Then the men of the Empire, who had been through so much, who had lived
in such carnage, kissed their emaciated wives and spoke of their first
love; they looked into the fountains of their natal prairies and found
themselves so old, so mutilated, that they bethought themselves of their
sons, in order that they might close their eyes in peace. They asked
where they were; the children came from the schools, and seeing neither
sabers, nor cuirasses, neither infantry nor cavalry, they asked in turn
where were their fathers. They were told that the war was ended, that
Caesar was dead, and that the portraits of Wellington and of Blucher were
suspended in the antechambers of the consulates and the embassies, with
these two words beneath: _Salvatoribus mundi_.
Then there seated itself on a world in ruins an anxious youth. All the
children were drops of burning blood which had inundated the earth; they
were born in the bosom of war, for war. For fifteen years they had
dreamed of the snows of Moscow and of the sun of the pyramids. They had
not gone beyond their native towns; but they were told that through each
gate of these towns lay the road to a capital of Europe. They had in
their heads all the world; they beheld the earth, the sky, the streets
and the highways; all these were empty, and the bells of parish churches
resounded faintly in the distance.
Pale fantoms shrouded in black robes, slowly traversed the country;
others knocked at the doors of houses, and when admitted, drew from their
pockets large well-worn documents with which they drove out the tenants.
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