A little removed, keeping a respectful distance from the stove, stood a crowd of young workers clad in factory coats, as well as a few peasants battling silently against the cold, dressed as if heading to Mass. They had all made the effort to put on clean clothes, for if their poverty was tolerated it was only because they had made the effort to dress properly and did not allow their impoverishment to cause offence to those with whom they were required to rub shoulders.

Auguste could not help but observe them surreptitiously.

‘There are so many of them,’ he thought, astonished. ‘How awkwardly they conduct themselves, and how stubborn their silence. Their manner sits at such odds with the ease and civility of the well-to-do. Why are they not the ones approaching the stove so they might warm their bones, with their meagre clothes and inadequate shoes, so poorly suited to the cold?’

‘These poor lads had a price, it seems. How much for that sturdy specimen hopping from one clog to another so as not to freeze? And would he agree to sell himself, that man, if he weren’t given his marching orders? Did he think that to have himself killed in the place of the son of a wealthier family is “a matter of outlook” as Monsieur Thiers recently asserted in the Chamber? Did he think it self-evident, a given, much like conceding his place around the fire?’

‘How complicated it all is!’ he thought, sighing.

Despite the Emperor’s desire to bring some ethics to the trade in men, the principle of freedom to contract had once again triumphed in the Chamber as a result of pressure exerted by the country’s paterfamilias.

The liberal deputies had voted by overwhelming majority in favour of bringing back military substitution as it had been practised prior to the accession of Napoléon III. Thus, it was no longer a question of the state being responsible for finding a replacement, in exchange for a fee, for those young men refusing to go, but rather a matter for the families themselves. There had of course been the minor socialist group led by Jules Simon protesting this white slave trade, this resurgence of traffickers in human flesh – but it was against a backdrop of general indifference. The conservatives, for their part, had brandished the spectre of war with Prussia. And contrary to all expectations, that country, while considerably smaller than France, had just crushed Austria at Sadowa in a single battle, thanks entirely to its compulsory service and its army of 1,200,000 men, but the conservatives too had been preaching in the wilderness.

At around ten o’clock, the officer present started to call the roll that had been stripped of exemptions, while a soldier turned the handle of the drum containing the 127 numbers slotted into their wooden casings.