fortifications; within two hours' march of the suburbs; of the Mecca of
forty years' preparation. After all that march from Belgium, with no
break in the programme of success, the thunders broke and lightning
flashed out of the sky as Manoury's army rushed upon von Kluck's
flank.

"It was not the way that they wanted us to get the shells," said a
French peasant who was taking one of the shell-baskets for a
souvenir. It would make an excellent umbrella stand.

For the French it had been the turn of the tide; for that little British
army which had fought its way back from Mons it was the sweet
dream, which had kept men up on the retreat, come true. Weary
Germans, after a fearful two weeks of effort, became the driven.
Weary British and French turned drivers. A hypodermic of victory
renewed their energy. Paris was at their back and the German backs
in front. They were no longer leaving their dead and wounded behind
to the foe; they were sweeping past the dead and wounded of the
foe.

But their happiness, that of a winning action, exalted and passionate,
had not the depths of that of the refugees who had fled before the
German hosts and were returning to their homes in the wake of their
victorious army. We passed farmers with children perched on top of
carts laden with household goods and drawn by broad-backed farm-
horses, with usually another horse or a milch cow tied behind. The
real power of France, these peasants holding fast to the acres they
own, with the fire of the French nature under their thrifty
conservatism. Others on foot were villagers who had lacked horses
or carts to transport their belongings. In the packs on their backs