3

There was no wild outbreak of Jingo fever, no demonstrations of blood-lust against Germany in Paris or any town of France, on that first day of August, when the people waited for the fateful decision which, if it were for war, would call every able-bodied man to the colours and arrest all the activities of a nation’s normal life, and demand a dreadful sacrifice in blood and tears.  There was only a sense of stupefaction which seemed to numb the intelligence of men so that they could not reason with any show of logic, or speak of this menace without incoherence, but thrust back the awful possibility with one word, uttered passionately and repeated a thousand times a day:  “Incroyable!”

This word was dinned in my ears.  I caught the sound of it as I walked along the boulevards.  It would come like a refrain at the end of sentences spoken by little groups of men and women sitting outside the cafes and reading every issue of those innumerable newspapers which flung out editions at every hour.  It was the answer I had from men of whom I tried to get a clue to the secret movements of diplomacy, and an answer to that question of war or peace.  “C’est incroyable!” They found it hard to believe—­they would not believe—­ that without any provocation from France, without any challenge, Germany would deliberately, force this war upon the Triple Entente and make a bloody shambles of European civilization.  Beneath this incredulity, this stupefaction, there was among most of the Frenchmen whom I personally encountered a secret dread that France was unready for the great ordeal of war and that its outbreak would find her divided by political parties, inefficient in organization, corrupt in some of her Government departments.  The Socialists and Syndicalists who had fought against the three years’ service might refuse to march.  Only a few months before a deputy had hinted at grave scandals in the provisioning and equipment of the army.

The history of 1870, with its awful revelations of disorganization and unreadiness was remembered now and lay heavy upon the hearts of those educated Frenchmen who, standing outside the political arena, distrust all politicians, having but little faith in their honesty or their ability.  Who could tell whether France—­the new France she had been called—­would rise above her old weaknesses and confront the peril of this war with a strong, pure, and undivided spirit?

5

On August 1 there was a run on one of the banks.  I passed its doors and saw them besieged by thousands of middle-class men and women drawn up in a long queue waiting very quietly—­with a strange quietude for any crowd in Paris—­to withdraw the savings of a lifetime or the capital of their business houses.  There were similar crowds outside other banks, and on the faces of these people there was a look of brooding fear, as though all that they had fought and struggled for, the reward of all their petty economies and meannesses,