One word before I forget it again. You say that you have asked me twice
if I have any friend near me. I am sure I have already answered
that--yes! I have a family of friends at Voulangis, about two miles the
other side of Crecy-en-Brie. Of course neighbors do not see one another
in the country as often as in the city, but there they are; so I hasten
to relieve your mind just now, when there is a menace of war, and I am
sitting tight on my hilltop on the road to the frontier.
VI
August 2, 1914.
Well, dear, what looked impossible is evidently coming to pass.
Early yesterday morning the garde champetre--who is the only thing in
the way of a policeman that we have--marched up the road beating his
drum. At every crossroad he stopped and read an order. I heard him at
the foot of the hill, but I waited for him to pass. At the top of the
hill he stopped to paste a bill on the door of the carriage-house on
Pere Abelard's farm. You can imagine me,--in my long studio apron, with
my head tied up in a muslin cap,--running up the hill to join the group
of poor women of the hamlet, to read the proclamation to the armies of
land and sea--the order for the mobilization of the French military and
naval forces--headed by its crossed French flags.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55