Towards two o’clock I cross the threshold of the arsenal gate, to pay the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ my visit of embarkation. The sky is pouring down an avalanche of dusty heat. In such an oven no one can think vigorously. Sprawled against the walls, the arsenal workers are mopping their faces and chests, and, at the end of their tether, are drinking greedily at the roadside bars. Several officers, handkerchiefs in hand, are walking along the rows of plane-trees. The commander of the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ receives me: “You are in luck,” he says. “All the officers who arrive at the port ask for the _Waldeck-Rousseau_.” He guesses the question I dare not utter. “The engineers are counting on six weeks.... Let us hope nothing decisive happens at sea ... in case events are so precipitate....” Thinking over these words, I return to the gate of the arsenal. It is getting on towards five o’clock. The flame and shimmer of the afternoon light are marvelous. The Pharon, a mirror of stone, reflects the dazzling violet rays. It is the hottest part of the day. After this will follow cooling breezes. In front of the Missiessy gate mothers and wives crouch on the sidewalk, awaiting their sailors, who come out of the arsenal raising clouds of dust. A beverage-vender calls his wares in a nasal voice; several barkers offer for ten centimes a hundred attractions in the way of café-concerts; the tramcars, caparisoned in dust, go by in a torrid blast. It is so warm, the boulevard is so torpid, that I cannot think, and have but one swift desire--to change my stifling uniform for a more comfortable suit, and on a terrace to sip some cooling drink. Suddenly, smothered by the distance and the heavy air, a dull cannon shot strikes into the fringe of my reverie. I fear I have heard amiss. I wait motionless, my whole body concentrated in my hearing. The boulevard seems petrified. With a brusque jamming on of brakes, the tramcars grind along the track; the windows bristle with anxious faces. The women squatting on the sidewalk silently rise; barkers and passers-by forget to live; everyone, in the posture in which the vague shot has surprised him, listens to the dramatic silence. All the noises of the city, the deepest as well as the shrillest, vanish into nothingness to leave room for the one sound that has significance. In a sort of religious atmosphere the second shot booms and rolls, sonorous, the master of Space.... At length the third dies away, the third voice of a France who is placing herself on guard.