“This is a moment,” said he, “for every misunderstanding between loyal French hearts to be cleared up. We are now brothers in the defence of our beloved country. _Mon brave ami Bigourdin, donne-moi ta main._” Bigourdin sprang up,—in the public street—but what did that matter?—and cried: “_Mon vieux Viriot_,” and the two men embraced and kissed each other, and every one, much affected, cried “Bravo! Bravo!” And then Bigourdin, reaching over the marble tables, took young Lucien Viriot’s hands and embraced him and shook him by the shoulders, and cried: “Here is a cuirassier who is going to cut through the Germans like bladders of lard!” It was a memorable reconciliation. Fortinbras arrived late at night, probably by the last regular train-services; for on the next day and for many days afterwards there were wild hurry and crowds and confusion on roads and railways all through France. Into the town poured all the men of the surrounding villages, and the streets were filled with them and their wives and mothers and children, and strange officers in motor-cars whirled through the Rue de Périgueux. Bands of young men falling into the well-remembered step marched along the quays to the station singing the Marseillaise, and women stood at their doorsteps blowing them kisses as they passed. And at the station the great military trains adorned with branches of trees and flowers, steamed away, a massed line of white faces and waving arms; and old men and women young and old waved handkerchiefs until the train disappeared, and then turned away weeping bitterly. Martin, Fortinbras and Bigourdin went to many a train to see off the flower of the youth of the little town. Lucien Viriot went gallantly. “A good war horse suits me better than an office-stool,” he laughed. And Joseph, sloughing for ever Martin’s shiny black raiment, went off too; and the younger waiters of the Café de l’Univers, and Beuzot, the young professor at the Ecole Normale, and the son of the _adjoint_, and _le petit Maurin_, who helped his mother at her _Débit de Tabac_. Many a familiar face was carried away from Brantôme towards some unknown battle-line and the thunder and the slaughter—a familiar face which Brantôme was never to see again. And after a day or two the town seemed futile, like a ball-room from which the last dancers had gone.