Thinking it would calm nerves, the mayor put the big circus poster up on the municipal notice board, so that everyone would get used to seeing the lion tamer all the time, rather than fearing him unseen. There the German was, on the wall of the mairie like a Roman gladiator, a Spartacus armed with a sword and a whip, a Spartacus surrounded by lions and tigers, some trampling on snakes, others standing on giant stools, their mouths wide open and paws raised, lions and tigers ready to eat everything … But the most arresting part of the poster was his name written in gold on a red background, Wolfgang Hollzenmaier. That name was truly terrifying. That name, fanned out in large golden letters, was worse than a threat or a declaration of war. It was impossible to pronounce but should anyone try they would risk provoking a storm … People turned away as they passed the poster.

Only Joséphine did not tremble at the sight. It reminded her of the evening in Villeneuve in June when she had gone to the circus with her husband, Dr Manouvrier, and seen the gladiator surrounded by lions. She thought he looked fragile, vulnerable in the midst of his massive creatures. She could not persuade herself that he was just a performer executing his act to perfection. No, she saw a man in mortal danger, surrounded by beasts capable of piercing him with one of their claws. Watching this man dicing with death, she had been overwhelmed with feelings, closing her eyes and squeezing her husband’s hand, the same husband who was now at the front and from whom she had had no news for more than a month … The poster reawakened her emotions, and troubled her.

After three days, Fernand was forced to remove the poster and put it in the barn near his house. As people’s anxieties had not diminished, should they denounce the German and his wild animals? La Dépêche was full of stories of the fate of Germans who found themselves in France on the outbreak of war. Unable to reach their homeland, they were trapped – ‘like rats’, people said. And the lion tamer, in spite of his lions and tigers, was one of them; he, too, was trapped like a rat. The Germans and Austro-Hungarians who were in France on 3 August 1914 were men and women who overnight ceased to be foreigners and became enemies. And there were thousands of them spread across the country, placed on house arrest if they were lucky, or beaten up, if they were not. As all the trains had been requisitioned, they could not travel back east. Whether in France to take the waters or sell their wares, to travel or toil, whether they were there for work or there for love, all were stuck there. And if any of them had tried to force their way onto a train carrying soldiers, they would not have survived.