A few of them got up and followed me. The majority hesitated. There was no time to wait. We took about twenty steps at the double. I had to stop. There were only six _poilus_ with me! I shouted again. I yelled. The bullets were still cracking. They passed us coming from both sides. I recoiled. The confusion was terrible. I bumped into Humel. Guillaumin turned up bringing us a handful of men. I remember that I asked him coldly: "How far off are they?" "A hundred yards." "Good. We've got 'em!" Then I don't quite know what happened after that. It hardly lasted a minute. It seemed like a hundred years! I believe I rushed back in search of my men, shouting: "This way! Come along! Follow me!" I flew. I furrowed the ground, sowing the sacred fire in my tracks. "Look, they can't touch us!" They were no longer firing on our left. Hand-to-hand fighting must be going on--a cacophony. Noises which had nothing human left about them. No doubt the enemy was giving ground. I stumbled near a long ditch, a first-line trench, which they had already abandoned. I felt sure that I was going to be killed, but oddly enough I cared very little. To-day or to-morrow, what did it matter! A thousand thoughts thronged each other in my mind. The dominant one, simple and sublime, was that Victory was leaning towards us. We should carry this hill, for I could see our men wriggling along the ground to rejoin us, and grouping themselves again. The light and serenity, the frenzy of it! I swear that at that instant France was really something other than an abstract entity for me: the whole in which I participated, which was me and more than me. Of my own free will I was sacrificing my paltry individuality. I was melting a wan unit into the collective consciousness of the beings of my country. Surprise may be caused by the fact that I found time to revolve all these thoughts in my mind during these brief moments, among this chaos, where I might be seen dashing about madly, expending myself in exhortations and reproaches. Well, I did find time for them, and for a thousand others! I myself, lucid and multiplied, marvelled at it. My resources were increased tenfold. I burst into blossom. I attained the apogee of my power. The instant in which I raised myself to the conception of the immense national soul was also that in which my own spirit was expanded most largely. Nothing escaped me. I was twenty beings. I had a tender thought for the memory of my mother; one for my brother who had fallen; for those of my people who remained. And you, Jeannine, my betrothed, I evoked your face and let my lips caress it lightly. I descried all that life we should have lived together, and tasted all its happiness to the full. I adored you, oh my well beloved! I was certain, that at that instant you knew that I was being killed for your sake, that you were proud of it, and sobbed for it.