He dressed hastily and made his way through the silent house, taking care not to wake anybody. Once over the threshold, he pulled his collar up to his ears, ready to launch himself into the inky darkness of that winter morning. But scarcely had he passed through the metal gate of his family home when his imagination bolted. He already pictured himself, fear in his belly, marching into battle, just as that ill-bred old soldier his parents insisted on inviting to dine at their table used to describe in words fit to terrify the ladies – a man by the name of Pélissier, a veteran of the dreadful siege of Sebastopol. In the halo of light cast by the gas street-lamps he could practically make out the twisted frozen corpses of horses half-eaten by soldiers.

As he made his way up Rue de la République, the dawn filled with the silhouettes of people whose snowy footprints were converging on the town hall of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Children were playing battle games out the front of the building, entertaining the soldiers standing guard. Sitting astride imaginary mounts and armed with snowballs and sticks by way of swords, they launched themselves, shouting, at invisible enemies. Prussians, they said.

Those accompanying the young men were asked to remain outside while all those who had been called up were led by privates into the Hall of Honour. Sitting at the table waiting for them, with the municipal register containing the names of all the young men born in 1849 open in front of him, was the mayor, wearing his sash of red, white and blue, together with an impatient officer flanked by a handful of soldiers.

Auguste went to join a small group of bourgeois civilians standing around a large coal brazier, who had been joined, naturally enough, by the offspring of their servants. He greeted the Bertelot boy, who he knew had harboured designs on his cousin at some point, as well as his childhood friend Duchaussois, whom his father was constantly holding up as an example after he had pursued a position in the magistracy. He saw his high-school friends Berquet, Bruault and Fromoisin . . . and there was Portefaux, too, the son of the mortgage registrar. Auguste hardly recognised him he had gained so much weight: he was hoping to be declared unfit for service on the grounds of obesity, he said. Auguste was equally surprised to see the fellow whom his mother had always called little Perret, the youngest son of their gardener, who it seemed had been born the same year as him. Then there were the sons of the town’s shopkeepers. Some of them he knew from church, from having played with them when he was younger, or simply from having glimpsed them at the back of their parents’ shops. A cheerful hubbub was very quickly heard emerging from this inner circle.