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They simply asked one of them spoke French, and perhaps they all did where they were, and were told, "Huiry, commune of Quincy." They looked it up on their maps, nodded, and asked if the bridges on the Marne had been destroyed, to which I replied that I did not know, I had not been down to the river. Half a truth and half a lie, but goodness knows that it was hard enough to have to be polite.
Père was there with the donkey cart, and it took nearly an hour and a half to climb the hill to Huiry. It was pitch dark, and oh, so cold! Both Condé and Voisins, as well as Esbly, had street lamps gas before the war, but it was cut off when mobilization began, and so the road was black.
Last night I heard your account of your experiences between September 1 and 9, and it made me boil anew with disappointment that my attempts to reach Huiry on September 4 were frustrated. I was disappointed enough at the time, but then my regret was tempered by the thought that you were probably safe in Paris, and I should only find an empty house at La Creste.
Just above me is the hamlet of Huiry half a dozen houses. You see that is not sad. So cheer up. So far as I know the commune has no criminal record, and I am not on the route of tramps. Remember, please, that, in those last winters in Paris, I did not prove immune to contagions. There is nothing for me to catch up here unless it be the gayety with which the air is saturated.
It changes every hour, and I never can decide at which hour it is the loveliest. After all, it is a rather nice world. Now get out your map and locate me. You will not find Huiry. But you can find Esbly, my nearest station on the main line of the Eastern Railroad. Then you will find a little narrow-gauge road running from there to Crecy-la-Chapelle.
What is the drollest of all he is never one minute late to his meals. He is familiarly known to all my neighbors as "the Grand Duc de Huiry" and he looks the part. Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat. He is not a bit caressing. He never fails to purr politely when he comes in. But he is no longer playful.
He has a field on the route de Couilly, and another on the side of the hill on the route de Meaux, and he has a small patch of fruit trees and a potato field on the chemin Madame, and another big piece of grassland running down the hill from Huiry to Condé. Almost nothing is fenced in.
We were so cold that finally the whole regiment had to dismount and proceed on foot in the hope of warming up a bit. We were all, in the end, sad, cross, and grumbly. You had spoiled us all at Huiry and Voisins. For my part I longed to curse someone for having ordered such a change of base as this, in such weather.
This time the cantonnement does not come up to Huiry only to the foot of the hill at Voisins. Of course I have not seen our boys yet, but I probably shall in a few days. March 28, 1917 Well, all quiet on the hilltop again all the soldiers gone no sign of more coming for the present. We are all nervously watching the advance, but controlling our nerves.
To make it seem all the more primitive there is a rickety old diligence which runs from Quincy Huiry is really a suburb of Quincy to Esbly twice a day, to connect with trains for Paris with which the branch road does not connect. It has an imperial, and when you come out to see me, at some future time, you will get a lovely view of the country from a top seat.
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