A GARDEN DIARY 141 
risk of capture, and the, not after all, very un- 
comfortable, entertainment of a prisoner of war. 
Here, then, stands our military position ; and now 
comes the question of what in such a case, are 
the rights and duties of the ordinary, peaceable 
but rifle-shooting civilian ? 
First let me clear the ground for myself 
a little. In the course of certain profound re- 
searches upon the whole art and practice of war 
as laid down in the Débdcle, La Guerre et la 
Paix, and other recondite manuals, I have learnt 
that in the case of invasion the barrier between 
civilians and professional soldiers is even stricter 
and more menacing than at other times. The 
soldier, let his capacity or incapacity be what it 
may, is entitled in case of capture to honourable 
treatment. He may be nearly starved to death, 
if provisions run short, as the French soldier- 
prisoners were after Sedan. He may be shot 
out of hand, if he endeavours to escape, but with 
these trifling exceptions he is a person having 
definite rights and a definite status ; a person the 
cold-blooded slaughter of whom would stamp the 
perpetrator of such a deed as a brute, no gentle- 
man, and a man generally to be avoided, even by 
his own side. Turning now to the position of 
a civilian during invasion, I learn, by studying 
the same authorities, that he is an individual 
without rights of any kind should he attempt— 
no matter upon what provocation—to touch a 
