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Then it leaked out that the officer of the General Staff, who has been stationed at the Chateau de Condé, halfway between here and Esbly, was about to change his section. He had, in the park there, four German shells from the Marne battlefield, which had not been exploded.
You can realize how near it is, and what an easy trip it will be in normal times, when I tell you that we left Esbly for Meaux at half past one only ten minutes by train and were back in the station at Meaux at quarter to four, and had visited Monthyon, Villeroy, Neufmontier, Penchard, Chauconin, Barcy, Chambry, and Vareddes. The authorities are not very anxious to have people go out there.
The infantry was camped there, and the artillery had descended to Couilly and was mounting the hill on the other side of the Morin between us and Paris. I said a sort of "Hm," and told her to ask Pere to harness at once. As we had no idea of the hours of the trains, or even if there were any, it was best to get to Esbly as early as possible.
He was sympathetic, not averse to a joke, and, when it was over, he went out to help me into my baby cart, thanked me for troubling myself, assured me that I was absolutely en règle, and even went so very far as to say that he was pleased to have met me. So I suppose, until the commander at Esbly is changed, I shall be left in peace. This will give you a little idea of what it is like here.
I said the few words one can say I could not have told five minutes later what they were and her only reply was like the speech of the woman of another class that I had met at Esbly. "I had but the one. That was my folly. Now I have nothing and I have a long time to live alone." It would have been easy to weep with her, but they don't weep. I have never seen fewer tears in a great calamity.
I made a desperate effort. I decided to dare the regulations and appeal to the commander of the gendarmes at Esbly. There I had a queer interview at first very discreet and very misleading, so far as they were concerned. In the end, however, I had the pleasure of seeing my two letters to Monsieur le General attached to a long sheet of paper, full of writing, my dossier, they called it.
Just as I had made up my mind that what had to be done could be done, die or no die, Amelie came running across the street to say: "Did you ever see such luck? Here is the old cart horse of Cousine Georges and the wagon!" Cousine Georges had fled, it seems, since we left, and her horse had been left at Esbly to fetch the schoolmistress and her husband. So we all climbed in.
Then I want to tell you the funny thing / never had to show it once. I was very curious to know just how important it was. I went by the way of Esbly. On buying my ticket I expected to be asked for it, as there was a printed notice beside the window to the ticket-office announcing that all purchasers of tickets must be furnished with a sauf-conduit. No one cared to see mine.
There the solitude is perfect. No one could see us there. We could only see the roofs of the few houses at Joncheroy, and beyond them the wide amphitheatre-like panorama, with the square towers of the cathedral of Meaux at the east and Esbly at the west, and Mareuil-lès-Meaux nestled on the river in the foreground. You see I am looking at my panorama again. One can get used to anything, I find.
I wondered what they were saying to one another. Whatever it was, I got an order early the next morning to present myself at the gendarmerie at Esbly before eleven o'clock. Père was angry. He seemed to feel, that, for some reason, I was under suspicion, and that it was a man's business to defend me.
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