"
Having once formed this conviction, a complete revolution affected the
character of the young Violand. His melancholy ceased; his uncertainty
fell from him; it seemed as though his soul threw off her fetters.
From the close of 1913, when the chancelleries of Europe were still
profoundly unconscious of the tremendous upheaval which was in store
for them, this young man, hitherto so timorous and irresolute, is seen
to be filled with a species of prophetic ecstasy:--
_"The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness!
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
.........the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind"_
This remarkable change of character was encouraged by the military
discipline which now regulated his life, and which he accepted with
rapture and devotion. His mother's one aim had been to make of Camille
a soldier and a Christian, and he became the very type of that
combination.
To use a striking phrase of M. Henri Bordeaux, the war found Camille
Violand in a state of preparedness.
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