This was the urn. Two gendarmes, one
upon each side, stood watching over it with their arms folded. A man
came to the window and shouted something which I could not catch, and
at the same moment half a dozen mayors of districts, girt with their
tri-color sashes, ran up the steps of the Hotel de Ville to draw for
the order in which their respective communes were to present
themselves. This formality occupied five minutes, and the mayors then
came out again to marshal their people into separate groups. The
district in which the Derblays lived was to go up third, and as he
came to tell us this the mayor of N---- patted Francois on the back
and told him that _three_ was an odd number and therefore lucky. Poor
Madeleine was so weak that she could hardly stand up: Louise and I
were obliged to support her.
At half-past nine, punctually, the conscription began, and amidst a
breathless silence one of the mayor's assistants came to the window
and called out the first name: "Adolphe Monnier, of the commune of
S----;" and a tall country-boy, elbowing his way through the crowd,
walked up into the town-hall.
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