And what enthusiasm to get the machines cleaned up! Farewell sloth. They offer to repair mine. They get up at dawn to listen to the news. But while everyone else is amazed, I discover the motive behind this patriotism—a journey by bike! All the way to the sea!—a sea that is further away, more attractive than usual. They would have burnt Paris to the ground in order to get away quicker. The thing that was terrifying the whole of Europe had become their one and only hope.

Is the selfishness of children really so different from our own? During the summer in the country we curse the rain, while the farmers are crying out for it.

II

IT IS RARE FOR THERE TO BE A DISASTER WITHOUT warning signs appearing beforehand. The assassination in Austria, the storm over the Caillaux trial, created a suffocating atmosphere conducive to wild behaviour. So my real memories of the War date from before war broke out.

Here is why.

My brothers and I used to make fun of one of our neighbours, a ridiculous man, a dwarf with a goatee beard and a hooded raincoat, a town councillor by the name of Maréchaud. Everyone called him Old Man Maréchaud. Although we lived next door we refused to say hello, which made him so livid that one day, unable to stand it any longer, he came up to us in the street and said: “So you don’t greet a town councillor then!” We ran off. After this rudeness, hostilities were opened. But what could a town councillor do to us? On the way to and from school my brothers used to ring his doorbell then run away, emboldened by the knowledge that his dog, which must have been the same age as me, was nothing to be afraid of.

The day before the fourteenth of July 1914, as I was going to meet my brothers, I was astonished to see people gathered outside the Maréchaud’s front gate. Despite the pruned linden trees, their villa could still be seen at the end of the garden. Since two o’clock that afternoon their young maid, who had gone mad, had sought sanctuary up on the roof and was refusing to come down. Horrified by the scandal, the Maréchauds had closed the shutters, which added to the drama of a madwoman on the roof by making it seem as if the house were deserted. People were shouting, infuriated at her employers for not doing something to help the poor soul. She was tottering about on the tiles, although she didn’t seem drunk. I would have liked to stay, but, despatched by my mother, our own maid came to summon us back to work, without which I wouldn’t have been allowed to go to the celebrations. I left with a heavy heart, praying the maid would still be on the roof when I went to meet my father at the station.

She was still there in the same place, but the few passersby on their way back from Paris were hurrying home for dinner so as not to miss the ball. They only glanced at her for a moment as they walked by.

In any case, up till now it was still really just a dress rehearsal for the maid. As was customary, she would give her opening performance in the evening, with the festive lamps acting as footlights. There were some in the garden as well as on the main avenue, because, being local worthies, the Maréchauds hadn’t dared not have any illuminations, despite pretending to be away. The eeriness of this house of crime, with a woman with flowing hair walking about on the roof as if on the bridge of a flagship, was heightened by her voice: unearthly, guttural, with a sweetness to it that made your flesh creep.

Being ‘volunteers’, the members of the fire brigade in a small district were busy with other things apart from manning the pumps all day. After work it was the milkman, the confectioner and the locksmith who put out fires, if they hadn’t already gone out by themselves. After the call-up our firemen also formed a sort of secret militia that did patrols, manoeuvres and night rounds. These gallant fellows eventually appeared and pushed their way through the crowd.

A woman stepped forwards. It was the wife of one of the town councillors, an opponent of Maréchaud and who for the last few minutes had been sympathizing loudly with the lunatic. She gave the fire chief some advice: “Try and get her down gently—the poor young thing is so badly off in that household, where they beat her. And if it’s fear of being dismissed, finding herself without a job, that made her do it, then tell her I’ll take her on. I’ll pay her double.”

Her triumphal act of charity made little impression on the crowd.