Paris had known fear before.
It had trembled beneath Prussian cannon in 1870, it had wept under German boots in 1916, and it had starved behind barricades more than once in the civil war that followed.
But this…
This was different.
There were no sirens. No speeches. No grand parades of resistance.
Only the shuffle of feet, millions of them, marching east, west, anywhere but here.
The roads out of Paris were jammed with humanity.
Carts, bicycles, baby strollers, wheelbarrows, all overflowing with hastily packed belongings.
Mothers wept silently as they clutched their children.
Fathers stared ahead, glassy-eyed, trying not to let their panic show.
The rich fled in cars, the poor on foot, and the broken dragged themselves forward like ghosts.
Above them, the sky was clear. Too clear.
That was the part that frightened people most.
There were no air raids. No bombardment. No distant thunder of war.
