Not a night passed in Metz without the beat of music upon the frosty
air. It burst into the narrow streets from _estaminets_ where the
soldiers danced, from halls, from drawing-rooms of confiscated German
houses where officers of the "Grand Quartier General" danced a triumph.
Or it might be supposed to be a triumph by the Germans who stayed in
their homes after dark. They might suppose that the French officers
danced for happiness, that they danced because they were French, because
they were victorious, because they were young, because they must.
It was not, surely, the wild dancing of the host whose party drags a
little, who calls for more champagne, more fiddles?
In the centre of the city of Metz sat the Marechal Petain, and kept his
eye upon Lorraine. He was not a man who cared for gaiety, but should the
Lorraines be insufficiently amused he gave them balls--insufficiently
fed, he sent for flour and sugar; all the flour and sugar that France
could spare; more, much more, than Paris had, and at his bidding the
cake-shops flowered with _eclairs, millefeuilles, brioches, choux a la
creme_, and cakes more marvellous with German names.
France, poor and hungry, flung all she had into Alsace and Lorraine,
that she might make her entry with the assuring dazzle of the
benefactress. The Lorraines, like children, were fed with sugar while
the meat shops were empty--were kept dancing in national costume that
they might forget to ask for leather boots, to wonder where wool and
silk were hiding.
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