He came to spending long hours of his leave in the galleries of the Louvre, hastening past row upon row of nude statues with startled eyes, or making his way wearily from picture to picture of the old Dutch masters, striving, striving to understand. Then, footsore and heartsick, he would creep out upon the pont du Carrousel, and stand for half an afternoon, with his elbows on the railing. Behind him, the human tide swung back and forward from bank to bank, the big omnibuses making the bridge throb and sway under his feet. It was good, that, like the rise and fall of his little boat on the swells of the bras de Landerneau, when he rowed up with a comrade to fish at the mouth of the Elorn. And there was always the Seine, whirling, brown and angry, under the arches of the pont Royal beyond, on its way to the sea, where were the great, green battleships. Little Tapin strained his eyes in an attempt to follow the river's long sweep to the left, toward the distant towers of the Trocadéro, and then pictured to himself how it would go on and on, out into the good, green country, past hillsides crowded with vineyards, and broad, flat meadows, where the poplars stood, aligned like soldiers, against the sky, until it broadened toward its end, running swifter and more joyously, for now the wind had met it and was crying, "Come! Come! The Sea! The Sea!" as it was used to cry, rattling the casement of his little room at Plougastel. Then two great tears ran slowly down his freckled cheeks, and dropped, unnoted, into the flying river, wherein so many fall. Ah, what a baby he was, to be sure, Little Tapin! So three months went by, and then one morning the news ran through La Pépinière that the regiment was going to move. There is no telling how such tidings get abroad, for the pawns are not supposed to know what part in the game they are to play. A loose-tongued lieutenant, perhaps, and a sharp-eared ordonnance, or a word between two commandants overheard by the sentry in his box at the gates of the caserne. Whatever the source of information, certain it was that, six hours after the colonel of the 107th of the line had received his orders, his newest recruit could have told you as much of them as was known to General de Galliffet himself, in his office on the boulevard St. Germain. A more than usually friendly comrade confided the news to Little Tapin, exulting. The regiment was to move--in three days, name of God! Epatant--what? And, what was more, they were to go to the south, to Grenoble, whence one saw the Alpes Maritimes, with snow upon them--snow upon them, did Tapin comprehend?--and always! No matter whether it was a Tuesday, or a Friday,--yes, or even a Sunday! There was _always_ snow!