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By Root 2154 0

their being able to hope for the end of so much wretchedness? At every moment their thoughts flew to Maurice, from whom they had had no more news. They did hear of other people who received messages, little notes brought by carrier pigeon. Perhaps the pigeon bringing joy and love to them had been killed by some German while in full flight through the great open sky. Everything seemed to withdraw from reach, wither away and disappear into this early winter. The sounds of war only reached them after long delays and the odd newspapers Dr Dalichamp still brought were often a week old. Their sadness came largely from their ignorance, from what they did not know but guessed, from the long death-cry they could hear in spite of everything in the silence of the countryside round the farm.

One morning the doctor arrived in a state of great distress, with his hands shaking. He drew a Belgian paper out of his pocket and threw it on the bed, exclaiming:

‘Oh my dear friends, France is finished, Bazaine has betrayed us!’

Jean, dozing propped up by two pillows, woke up.

‘Betrayed? What do you mean?’

‘Yes, he has handed over Metz and the army. It is Sedan all over again, but this time it is the rest of our flesh and blood.’

He picked up the paper and read:

‘A hundred and fifty thousand prisoners, a hundred and fifty-three eagles and colours, five hundred and forty-one field guns, seventy-six mitrailleuses, eight hundred siege guns, three hundred thousand rifles, two thousand military vehicles, equipment for eighty-five batteries…’

He went on with details. Marshal Bazaine besieged in Metz with the army, reduced to impotence, making no effort to break the iron ring enclosing him, his prolonged discussions with Prince Friedrich Karl, his ambiguous and tentative political schemings, his ambition to play a decisive part which he didn’t seem to have quite clear in his own mind; then all the complexity of the negotiations, the sending of tricky and lying envoys to Bismarck, to King William and to the Empress-Regent, who was to refuse to treat with the enemy on the basis of any cession of territory; and the unavoidable catastrophe, destiny working itself out, famine in Metz, enforced capitulation, commanders and soldiers reduced to accepting the harsh conditions of the conquerors. France no longer had an army.

‘Oh Christ!’ Jean swore softly to himself. He did not understand it all, but for him until then Bazaine had remained the great captain, the only possible saviour. So what were they going to do? What was happening to the people in Paris?

The doctor passed on to the Paris news, which was disastrous. He pointed out that the paper was dated 5 November. The surrender of Metz happened on 27 October, but the news of it was not known in Paris until the 30th. After the repulses already sustained at Chevilly, Bagneux and La Malmaison and the fight and defeat at Le Bourget, this news had burst like a bombshell in the midst of a desperate population already irritated by the weakness and ineptitude of the Government of National Defence. And so on the next day, 31 October, a full-scale insurrection had taken place, with an immense crowd packing the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, bursting into the debating chambers, taking prisoner members of the government who were later rescued by the National Guard because they feared the triumph of the revolutionaries who were demanding a Commune. The Belgian paper went on to make the most insulting reflections about this wonderful Paris, tearing itself to pieces with civil war as soon as the enemy was at the gates. Was this not the final dissolution, the morass of mud and blood into which a world was about to collapse?

‘It’s quite true,’ Jean muttered in distress, ‘we shouldn’t go for each other when the Prussians are there!’

Henriette had said nothing so far, preferring to keep her mouth shut about these political affairs, but she could not help exclaiming. All her thoughts were with her brother.

‘Oh dear, I only hope Maurice doesn’t get mixed up in all this, he’s so unreasonable!’

After a pause the doctor,