was softly opened and the Colonel appeared on the balcony with his helmet, his sword, all his long unused, but glorious apparel of Milhaud's Cuirassiers.
"I often ask myself what supreme effort of will, what sudden impulse of fading vitality, had placed him thus erect in harness.
"All we know is that he was there, standing at the railing, wondering to find the wide avenue so silent, the shutters all closed, Paris like a great lazaret, flags everywhere, but such strange ones, white with red crosses, and no one to meet our soldiers.
"For a moment he may have thought himself mistaken.
"But no! there, behind the Arc de Triomphe, there was a confused sound, a black line advancing in the growing daylight—then, little by little, the spikes of the helmets glisten, the little drums of Jena begin to beat, and under the Arc de l'Etoile, accompanied by the heavy tramp of the troops, by the clatter of sabres, bursts forth Schubert's Triumphal March.
"In the dead silence of the streets was heard a cry, a terrible cry:
"'To arms!—to arms!—the Prussians.' And the four Uhlans of the advance guard might have seen up there, on the balcony, a tall old man stagger, wave his arms, and fall. This time Colonel Jouve was dead."
