I even heard one of them say:

"What a pity there isn't always war."

That same night, about eleven o'clock, a heavy sound was heard coming
from the direction of the city. Some urchins shouted:

"It's the soldiers. It's the soldiers."

An entire Algerian division was, as a matter of fact, detraining and
hurrying to fight before Paris. Behind it followed a long line of
taxi-cabs, the famous line of taxi-cabs requisitioned by General
Gallieni to carry munitions to the battle field of the Ourcq. They
made an incomparable spectacle, that magnificent summer night, in the
bright moonlight, the long column of Algerian cavalry, with their
shining burnouses, on fiery little horses. Applause burst forth from
the mob and reached the soldiers. The women threw kisses at them, but
they overwhelmed my men and me with reproaches:

"See," they shrieked at us, "if we had minded you and gone home, we
wouldn't have seen them."

* * * * *

Paris, which didn't know about the Battle of Charleroi, knew about the
Battle of the Marne. Paris knew about the Battle of the Marne not only
on account of the troops who marched through its streets, but because
it heard the big guns roar for three days, without stopping, towards
the north.