breathing of the hundred thousand men who slumbered there. Then
Maurice became more tranquil, and there descended on him a sentiment
of brotherhood, full of compassionate kindness for all those
slumbering fellow-creatures, of whom thousands would soon be sleeping
the sleep of death. Brave fellows! True, many of them were thieves and
drunkards, but think of what they had suffered and the excuse there
was for them in the universal demoralization! The glorious veterans of
Solferino and Sebastopol were but a handful, incorporated in the ranks
of the newly raised troops, too few in number to make their example
felt. The four corps that had been got together and equipped so
hurriedly, devoid of every element of cohesion, were the forlorn hope,
the expiatory band that their rulers were sending to the sacrifice in
the endeavor to avert the wrath of destiny. They would bear their
cross to the bitter end, atoning with their life's blood for the
faults of others, glorious amid disaster and defeat.

And then it was that Maurice, there in the darkness that was instinct
with life, became conscious that a great duty lay before him. He
ceased to beguile himself with the illusive prospect of great
victories to be gained; the march to Verdun was a march to death, and
he so accepted it, since it was their lot to die, with brave and
cheerful resignation.



IV.

On Tuesday, the 23d of August, at six o'clock in the morning, camp was
broken, and as a stream that has momentarily expanded into a lake
resumes its course again, the hundred and odd thousand men of the army