II

THE SILENT ARMY

I


Madame Paquin, the famous French dressmaker, told me casually an
incident that epitomizes the mental inheritance of the women of a
military nation once more plunged abruptly into war.

Her home is in Neuilly, one of the beautiful suburbs of Paris, and for
years when awake early in the morning it had been her habit to listen
for the heavy creaking of the great wagons that passed her house on
their way from the gardens and orchards of the open country to the
markets of Paris. Sometimes she would arise and look at them, those
immense heavy trucks loaded high above their walls with the luscious
produce of the fertile soil of France. On the seats were always three
or four sturdy men: the farmer, and the sons who would help him unload
at the "Halles."

All these men, of course, were reservists. Mobilization took place on
Sunday. On Monday morning Madame Paquin, like many others in that
anxious city, was tossing restlessly on her bed when she heard the
familiar creaking of the market wagons which for so many years had
done their share in feeding the hungry and fastidious people of Paris.
Knowing that every able-bodied man had disappeared from his usual
haunts within a few hours after the Mobilization Order was posted, she
sprang out of bed and looked through her blinds.