such a company. He swept off his iron casque, bowed almost to the
ground, and answered: "Certainly I am happy in my company, mademoiselle,
but I am far happier in yours."

The principal grief of the _poilus_ appeared to be that a shell two or
three days before had destroyed the store of the great _dragée_ (sugared
almond) manufactory of Verdun. Before leaving, the manufacturer had
bequeathed his stock to the army, and they were all regretting that they
had not been greedier and eaten up the _dragées_ quicker.

In the trenches near Verdun, as in the trenches in Flanders, you find
the men talking little of war, but much of their homes and their
families. I came once upon a group of Bretons. They had opened some tins
of sardines and, sitting around a bucket of blazing coals, they were
toasting the fish on the ends of small twigs. I asked them why they
were wasting their energies, since the fish were ready to be eaten
straight from the tins. "We know," they replied; "but it smells like
home." I suppose with the odour of the cooking fish, in the blue haze of
the smoke, they saw visions of their cottages and the white-coiffed
Bretonnes frying the fresh sardines that they had caught.

The dusk was now falling, and, entering the car, we proceeded towards
the lower part of the town at a snail's pace in order not to draw the
German fire. We were told that at the present time approximately one
hundred shells a day still fall on Verdun, but at the time of the great
attack the number was as high as eight hundred, whilst as many as two
hundred thousand shells fell daily in and around Verdun.

Just before we reached the entrance to the citadel, the enemy began to
shell the city, and one of the shells exploded within two hundred feet