"Marengo!" murmured Reine Allix, thinking of that far-off time in her
dim youth when the horseman had flown through the dusky street and the
bonfire had blazed on the highest hill above the river.

"Bread will be dear," muttered Mathurin, the miller, going onward with
his foot-weary mule. Bernadou stood silent, with his roses dry and
thirsty round him.

"Why art thou sad?" whispered Margot, with wistful eyes. "Thou art
exempt from war service, my love?"

Bernadou shook his head. "The poor will suffer somehow," was all he
answered.

Yet to him, as to all the Berceau, the news was not very terrible,
because it was so vague and distant--an evil so far off and shapeless.

Monsieur Picot, the tailor, who alone could read, ran from house to
house, from group to group, breathless, gay, and triumphant, telling
them all that in two weeks more their brethren would sup in the king's
palace at Berlin; and the people believed and laughed and chattered,
and, standing outside their doors in the cool nights, thought that some
good had come to them and theirs.

Only Reine Allix looked up to the hill above the river and murmured,
"When we lit the bonfire there, Claudis lay dead;" and Bernadou,
standing musing among his roses, said, with a smile that was very grave,
"Margot, see here! When Picot shouted, '_A Berlin!_' he trod on my
Gloire de Dijon rose and killed it."