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Updated: June 14, 2025
To-day they think it much more chic to hire a big barge and drive down to Esbly and have a rousing breakfast and dance in the big hall which every country hotel has for such festivities. Such changes are in the spirit of the times, so I suppose one must not complain. I should not if people were any happier, but I cannot see that they are.
Then I put on my heaviest coat, a polo cap, all my furs and mittens, thrust my felt shoes into my sabots, and with one hand in my muff, I took the big French flag in the other and went through the snow down to the hedge to watch the regiment pass, on the road to Esbly.
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.
So, when Ninette brought my perambulator to the gate, there was Père, in his veston and casquette, determined to go with me and see me through. At Esbly I found a different sort of person a gentleman he told me he was not a gendarme by métier, but a volunteer and, although he put me through practically the same paces, it was different.
We reached Esbly at about six o'clock to find the stream of emigrants still passing, although the roads were not so crowded as they had been the previous day. I ran over to the hotel to order the carriage to be told that Esbly was evacuated, the ambulance had gone, all the horses had been sold that afternoon to people who were flying. There I was faced with a walk of five miles lame and tired.
It is remarkable how even ordinary people face danger if a panic can be prevented. The really great person is the one who even in a panic does not lose his head, and the next best thing to not being feazed at danger is, I believe, to be literally paralyzed. Total immobility often passes for pluck. It was nearly half past eight when we reached Esbly; the town was absolutely dark.
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.
On the other I looked across the valley of the Grande Morin, where, on the heights behind the trees, I knew little towns like Coutevoult and Montbarbin were evacuated. In the valley at the foot of the hill, Couilly and St. Germain, Montry and Esbly were equally deserted. No smoke rose above the red roofs. Not a soul was on the roads.
To me it is more beautiful than that we have so often looked at together from the terrace at Saint-Germain. In the west the new part of Esbly climbs the hill, and from there to a hill at the northeast I have a wide view of the valley of the Marne, backed by a low line of hills which is the water-shed between the Marne and the Aisne.
He listened attentively one has to listen when the patronne talks, you know and I thought he understood. When it was all over it took me three days he said to me: "Bien. All the same, look at the sun. This morning it was behind Maria's house over there. I saw it. At noon it was right over my orchard. I saw it there. At five o'clock it will be behind the hill at Esbly. You tell me it does not move!
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