CHAPTER XXXVI
PLOTTING PEACE

"WAS it on purpose, Madame," said the Persian Minister to Paris, "that you wore a green hat today?"

We were lunching with the Persian Delegation. I took off my turban and dropped it on the floor at the side of the chair.

"Poor hat!" said I. "Look at its color. Brand new, you know, and faded like that. It happened on the first sunny day after I bought it. We need to plot a peace so that we can find good German dyes for our clothes. Why did you want to know if I wore it on purpose?"

"Green is the sacred color of Persia," said the Minister smiling, "and it pleases us to see it. You were speaking of peace. We need peace and quickly. And after that—what? We were more or less prepared for war, but who thought while we were at war about preparing for peace? Not one of the countries sent delegates with a workable plan. Part of our preparedness should have been a peace program. Nobody thought a year ago to call a conference of specialists. That's why negotiations drag on forever."

"I know," I answered, "we are used to war and we must get used to peace now that it is coming. The other day at luncheon my husband asked the children to define war.

"'War is men getting hurted. The Germans did do it and I don't like 'em,' said Mimi.

"'War is men at the front and cannon going off,' said Lloyd.

"'Yes, and war makes the mamas work in the subway, and when it's war you can't have sugar in your milk and we have air raids and Big Berthas, and it makes people cry when the soldiers go away from the railroad station,' said Christine all in one breath.

"And we realized that although it seemed like another world, we grown-ups could look back to before the war; but little children begin to remember in a world at war."

"And what is peace?" said the Minister. "It will not exist again for your children and mine until we educate our democracies in international understanding. The people of one country must know the people of another. When we say France wants this or Italy wants that, we are not talking about the people. How much did our Persians know about America beyond the fact that missionaries came from there? How much did you know about Persia beyond rugs and kittens and the RubaiyÁt? I mean you collectively. How many of our people and how many of yours understood what Morgan Shuster was trying to do? No, no, we must not drop propaganda after the signature of peace. We must have exchange students—in agriculture and commerce and the professions. And then," continued the Minister, "peace must bring us work, work for everybody. Work is the only remedy for most of the ills of the world. And that means a common international effort to bring raw materials to, and to aid in the reconstruction of, the countries that have been battlefields."

"Will peace give us all of that?" I enquired. "It sounds like the millennium."

"If we think of peace as an abstract something that will drop on us from one day to another we shall have no change from the war-breeding conditions of the past. Permanent peace is a state of mind. A state of mind among the people and strong enough to control the actions of political leaders. Understanding, I tell you, understanding is the only way."

"I am afraid," said I, "it will be a cold day before the people will have much to say about war and peace. Throughout our politicians are all tarred with the same brush. Invite a doctor, a brick-layer, a parson and a mother of five children to come from each country. Sit them down together at one big table and I'd wager they'd make a good peace quickly. We like to say that the five per cent. of educated men rule the other ninety-five per cent. What is the fiendish power that lets rotten diplomacy order us out to kill each other? The world will have to suffer a good deal more before we learn the lesson. When wire-pulling and economic jealousies wish it, the politicians can plunge the peoples into a war again without their knowing how and why!"

"The war that was to end war," said the Minister, bitterly. He was thinking of the mockery of the Society of Nations as applied to his own country.

"This war that was to end war could have ended it," I cried, "if the Peace Delegates hadn't come here covering their greed and their imperialism with a camouflage of belles phrases. For the life of me, I cannot see why some real leader does not emerge at this crisis, and force the peacemakers to do what the doctor, the concierge, the little tradesman, the professor,—the people—all knew in the beginning had to be done. First make peace with Germany. Then sit around the table men representing the world and draw up a League of Nations. A league without Germany and Russia is only an offensive or defensive alliance. Same old game over again. This peace conference doesn't recognize give and take. It is all take. And they refuse to allow themselves and their frontiers to be measured by the same tape-line we propose to use on our enemies. This means simply that we are going to have once more the old-fashioned peace of might making right. I believe in a League of Nations founded on Christian principles. It is the only kind of a league that will give the weak a chance where the strong are concerned. Civilization is on the upgrade. The reason we are disappointed now and the cause of the unrest is that we thought we had got far enough along in the process of evolution to establish a new order of things. And we haven't. Nobody is willing to give up special privileges, secret treaties, and the balance of power. The Golden Rule is too simple to try."

"Ah, Madame," said the Persian Minister, "our peacemakers are like the sparrow in the Persian fable. The sparrow heard that the sky was going to fall. She flew to her nest and sat there stretching out her wings so that it would not fall on her little ones."

In my attitude toward the Peace Conference I believe I reflected all through the attitude of the common people of France, especially the Parisians. We had suffered too much and too long to want to see Germany let off easily. Our internationalism had nothing in it of pity for the Germans. We did not worry about how they were going to feel when they found out what they were up against. We knew that we could not make the Germans suffer as they had made us suffer. But we wanted written into the Treaty conditions that would make our enemies realize their guilt by finding out that the enterprise had not proved profitable. But along with this natural and justifiable desire we yearned for some greater recompense for our own suffering and sacrifices. Our hatred of war had become as intense as our hatred of the Germans who plunged us into war. We hailed with joy the assurances of our statesmen that they would make this time a durable peace, avoiding the mistakes and errors of the past. Imagine our consternation when we realized that the delegates to the Conference at Paris were not making peace along new lines. They were plotting peace along old lines. Weary months passed. The censorship still muzzled the press. But Parisians knew instinctively that something was wrong. Before Easter we lost faith in the Conference and hope in its intention of changing the old order of things.

But the great fact remained that the war was over and that, despite the soaring cost of living and labor unrest, we were free from having to go through the horrors of the previous winter. We counted our blessings.

Paris had been the centre of the world during the whole war, the prize for which the Germans fought, because they knew that success or failure depended upon taking Paris. When they recrossed the Marne a second time and retreated from ChÂteau-Thierry, the war was lost: and they knew it then, and only then. You know that last poem of Rostand about the Kaiser climbing to the top of a tower to witness the final assault against Paris. Paris deserved the Peace Conference. So logical was the choice that none protested. It was the only point on which the "principal Allied and Associated Powers" were agreed. As a resident of Paris I was proud that we were going to continue for another winter to be the centre of the world—without certain decided disadvantages the honor had cost us in the four previous winters! As a writer and the wife of a writer, tied up by contracts to report the Conference, it meant that we could stay in our own home and in our own workshops instead of living in hotel rooms in some other place for long months.

We kept open house for all—from premiers of belligerent states and plenipotentiaries to delegates of subject nationalities, ignored by the Big Five. Greeks redeemed and unredeemed, Rumanians and Transylvanians, Jugo-Slavs of all kinds, Russians from Grand Dukes to Bolshevists, Lithuanians, Esthonians, Letts, Finns, Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Ukranians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabs of every persuasion, Albanians, Persians, Siamese, Chinese, not to speak of the specialists and propagandists and newspapermen of the Big Five, wrote their names in my guestbook, ate at my table, and discussed each other over cigars and cordials before my salon fire. Few lacked honesty of purpose and sincerity and loyalty to ideals. But the ideals were those of their own national or racial interests. Aside from a desire to see justice done to France and Belgium, there was no unity, no internationalism in the views of my guests. Most of them I respected; many of them I admired; for some I came to have real affection. My husband and I formed personal ties that I trust will never be broken. But I confess that the more I listened to tabletalk and salon talk in my own home, the more bewildered I grew. I saw the Society of Nations vanishing in the thin air. My own narrow nationalism, that had been gradually reviving ever since the A. E. F. started to come to France, was strengthened. After all, was not all human nature like the nature of my own paternal ancestors, who believed—as they believed the Bible, with emphasis on the Old Testament—that

I took refuge in the humorous side of the Peace Conference, as I did not want to get mad or to become gloom-struck and weep. When Fiume came up, for instance, I would talk to Jugo-Slavs and Italians about getting seasick on the Adriatic and the respective merits of Abbazia and the Lido and whether they ever felt like d'Annunzio's lovers talked. The best fun was with my own compatriots. We Americans had nothing at stake as a nation, and (if I except a few of Wilson's specialists who never were listened to but always hoped they would be) the members of the American Delegation lost no sleep while they were remaking the map of Europe.

Spire of the Saint-Chapelle from the Place Saint-Michel
Spire of the Saint-Chapelle from the Place Saint-Michel

A Pole was explaining to us one day that the Ukranians were not and never had been a nation, and he was in dead earnest. A captain in the American Navy had been listening politely for an hour. Then he thought it was time to change the subject. He turned to me and broke in out of a clear sky, "Helen, you have no idea how fussy Colonel House is. Found he couldn't get waffles in Paris. Telegraphed an S. O. S. to Brest. My machinist spent the better part of two days making a waffle-iron, and it was so precious and the Colonel was in such a hurry that I sent the machinist to Paris to take it to him. Don't you think that was the right thing for me to do, Doctor ——sky? House is pretty close to our Commander-in-Chief, you know."

When touring Paris starts up again, the Cook megaphone man will add a new item to his history of the Place de la Concorde: "See that building on the corner opposite the Ministry of Marine I was tellin' yuh 'bout? Number Four it is. Offices of the American Peace Commission during the famous Conference, 'n b'fore that f'r t'ree years American Red Cross Headquarters. 'N at tother end of the row is th' Hotel Crillon, where th' Merican delegates lived. There President Wilson tried to make a 'Siety 'v Nashuns!"

And from now on I shall never pass through the Place de la Concorde without thinking of our press-room at Number Four, where we swapped rumors and waited for an open covenant, openly arrived at. Press headquarters were housed in the former concierge's loge—three wee rooms on the ground floor to the right of the porte-cochÈre as you enter, and one of those was the post-office of the Delegation. The quarters were prophetic of the importance and dignity of the press as looked upon by the leaders of the Conference. The Americans arrived in Paris with different ideas. The name chosen by the Delegation and printed on all the stationery was a sign of American naÏvety, and caused much merriment among our British and French friends. AMERICAN COMMISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE. Negotiate peace? Our European allies wondered where and how such a notion entered the heads of the Americans. We stuck to the name throughout—but not to the idea.

The Hotel Crillon and Four Place de la Concorde were filled with Americans—college professors, army and navy officers, New York financiers, the mysterious Colonel and his family and family's friends, the other Delegates, Embassy secretaries and clerks, stenographers, soldiers and sailors, and journalists. The sensible ones were profiting by the months in the center of the world to see Paris, old and new; hear music; and do the theatres. For the time spent on their specialties, trying to influence the course of the peace pourparlers and being sympathetic to the swarm of representatives, official and otherwise, of downtrodden races, did not budge a frontier an inch or write one line into the Treaty of Versailles.

When I applied for a press-card, an American major, whose acquaintance with a razor seemed no more than what anyone could gain from looking at a display in a drug-store window, looked me over doubtfully. Was I really writing for the Century and newspapers to boot? At length he called a soldier. "Take this lady to get her photograph made," he said. Up four flights of stairs we climbed. On every landing was a soldier at a desk. "Through this way, mom," said my guide. He opened a tiny yellow door all black around the knob, and there were more stairs.

"Wouldn't it be fun to play hide-and-seek at Number Four and in the Hotel Crillon?" I asked.

"That's just what they're doing here most of the time," said Atlanta, Georgia. "You never saw anything like it. But you mustn't speak of the Hotel Crillon. This is the Island of Justice, mom. Yes, mom, it certainly expects to be that if it isn't yet."

In the garret room of the Signal Corps at the top of the stairs were five soldiers.

"Hello, boys, what do you think you are doing?" I asked.

"We're still making this here peace," answered a stocky brown-eyed lad, occupied vigorously with chewing-gum. "Since these guys've come over from home to help us, though, it is not going as fast as it was before. Mistake to have thought they'd do it quicker by talking than fighting."

"That's right, too," put in another. "The doughboys c'd a-finished it 'thout all these perfessers and willy-boys. Sit down here, please."

In the gable window was a chair with screens behind it. On the screen above the chair they put up a number—1949.

"My soul!" I exclaimed. "What's the matter with me? Is that the date?'

"No, ma'am, that's the date when the Conference is going to quit talking and we can go home."

CHAPTER XXXVII
LA VIE CHÈRE

H.C. OF L. is an abbreviation I see often in American newspapers. From the context it was not hard to guess what it meant. In Paris we call that "preoccupation" (note the euphemism for "nightmare") la vie chÈre. But we never mention it in any other tone than that of complete and definitive resignation. We do not kick against the pricks. We gave up long ago berating the Government and thinking that anything we can do would change matters. We pay or go without. Our motto is Kismet. These are good days to be a Mohammedan or a Christian Scientist. The latter is preferable, I think, because it is comfortable to get rid of a thing by denying its existence.

For the sake of record I have compiled a little table that tells more eloquently than words the price we have paid—from the material point of view—for the privilege of dictating peace to Germany. Is it not strange that peace costs more than war? The greater part of the increases I record here have come since the armistice. The figures opposite the names of commodities represent the percentage of increase since August 1, 1914:

FOODSTUFFS
Beef	400
Mutton	350
Veal	350
Poultry	400
Rabbit	400
Ham	400
Bacon	225
Lard	225
PatÉ de foie	300
Potatoes	325
Carrots	325
Turnips	450
Cabbage	850
Cauliflower	725
Artichokes	650
Salads	200
Radishes	500
Oranges	200
Bananas	400
Figs	500
Prunes	650
Celery	1900
Salt	150
Pepper	250
Sugar	225
Olive oil	350
Vinegar	225
Coffee	150
Macaroni	150
Vermicelli	250
Rice	25
Canned goods	200-400
Butter	350
Eggs	400
Cheese	400-600
Milk	150
Bread	50
Flour	200
Pastry	300-400
Ordinary wine	300
Vins de luxe	50-100
Champagne	150
Ordinary beer	200
Cider	400
HEATING AND LIGHTING
Coal	250
Charcoal	250
Kindling-wood	300
Cut-wood	300
Gasoline	125
Wood-alcohol	500
Gas	100
Electricity	50
CLOTHING
Tailored suits	150
Ready-made suits	300
Shoes	200-300
Hats	250
Neckties	150
Cotton thread	500
Cotton cloth	275
Collars	150
Shirts	150-350
Gloves	150-250
Millinery	150
Stockings	150
Needles	500
Yarn	500
LAUNDRY
Laundry work	150-200
Potash	350
Soap	550
Blueing	200
FURNITURE
In wood	200
In iron	300
Mirrors	400
Bedding	300
HOUSEHOLD LINEN
Sheets	750
Linen sheeting	900
Cotton sheeting	900
Pillow-cases	400
Dish-towels	600
Bath and hand towels	400
Napkins	500
Table cloths	400
TABLE AND KITCHEN
Cutlery	125
Plated-ware	150
Table china	300
Kitchen china	200
Copper kitchen ware	125
Aluminum ware	100
Crystal ware	225
Cut glass	200-350
Ordinary plates	200
Fancy plates	150
Brooms and brushes	125
Lamps	250
MEANS OF TRANSPORT
Railway tickets	50
Excess baggage	250
Sleeping births	400
Commutation	75
Taxi-cabs	75
Omnibuses	35-50
Tramways	35-50
Postal cards	100
STATIONERY AND BOOKS
Writing-paper	900
Wrapping-paper	1000
Paper for printing	500-800
Newspapers	100
Magazines	50
Books	100
DRUGS AND PERFUMERY
Fancy soaps	300-400
Toilet waters	200
Tisanes	150
Eucalyptus	400
Patent medicines	150-200
Lozenges	250
Powdered drugs	150
Prescriptions	100
Bottles for Prescriptions	300-525
TOBACCO
Smoking tobacco	50-60
Ordinary cigarettes	40-75
Cigarette de luxe	100
Ordinary cigars	50
Cigars de luxe	100-150
Snuff	50

While we decided upon what to do with the Germans, the rest of our enemies, and the very troublesome races we had liberated, the Chamber of Deputies passed a national eight-hour law. This did not bring down wages by the day. In fact, shorter hours of labor led to more insistent demands for higher wages to meet the increase in la vie chÈre. Everyone borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.

On the day the German plenipotentiaries arrived at Versailles, my children insisted on going out to see them. We had to wait until Sunday, when my husband was free. Out we went on a bright May morning. There were six Gibbonses, four of them very small, and one of my American soldier boys. Of course we ate in the famous restaurant of the HÔtel des RÉservoirs, where the Germans were lodged. We did not see the Germans. The only sensation of the day was the bill for a simple luncheon—two hundred and eight francs.

"It pays to be the victors!" I exclaimed.

"Those who have anything to sell," modified my husband, grinning cheerfully (God knows why!) as he bit the end off a ten-franc cigar.

"The children will never forget this historic day," he added, handing the waiter twenty francs.

"Nor I," said the children's mother.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE REVENGE OF VERSAILLES

THE memory of my introduction to Versailles is a confused jumble of stupid governess and more stupid guide-book. When I was sixteen a governess piloted me through endless rooms of the palace with a pause before each painting or piece of furniture. To avoid trouble I was resigned and looked up at the painted ceiling until my neck was stiff. But I never forgot the Salle des Glaces. It had no pictures or furniture in it. An historical event connected with it was impressive enough to hold my attention. I remembered a picture of the crowning of Wilhelm I in a school-book. Bismarck looked sleek and content. The kings stood with raised arms, crying "Hoch der Kaiser." Underneath was the caption: The Birth of an Empire.

I did not like that picture. I resented it as I resented the thought of Alsace and Lorraine under German rule. Ever since a German barber in Berne mistook me for a boy when I was a little girl and shaved my head with horse-clippers I have had a grudge against the Germans. And then, when you have lived long in France, that day in the Salle des Glaces becomes unconsciously a part of your life. I cannot explain why or how, but the Salle des Glaces and Metz and Strasbourg are in your heart like Calais was in Queen Mary's. I have lived under two shadows, the shadow of Islam and the shadow of Germany. In Constantinople you do not forget the minarets towering over Saint Sofia. In France you do not forget Soixante-Dix.

Possessor of Aladdin's lamp, would I ever have dared to ask the genie to transport me on his carpet to the Salle des Glaces to see Germany, confessing her defeat before France, sign away Alsace and Lorraine?

All this was in my thoughts on the morning of June 28, 1919, when Herbert and I were riding in the train to Versailles. Could I be dreaming when I looked at the square red card in my hand? And yet at three o'clock in the Salle des Glaces the German delegates were to sign a dictated peace, which they had not been allowed to discuss, and which would wipe out the dishonor and the losses of Soixante-Dix.

We went early and we took our lunch with us: for we said to ourselves that all Paris would be going to Versailles. For once we felt that the vast lifeless city of Versailles would be thronged. Except on a summer Sunday when the fountains were playing I had never seen a crowd at Versailles: and on the days of les grandes eaux the Sunday throng did not wander far from the streets that lead to the Palace. Always had we been able to find a quiet cafÉ with empty tables on the terrasse not many steps from the Place des Armes.

We might have saved ourselves the bother of bringing lunch. To our surprise Versailles was not crowded. After we had wandered around for an hour, we realized that even the signing of a victorious peace with Germany was not going to wake up the sleepy old town. The automobiles of press correspondents and secret service men were parked by the dozen at the upper end of the Avenue des Reservoirs. Along the wooden palisade shutting off the porch of the hotel occupied by the German delegation were as many policemen as civilians. We ate a quiet luncheon in front of a cafÉ down a side street from the reservoir. Besides ourselves there were only a couple of teamsters on the terrace. Inside four chauffeurs were playing bridge. Had we come too early for the crowd? At first we thought this was the reason: afterwards it dawned upon us that the Parisians were not attracted by the affair at all. How far we had traveled in six months from the welcome given to President Wilson a week before Christmas!

The ceremony was spiritless. I pitied the men who had to cable several thousand words of "atmosphere stuff" about it that night. If only the Germans would balk at signing! Or if the Chinese would enter at the last moment in order to get into the League of Nations! The only ripple of excitement was a signed statement of protest handed out by Ray Stannard Baker at General Smuts' request. The South African, remembering perhaps when he was a vanquished enemy and all the painful years that followed the Boer War, registered his disapproval of the Treaty, although he felt it was up to him to sign it.

It was all over in less than an hour. Cannon boomed to announce the revenge of Versailles; out on the terrace a few airplanes did stunts overhead; and for the first time since the war interrupted mid-summer gaiety the fountains played.

Margaret Greenough and I had the good luck to meet General Patrick at the Grand Bassin. He offered to take us back to town in his car. Thus we became part of the procession. Because of the stars on the wind-shield and the American uniform, our car was cheered as we passed in the line. Along the route to Saint-Cloud people gathered to see the plenipotentiaries. But we felt that they were simply curious to pick out the notables. There was no ovation, no sense of triumph. It was so different from the way I expected it to be, from the way I expected to feel.

In my book of mementos I have the program of the plenary session of the Peace Conference that was to crown six months of arduous labor, following five years of war, and to mark a new era in world history. Beside it is the program of the plenary session in the Palais d'Orsay, when I heard President Wilson present the project of a League of Nations. They are simple engraved folders with a couple of lines recording the events under the heading AGENDA. I ought to regard them as precious treasures. But they seem to me only the souvenirs of blasted hopes.

June 28, 1919, should have been an epic, an ecstatic day. It was a day of disillusion and disappointment on which we abandoned the age-old and stubborn hope of a peace that would end war. Were we foolish to have forgotten in the early days of the Peace Conference how slowly the mills of the gods do grind, and that our diplomats were children of their ancestors, still fettered by the chains of the past, still confronting the insoluble problems of unregenerate human nature?

The Peace Conference was a Tower of Babel, where different tongues championed divergent national interests. The only Esperanto was the old diplomatic language of suspicion and greed. The mental pabulum that fed the public was clothed in new terminology. When hammer struck anvil in the high places, sparks shot out. We caught flashes of liberty, brotherhood, the rights of small nations. But in the secret conferences decisions were dominated by the consideration of the interests (as they were judged by our leaders) of the most powerful.

One day there appeared in our press room in the Place de la Concorde a Lithuanian, who had made an incredibly long journey, much of it on foot, to come to the Peace Conference. He had been fired by President Wilson's speeches. He wanted to tell the American prophet how the Poles, in his part of Europe, were interpreting self-determination. He did not see the President. Although touched by his sincerity, we wondered at his naÏvety. Did he really believe that the same principle could be applied everywhere? Practical common sense urged me to believe that the liberty propaganda was overdone and that it was impossible to give justice to everybody. But I was clinging to my idealism as the Lithuanian clung to his. A plain body like me could not know or understand what was going on. But why preach idealism in international relations, if an honest effort to apply justice impartially was impossible? Surely the Great Powers could act as judges in assigning boundaries between the smaller nations. Liberty, like the love of God, is "broader than the measure of man's mind."

Quoting from a hymn I learned in childhood brings me to what I think was the reason of the failure of the Peace Conference: men forgot. They labored for the meat which perisheth. They posed as creators of a new world order but ignored the means of establishing it. They forgot that Jesus said, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

"But wait a minute," I hear one say, "did you expect a peace conference to be run on those lines?"

An ordinary peace conference such as we had always had, where the victors divide the spoils—certainly not! But this was not to have been an ordinary peace conference. We had been given to understand that the Conference at Paris met to incorporate in a document the principles for which millions had given their lives. Germany stood for the unclean spirit that was to be exorcised. Men had died on the field of battle for a definite object. There was the poem that was like a new Battle Hymn of the Republic, "In Flanders Fields the Poppies Grow."

When nations are not ready to love their enemy or even to love each other, the creation of a League to do away with war is an absurdity.

Either we believe in the coming of God's Kingdom or else we do not. The remedy for sin and evil, the means of securing the triumph of right over might, is in keeping the commandments. The peace-makers forgot the summary of the law as Jesus gave it in two commandments. If they had tested their own schemes for world peace by this measure, strange and rapid changes would have followed. If they had listened to Him as He spoke to them, it would have been as of old when "no man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions."

The ceremony of Versailles did not lift the shadow of Germany hanging over France. And when I look at my son, I wonder what will come.

CHAPTER XXXIX
THE QUATORZE OF VICTORY

WE may not have been sure of the peace. We were sure of the victory. The soldiers had done their part. Academic newspaper discussion as to when the victory parade would be held amused us. The only uncertainty was the date of signing the Treaty. Once the Treaty was signed, it was taken for granted that the Quatorze would be the day. Protests about shortness of time were overruled. It was not a matter for discussion. Nobody paid any attention to the argument of those intrusted with the organization of the event. Public opinion demanded that the Allied Armies march under the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-ElysÉes on July Fourteenth. After the Quatorze of testing, the Quatorze of victory. There was no question about it. So the powers that be got to work.

There was no need to decide upon the route of the procession. Ever since August 1, 1914, Parisians who lived on the Avenue de la Grande ArmÉe, the Avenue des Champs-ElysÉes, the Rue Royale and the Grands Boulevards, had been realizing how numerous were their friends. From every part of France letters had come from forgotten relatives, passing acquaintances, business associates, who wanted to be remembered when

Public opinion dictated, also, two changes in the program as it was announced. Marshal Joffre must ride the entire length of the route from the Porte Maillot to the Place de la RÉpublique beside Marshal Foch. And the grandstands put up around the Arc de Triomphe and along the Avenue Champs-ElysÉes for those who had "pull" must come down. This was to be the day of the people, and everybody was to have an equal chance. When it was seen that selling windows and standing place on roofs at fabulous sums was to give the rich an unfair advantage, the Chamber of Deputies was forced to pass a bill declaring these gains war-profits and taxing them eighty per cent. This resulted in the offering of hospitality to the wounded that big profits might have prevented.

In looking down my vistas of the past year, I see Paris reacting differently to almost every great day.

On Armistice Night we went mad. From the exaltÉs to the saddest and most imperturbable, Parisians spent their feelings. The joy was acute because it was the celebration of the end of the killing. When a soldier is frank and you know him well he will tell you, "Any man who claims not to be afraid at the front is lying." That fear was gone. Men could unlearn blood-lust: and with honor now. Along with the relief of the end of the fighting was the joy of the end of separations.

On June 28, Paris thought her own thoughts, pondering over the peace that had been won. Friends dined with us that night. My victrola played The Star Spangled Banner—La Marseillaise—Sambre et Meuse—Marche Lorraine.

"Why don't you dance?" I said to the Inspecteur-GÉnÉral d'Instruction Publique. "It's peace! I want to celebrate. I need to shake off the impression of Versailles this afternoon."

"I asked my concierge that same question," said he, "and she answered, 'We don't rejoice to-day—we wait.' Les Parisiens ne s'emballent pas. Wise woman, my concierge."

On the night of July 13, Paris paid her tribute to the dead. Respect for les morts is ingrained in French character. At the moment of victory those who had fallen were not forgotten. They came ahead of those who lived. A gilded cenotaph, placed under the Arc de Triomphe, contained earth from the many battlefields on which the French had fought. That night we passed with the throng to pause for a moment with bowed heads before this tomb that represented the sacrifice of more than a million soldiers. I thought of DÉtaille's picture in the PanthÉon, and looking at the crowd about me, mostly women and children in mourning, I asked myself if this were La Gloire. The level rays of the setting sun fell upon the soldiers on guard. People spoke in whispers. None was tearless. It was "Debout les Morts"! They passed first under the Arc de Triomphe. Had they not blazed the way for those who would march on the Quatorze of victory?

Half way down the Champs-ElysÉes, at the Rond-Point, were heaps of captured cannon that had stood along the Avenue and in the Place de la Concorde through the winter since the armistice. They had been gathered here, and surmounting them was the coq gaulois. But around the Rond-Point huge urns commemorated the most costly battles of the war, and in them incense was burning.

"Are you going to see the parade?" I asked a friend who had lost two brothers.

"Certainly," she replied. "Last week my mother went to the grave of my little brother in the Argonne. She put wreaths on it and prayed there. The other brother was blown up by a shell. There is no grave for him. So to-night we shall think of him when we pray before the cenotaph. We shall spend the night there to have a good place to-morrow."

Herbert and I thought of her and her mother and of many other friends who were in the crowd around the Arc de Triomphe. We had our own reasons for bowing before the cenotaph. Dear friends had been lost during those awful years and in the last weeks one of our own family fell on the front between the Le Cateau and Guise. It is strange how you go on living in the midst of war, seeing others suffer, sharing their grief, and never thinking that the death that is stalking about will enter your own family circle until the telegram comes. You have helped others at that moment: and then it is you.

There is a fine sense of balance in French character. One remembers the dead, but one does not forget the living. Most of those who intended to go with hearts rejoicing and smiles and laughter to greet the dÉfilÉ of the Quatorze could not have stood the ordeal unless it had been preceded by the quiet night watch with the dead.

The Quatorze has always meant to us an early start for the Bois du Bologne to see the review. Throughout the Third Republic the day had a distinctly military atmosphere. Who does not remember Longchamp before the war? Each year Paris went to the review with pride not unmixed with anxiety. There was a serious aspect impossible for the stranger to realize and appreciate. After all, the army was not a small body of men who had given themselves to a military career. It was the youth of the nation performing a duty imposed upon it by the geographical position of France. The army was the nation in arms, an institution as necessary for well-being and security as the police. Longchamp on the Quatorze was the assurance that the job of protecting France was being well looked after. And the spectators were the fathers and mothers, the brothers and sisters, of the army. Every Parisian had passed through the mill. How often after the review, when the soldiers came from the field, have I seen middle-aged civilians joking with them in the way one only does with comrades of one's own fraternity. It was hard for the Anglo-Saxon to understand this before the war. The Barrack-room Ballads would be incomprehensible to a Frenchman. "Tommy" was everybody in France.

But this review was different. The intimacy, the sense of the soldiers belonging to the people and being of the people, had always been there. Added to it now was the knowledge of what the army had done for France. There is no country where la patrie reconnaissante means more than in France. And the great danger was so fresh in our minds! From the standpoint of the soldier it was different, too. For five weary years the poilu constantly on duty and not knowing which day might be the last saw in the soft blue rings of his cigarette smoke the dÉfilÉ under the Arc de Triomphe and prayed that he and his comrades would be there. That was the only uncertainty—whether he himself would be spared for the jour de la victoire. If France's soldiers had doubted that the day would arrive, they could not have continued to sing the Marseillaise—and the war would have been lost then and there. The Quatorze of peace days was fun to the spectators but a corvÉe for the soldiers who marched. The Quatorze of victory was the realization of the dream that sustained the soldiers throughout the war. It was the reward for having believed what they muttered doggedly through their teeth, "Nous allons les Écraser comme des pommes de terre cuites!"

One of our poilus, a boy to whom we had been through the war as next of kin, who wore the mÉdaille militaire and whose croix de guerre carried several palms, came to us late in the night before the victory parade. He said with tears in his eyes,

"The chains are down!"

"What chains?" I asked.

"The chains around the Arc de Triomphe. They have been there since Soixante-Dix. Do you realize," he cried seizing my hands, "that the last time soldiers marched under the arch it was Germans? Ah, the Huns, I hate them! We are supposed to keep our eyes straight before us during the march, but I shall look up under that arch. I shall never forget the moment I have lived for."

"And Albert, the ideals that made you enlist, have they survived?"

"They are here," he replied, slapping his chest until his medals jingled. I made up a lunch for Albert, and off he went to get to the rendezvous at the Porte Maillot at two A. M.

We had determined that the whole family should see the dÉfilÉ de la victoire. The younger children might not remember it, but we never wanted them to reproach us afterwards. How to get there was a problem that needed working out. The children had an invitation, which did not include grownups, from Lieutenant Mitchell whose window was in the American barracks on the north side of the Avenue near the Rue de Berri. Dr. Lines asked Herbert's mother and Herbert and me to the New York Life Insurance Company's office at the corner of the Rue Pierre-Charron on the south side of the Avenue. How take the children to the other side and get back to our places? There was only one answer. Taxi-cabs that could go around through the Bois du Bologne and Neuilly or the Place de la RÉpublique.

In the court of the building where we have our studios in the Rue Campagne-PremiÈre lives Monsieur Robert, a taxi-chauffeur. Herbert arranged with him to be in front of our house at six-thirty A. M., promising him forty francs, with a premium of ten francs if he got there before six-fifteen. Then, to guard against break-downs, he found another chauffeur to whom he made the same offer. On Sunday afternoon Herbert began to worry. It was bad to have all your eggs in two baskets when you are looking forward to the biggest day of your life. So a third chauffeur was found to whom the same offer looked attractive.

We got up at five, had our breakfast, and prepared a mid-morning snack. Lloyd was on the balcony before six to report. Three times he came to us in triumph. Our faith in human nature was rewarded. When we got down to the side-walk we found our chauffeurs examining their engines. My heart sank. But they explained that feigning trouble with the works was the only way of keeping from being taken by assault.

We sent Grandmother and the baby directly to Rue Pierre-Charron. That part was easy. Then, in the other two autos, we started our long morning ride to get to the other side of the Champs-ElysÉes and back. Fortunately, the chauffeurs had seen in the papers that a route across the Grands Boulevards would be kept open from the Rue de Richelieu to the Rue Drouot. After waiting a long time in line, we managed to get across, and made a wide detour by the Boulevard Haussmann to the Rue de Berri. Shortly after seven we delivered the kiddies to the care of Lieutenant Mitchell. Our own places were just across the Avenue. But it took us another hour and a wider detour to get to them. We were glad of the two taxis. If one broke down, there was always the other. We wanted to play safe.

From our place on the balcony of the New York Life we had the sweep of the Avenue des Champs-ElysÉes from the Arc de Triomphe to the Rond-Point. On many buildings scaffolding had been run up to hold spectators. People were gathered on roofs and chimneys. Every tree held a perilous load of energetic boys. Hawkers with bright-colored pasteboard periscopes did not have to cry their wares. Ladders and chairs and boxes were bought up quickly. But the Avenue is wide. All may not have been able to see. But those behind were not too crowded and at no time during the morning was all the space taken from the side-walk to the houses.

At half-past eight the cannon boomed. Another interval: then the low hum that comes from a crowd when something is happening. Then cheers. The dÉfilÉ de la victoire had begun. The head of the procession was like a hospital contingent out for an airing. There were one-legged men on crutches and the blind kept in line by holding on to empty sleeves of their comrades. The more able-bodied pushed the crippled in rolling-chairs. The choicest of the flowers, brought for the marshals and generals, went spontaneously to the wounded. Once again the French proved their marvelous sense of the fitness of things.

Then came the two leaders of France, Marshal Foch keeping his horse just a little behind that of Marshal Joffre. For two hours we watched our heroes pass. Aeroplanes, sailing above, dropped flowers and flags. The best marching was done by the American troops. The French readily acknowledged that. But they said:

"It is still the flower of your youth that you can put into the parade. Ours fell lÀ-bas long ago."

After the crowd began to disperse, we made our way across the Avenue to get the children. As I brought them out through the vestibule a soldier caught sight of us. He cried:

"Gosh, these ain't no tadpoles!"

When the children acknowledged to being Americans, he asked Mimi whether she liked rats.

"Yas, I do," said Mimi.

"You wait there a minute. I got a rat I bought from a poilu. It's a tame one."

The soldier brought his rat and did wonderful stunts with it. Mimi squealed when the rat ran from the soldier's arm to hers and up on her head. She didn't know whether to like it or be afraid. But the rat evidently won, for when asked later what she liked best about the parade, she put that rat ahead of Pershing and Foch.

We never thanked our lucky stars for the view of Paris from our balcony more than on the evening of the Quatorze of victory. To see all the wonders of the illuminations we did not need to leave our apartment. From every park roman candles and rockets burst into pots of flowers, constellations, the flags of the Allies. The dome of the PanthÉon glowed red. SacrÉ Coeur stood out green and pink and white against the northern sky. Revolving shafts of red, white and blue came from the Tour Eiffel. Church bells rang and on every street corner there was music.

The dear old custom of the night of the Quatorze was revived. We looked down at the lanterns across the Boulevard Raspail at the intersection of the Boulevard du Montparnasse. Tables and chairs overflowed from the side-walk into the street. But there was a large open place around the impromptu band-stand. People were dancing and the music never stopped.

We heard the call. And we obeyed. When we reached the corner and got into the street, Herbert held out his arms.

"To everything there is a season," he said.

"A time to mourn and a time to dance," I murmured.

THE END

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
against the use of alchohol=>against the use of alcohol
Eau fraiche=>Eau fraÎche
fruits rafraichis=>fruits rafraÎchis
which is fourty-four=>which is forty-four
Eglise Saint-Suplice=>Eglise Saint-Sulpice
You make a list of the woman=>You make a list of the women
I have known in them in their homes=>I have known them in their homes
piÈce de resistance=>piÈce de rÉsistance
What a charming dining-room? Dear me, have I intruded=>What a charming dining-room. Dear me, have I intruded
LycÉ Charlemagne=>LycÉe Charlemagne
Rue da la Mont Sainte-GeneviÈve=>Rue de la Mont Sainte-GeneviÈve
find yourself in the Rue Mouffetord=>find yourself in the Rue Mouffetard
which are to found in every quarter=>which are to be found in every quarter
But in the Bois de Bologne=>But in the Bois de Boulogne
Seminary of Saint-Suplice=>Seminary of Saint-Sulpice
undetermined the natural defences=>undermined the natural defences
Clichy and Montmarte=>Clichy and Montmartre
they probably will not come, and if you do=>they probably will not come, and if they do
born or suffering=>born of suffering
all the grave offiches=>all the grave affiches
the AcadÉmie de Medecine=>the AcadÉmie de MÉdecine
GalÉries Lafayette=>Galeries Lafayette
un charme extrÈme=>un charme extrÊme
permissioniares=>permissionniares
Rue Royal side of the Hotel de Coislin=>Rue Royale side of the HÔtel de Coislin
Ca y est cette fois-ci!=>Ça y est cette fois-ci!
a l'amÉricaine=>Á l'amÉricaine
cannon on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honore=>cannon on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-HonorÉ
Minuit, CrÉtien,=>Minuit, ChrÉtien,
H.C. of L. is an abbrevation=>H.C. of L. is an abbreviation
Pate de foie=>PatÉ de foie
Coppen kitchen ware=>Copper kitchen ware
HÔtel des Reservoirs=>HÔtel des RÉservoirs
la patrie reconnaisante=>la patrie reconnaissante
la-bas long ago=>lÀ-bas long ago
consellations=>constellations
proprietaire=>propriÉtaire
Rue de Sevres=>Rue de SÈvres
TheÂtre de la Porte Saint-Martin=>ThÉÂtre de la Porte Saint-Martin
the ThÉatre FranÇais=>the ThÉÂtre FranÇais

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