France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France
was in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard
the women and the weak.
At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to war
at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
battle.
And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were the
women belonging to them; the women who were to stay behind.
As though the Judgment Trumpet had sounded, France was changed in the
twinkling of an eye. And added to that subconscious terror that lurked
in every American soul of another revolution--a terror that was
dispelled after the third day when France reached out her long arm and
mobilized her people into a strong component whole with but one heart,
was an inexplainable dread of this terrible calm.
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