Paris, that queen of cities, has been an interesting study to all who have paid her a visit at any time, but particularly interesting is that study since the war began.
Previous to the war I had the good fortune to visit this city on a number of occasions, my last visit having been but a few months before the beginning of this great militaristic conflagration which is still sweeping over the civilized world. At that time I had just returned from a "grand tour," taking in Italy, Austria, and Southern Germany, where no signs were discernible on the horizon of the stupendous attempt at world domination which the Prussian junkers were to engineer within four months\' time. Paris at that time was enjoying bright and balmy spring weather; the boulevards were crowded with visiting tourists, the Champs-Elysées with gay and merry crowds, and the Bois de Boulogne with riders and motorists in its wooded avenues, and rowers and paddlers on its lakes. It remained in my memory a picture of beauty, peace, gayety, and prosperity.
My return to it came within the year, at the beginning of 1915, when the war cloud that hung over the whole of Europe particularly dimmed the sun of Paris. I came into it in the afternoon from the north, and my first view of it showed that beautiful edifice, the Church of the Sacre Coeur, on the hill of Montmartre standing out en silhouette, "just as if cut from paper," as a traveling companion remarked.
Since the war began, on one\'s arrival at his hotel in Paris he has to give many particulars of himself not required in peace times. The following morning he must call at the nearest police station and obtain, after many more questions as to nationality, occupation, and reasons for being there, a permis de séjour—permit to remain—good for a certain length of time, at the expiration of which the permit must be renewed.
On stepping out of my hotel the following morning to go to the police station, the first thing that struck my attention was the large number of women in mourning, though it was then only a matter of months since the beginning of hostilities. The thought that flitted sadly through my mind was that one-half of the women of Paris are in mourning now, and ere long the other half will be. It must not be forgotten that the French wear mourning for relations much more distant than those for whom we wear it; but even at that the war must not have gone on many months before a very large percentage of the French homes had been touched by the deaths of those near and dear to them. For the soil of France was under the heel of the foreign invader, and there are no people in the world who love their mother country with a deeper devotion than the French. A very old woman, living away up in the north of France in a town that was shelled by the Germans almost daily showed me her love for la belle France and her hatred of its enemies in one expressive sentence. I had asked her if she did not tire of the continuous pounding of the guns.
"No, I love them, I love them," she answered passionately, "for when they cease it means that the accursed boche is being left alone; but when they roar, roar, roar, it means that we are driving him out of our beautiful France." Her face showed, as an old woman\'s wrinkled face can show so well, her hatred of the Germans. The soldiers of France by their traditional gallantry, their superb courage and their patience, have not only shown their love for their country, but have been an example of noble heroism to us all.
One of the next notable changes on the streets of Paris was the fact that one saw no young men in civilian clothes. All were serving their country in some capacity in the armies. The little hotel in the Rue Bergere at which I was a guest, a hotel of not many more than one hundred rooms, had given thirty men—waiters, porters, clerks—to the armies of France, for it was one of those small, select hotels that one finds scattered throughout Europe. The only male help that remained of its original staff was the concierge, and he was a Dutchman from Amsterdam. The manager, accountant, and all the other help were women. No meals were served except a French déjeuner—so hateful to hungry Anglo-Saxons—of bread, and tea, coffee, or cocoa.
And the same condition was noticeable all over the city. Anyone who has visited this fair metropolis of France in peace times will remember the delicious, snow-white bread that is served with the meals, that French bread with the crackly brown crust as delicious as pastry. The first day of my stay I noticed that this bread was served no longer. In its place we were given some of a much inferior quality and not nearly so white. When this had occurred in many different restaurants and cafés, I asked the reason.
"Mais, monsieur," was the reply, accompanied by that Gallic gesture of helplessness, the turning upward of the palms, "the good bakers are all serving with the armies." Of course, this reason was enhanced by the conservation of the wheat which prevented the mixing or blending of the superior qualities of grains to produce the high-grade flours used by the good bakers.
The streets by day were the same crowded thoroughfares as of old, except for the black of those in mourning, the blue-gray of the military uniforms, and the military cars and Red Cross ambulances. The touts who in peace times had tried to inveigle the tourist into moving picture houses in which the films had not been passed by the censor; or who offered to take him around the forbidden night-sights for a small honorarium; or who endeavored to sell him postcards so indecent that the ordinary man would not accept a fortune and have them found on his corpse; all these fellows still plied their trade. They were not quite so obtrusive or so numerous as usual, but it was difficult to cross the Place de l\'Opéra without having one of them step up behind you and whisper his enterprise, whatever it was.
The girls of the boulevards were perhaps even more in evidence than at other times, for in those early months of the war few chose to cross the submarine-infested channel, and still fewer to cross the Atlantic through the areas laid out by the Huns as danger zones, unless good cause made them do so. Paris, usually the Mecca of tourists from all the countries of the world, had become instead the business and military headquarters of France. And to Paris came, instead of the gay youth bent on pleasure, the gray youth bent on business, whose eyes were so busy studying his engagement book, or reading the market reports............