THE YOUNG FRANC-TIREURS.

CHAPTER I.

THE OUTBREAK OF WAR.

HE usually quiet old town of Dijon was in a state of excitement. There were groups of people in the streets, especially round the corners where the official placards were posted up. Both at the Prefecture and the Mairie there were streams of callers all day. Every functionary wore an air of importance and mystery, and mounted orderlies galloped here. and there at headlong speed. The gensdarmes had twisted their moustaches to even finer points than usual, and walked about with the air of men who knew all about the matter, and had gone through more serious affairs than this was likely to be.

In the market-place the excitement and the buzz of conversation were at their highest. It was the marketday, and the whole area of the square was full. Never, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had such a market been seen in Dijon.

For the ten days preceding, France had been on the

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tip-toe of expectation, and every peasant's wife and daughter, for miles round the town, had come with their baskets of eggs, fowls, or fruits, to attend the market and to hear the news. So crowded was it that it was really difficult to move about. People were not, however, unmindful of bargains, for the French peasant woman is a thrifty body, and has a shrewd eye to sous, so the chaffering and haggling which almost invariably precede each purchase went on as briskly as usual, but between times all thoughts and all tongues ran upon the great event of the day. It was certain, quite certain now, that there was to be war with Prussia. The newspapers had said so for some days, but then, bah! who believes a newspaper? M. le Prefect had published the news to-day, and every one knows that M. le Prefect is not a man to say a thing unless it were true. Most likely the Emperor himself had written to him. Oh there could be no doubt about it now.

It was singular to hear, amidst all the talk, that the speculation and argument turned but little upon the chances of the war itself, it being tacitly assumed to be a matter of course that the Germans would be defeated with ease by the French; the great subject of speculation was upon the points which directly affected the speakers. Would the Mobiles be called out, and forced to march? Would soldiers who had served their time be recalled to the service, even if they were married; and would next year's conscripts be called out at once? These were the questions which every one asked, but no one could answer. In another day or two it was probable that the orders respecting these matters would arrive, and in the

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mean time the merry Burgundian girls endeavoured to hide their own uneasiness by laughingly predicting an early summons to arms to the young men of their acquaintance.

At the Lycée or great school the boys are just coming out. They are too excited to attend to lessons, and have been released hours before their usual time. They troop out from the great doors, talking and gesticulating. Their excitement, however, takes a different form to that which that of English boys would do under the same circumstances. There was no shouting, no pushing, no practical jokes. The French boy does not play; at least he does not play roughly. When young he does indeed sometimes play at buchon, a game something similar to the game of buttons as played by English street-boys; he may occasionally play at marbles; but after twelve years of age he puts aside games as beneath him. Prisoners' base, foot-ball, and cricket are alike unknown to him, and he considers any exertion which would disarrange his hair or his shirt-collar as barbarous and absurd. His amusements are walking in the public promenade, talking politics with the gravity of a man of sixty, and discussing the local news and gossip. This is the general type of French school-boy. Of course there are many exceptions, and in the Lycée of Dijon these were more numerous than usual.

This was due to a great extent to the influence of the two boys who are coming out of the school at the present moment. Ralph and Percy Barclay are, as one can see at first sight, English; that is to say, their father is English, and they have taken after him, and not after

their French mother. They are French born, for they first saw the light at the pretty cottage where they still live, about two miles out of the town; but their father, Captain Barclay, has brought them up as English boys, and they have been for two years at a school in England. Their example has had some effect: their cousins, Louis and Philippe Duburg, are almost as fond of cricket and other games, and of taking long rambles for miles round, as they are themselves; other boys have also taken to these amusements, and consequently you would see more square figures, more healthy faces at the Lycée at Dijon than at most other French schools.

The boys who joined in these games formed a set in themselves apart from the rest. They were called either the English set, or contemptuously "the savages;" but this latter name was not often applied to them before their faces, for the young Barclays had learnt to box in England, and their cousins as well as a few of the others had practised with the gloves with them. Consequently although "the savages" might be wondered at and sneered at behind their backs, the offensive name was never applied in their hearing.

At the present moment Ralph Barclay was the centre of a knot of lads of his own age.

"And so you don't think that we shall get to Berlin, Ralph Barclay; you think that these Prussian louts are going to beat the French army? Look now, it is a little strong to say that in a French town."

"But I don't say that at all," Ralph Barclay said. "You are talking as if it was a certainty that we were oing to march over the Prussians; I simply say, don't be

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too positive. There can be no doubt about the courage of the French army, but pluck alone won't do ; the question is, are our generals and our organization as good as those of the Prussians, and can we put as many, or any. thing like as many men into the field? I am at least half French, and hope with all my heart that we shall thrash these Germans; but we know that they are good soldiers, and it is safer not to begin to brag till the work is over."

There was silence for a minute or two after Ralph ceased speaking. The fact was, the thought that perhaps France might be defeated had never once before presented itself to them as possible. They were half disposed to be angry with the English boy for stating it, but it was, in the first place, evident, now that they thought of it, that it was just possible, and, in the second place, a quarrel with Ralph Barclay was a thing which all his school-fellows avoided.

Ralph Barclay was nearly sixteen, his brother a year younger. Their father, Captain Barclay, had lost a leg in one of the innumerable wars in India, two or three years before the outbreak of the Crimean war. He returned to England, and was recommended by his doctors to spend the winter in the south of France. This he did, and shortly after his arrival at Pau he had fallen in love with Melanie Duburg, daughter of a landed proprietor near Dijon, and who was stopping there with a relative. A month later he called upon her father at Dijon, and in the spring they were married. Captain Barclay's half-pay, a small private income, and the little fortune which his wife brought him, were ample to enable