headlines. I was not very accommodating about exhibiting my paper, and I soon succeeded in shaking them off, and getting back to my carriage. The train started off again. Standing up in the corridor, I admit that I read and re-read the leading article without skipping a single line. I expected a good leader and was not disappointed. I relished the indispensable paragraph on the past and future of France, on the sacred union in face of the enemy. My neighbour nudged me with his elbow. "Oh! Isn't it just what everyone is thinking?" "Yes, yes." Exact information was what I really thirsted for. I remember two headlines: "_To-morrow?_" and "_A Day at the Quai d'Orsay_." In a prominent position the President's Proclamation. The article was a success: the obvious thing to say. "Mobilisation is not war." But there was no mistaking it; the spark had caught, the fire was already crackling. I learnt the news of the preceding days, including the assassination of Jaurès, merely from allusions--to me they were so many claps of thunder! One main point stood out: Germany's declaration of war on Russia. Like a shot France was dragged in, automatically. A well-laid scheme on the part of the Wilhelmstrasse. The odious article from the _Cologne Gazette_ which was reproduced everywhere had been a final eye-opener. One amusing detail: Hervé asking to be allowed to go! Another rather shocked me: Telegrams from various places on "the Enthusiasm in the Provinces...." I had just come from the provinces! I had finished reading. It was evident that my neighbour was dying to talk. Feeling charitably disposed I gave him an opening. In five minutes I had learnt all there was to know about his antecedents, his family, and his profession. He had passed his legal examinations, taking the degree of licentiate, and was the son of a lawyer. He was coming back from Autun, the home of his maternal grandfather. What times we were living through, sir! The day before when the official telegram had arrived, ah, what enthusiasm there had been; I ought to have seen the factory hands rushing out shouting: "To the front!" "You saw them then?" "Oh no, I didn't!" He had read this description in the _Mémorial d'Autun_. He asked me childish questions about our chances, and the schemes at headquarters. I sententiously put forward the idea of an offensive in Alsace. He jumped at it. "To take the offensive. Yes, yes. That was the only thing to be done." He had not many brains. It did not take him three minutes to regain the Lost Provinces.