PARIS IN WARTIME
At this period of the war the restaurants
of Paris--and no other city is so famous
for its restaurants--were not appreciably
curtailed in their food supplies. They still served
the well-seasoned, dainty dishes of the French
chefs, though their clientele was considerably
smaller in numbers.
You could still get a delicious cut off the
joint at Boeuf à la Mode near the Palais
Royal; or you could have a choice of many
luscious dishes at Voison's well-known dining
place. If you preferred French society, you
could still go to Larue's aristocratic restaurant,
opposite the Madeleine, patronized by the
society of Paris. Prunier's oyster house was
apparently as busy as it had been in the piping
times of peace and tourists; and the most
deliciously cooked fish in Europe--according to
my taste--was still being served at Marguery's
under the title of _Sole à la Marguery_.
The less pretentious eating places of the
modest diner, such as Duval's dining-rooms
or the Bouillon Boulant, served good meals at
reasonable prices. These latter are akin to
the Child's restaurants in America. But
already the food question was beginning to cause
some anxiety throughout the world, because of
the lessened production and increased
consumption due to the millions of men taken
from productive occupations who had to be
kept fit as fighters.
For this reason I decided one day to see how
cheaply I could obtain a satisfying meal
during wartime in Paris. The Diner de Paris
advertised exceptionally cheap meals, and they
seemed to be well patronized, so I entered one
of these eating places. The large dining-room
was filled to overflowing with a well-dressed
throng, no doubt mostly clerks from the
adjoining business blocks. Here I partook of
a tastily cooked meal of soup, roast pork and
potatoes, apple pie, and a bottle of milk, all
for the munificent sum of twenty-six cents,
plus the regulation tip of two cents, most
certainly a reasonable price for a good meal in
the principal city of a country with the
invader on its soil. Unfortunately since that
time the food situation in all the countries at
war has become much more complicated.
The hotels of the first class still kept open
doors, and a few of them seemed to have an air
of prosperity, but these were very few. Many
of them who, in the season, considered it
"infra-dig" to have more than a small card in the
hotel columns of the daily papers, which card
never hinted at their prices, had descended to
the habit of advertising "special rates during
the war." But others still preferred their small,
select clientele--and a deficit--to accepting
prosperity obtained by any such plebeian method.
One point noticeable was the fact that
unless the traveler carried them himself he saw
no gold Louis or half-Louis, so much in
evidence in times of peace. I had brought with
me some English gold, but once it disappeared
from my hand it never returned. A journalist
friend of mine told me he was collecting the
equivalent of one hundred dollars in gold to
keep for an emergency, and was delighted
when I gave him a few sovereigns in exchange
for French money. The gold was being gathered
in by the government, and today in France
only paper money is used in exchange. All
the smaller cities issue paper currency in
denominations as low as one-quarter franc, or
five cents.
Among my letters was one of introduction
to the director of a large hospital in the Rue
de la Chaise. This hospital was supported by
funds collected by _La Presse_, a daily journal
of Montreal, and so it was partial to any
Canadian visitors, though it received as patients
only French officers and soldiers. The institution
was doing much good work, all of which
was done by Paris medical men, Dr. Faure,
a well-known surgeon, performing most of the
operations. My reception was cordial, and I
became a regular visitor to its operating
theater during my stay in the city.
On one of my early visits I was watching
Dr. Faure remove some dead bone from an old
wound of the leg, when a tall, distinguished
lady entered. She had donned a sterilized gown
over her street dress, and was apparently a
visitor like myself. Noting that Dr. Faure's
English and my French were both a trifle
labored, she, during my visits, acted as
interpreter for us, her English having the soft
intonation of the educated Britisher. She
informed me that she was neither doctor nor
nurse, but was simply learning something of
nursing in order that she could be of service
to her country in its need, though she had a
little son and daughter of her own to care for.
That was the extent of my knowledge of her,
though I saw that she was treated with
more than ordinary consideration by surgeons,
and nurses, one of the younger surgeons,
by the way, being a stepson of the idolized
Joffre.
The last day I visited the hospital she was
not there, and as I was leaving Paris the
following day I left my card for her with one
of the sisters, with a word of thanks scribbled
upon it for her kindness to a stranger. That
afternoon I went to Cook's to get my railway
tickets, and as I came out of the door this lady
stepped from an automobile to enter Cook's.
Recognizing me, she told me that she had been
at the hospital after I had left, and had been
given my card. She was leaving the following
day for Switzerland for a two weeks' rest; and
hoped that when I returned to Paris I would
call and meet her husband.
"I should be delighted, madam, but I fear
I do not know your name."
"Comtesse (Countess) de Sonlac," she replied.
All the French women were doing their bit.
A very clever, cultured woman-journalist
whom I met at the home of a high Canadian
official in Paris was leaving in a few days to
take a position as _cook_ on an ambulance train
in the north of France!
At night the streets of Paris were well lit
up, even more brightly than those of London,
though a little later, after the Germans had
made a couple of Zeppelin raids, the lighting
was dimmed. When a raid was expected the
police warned the people by the blowing of
sirens, and the hurrying about of motor cars
under police direction tooting foghorns. The
warnings were given when word had been
received that Zeppelins had been seen going
toward Paris; and on receiving these warnings
the street lights were extinguished, and all
other lights that could be seen, including the
headlights of motor cars, had to be switched
off.
The Opera was closed, but most of the theaters
were in full swing, for it had been found
that the people must have some recreation, and
the order issued at the beginning of the war
closing all places of amusement had been
rescinded. The far-famed and somewhat
notorious Moulin Rouge music hall, well known
to all visitors to Paris, had been burned a short
time before, and had but recently reopened its
doors at the Folies Dramatique in the Place
République. Wandering one evening along
the boulevards I came to it, and entered. A
very ordinary vaudeville was in progress,
equaling neither in quality nor in gayety the
performances at the original Red Mill in
Montmartre. Here and there throughout the
evening skits in English were put on, in
compliment to their British allies; just as French
playlets are common today in the London
theaters--a social touch to the Entente Cordiale.
About ten-thirty I tired of the rather tawdry
performance, and made my exit to find
the streets in pitch black darkness, only broken
here and there by the small side-lights of a
flitting automobile or a dim light far back in
a boulevard café. A gendarme, with whom I
accidentally collided as I strolled slowly along
the street, told me that a warning had been
sent out that the Zeppelins were coming. Rain
was pattering on the pavement which glistened
as the automobiles hurried by, and occasionally
searchlights swept overhead, flashing from
l'Étoile. The people were good naturedly
jostling their way along, and as someone near me
struck a match to help him grope his way, a
giggle was heard and a bright-eyed French girl
pulled herself back from the escort who had
just kissed her. They apparently were not
worrying about the Zeppelins that were
coming, and so far as I could see neither was
anyone else. As the people collided in the dark,
jokes and friendly banter were bandied to and
fro. Someone on the opposite side of the
boulevard knocked something down which hit
the pavement with a crash, and a gay voice
cried:
"_C'est un obus! Les bodies, les boches!_"
(It's a shell! The boches, the boches!) And
a roar of laughter greeted the remark.
All took the expected raid as a joke; and yet
a few nights before the Zeppelins had reached
Paris and had done some damage to property
and life by dropping what the Parisians gaily
call "a few visiting cards." But this attack
reached only the outskirts of the city, though
the inhabitants had no way of knowing that
such would be the case.
The following day I had dinner with some
friends who live on the Champs Elysées, and
the hostess was envying one of her maids who
had had "the good fortune" to be spending the
previous night with her family on the outskirts
of the city, and had seen the Zeppelins!
In the more than two years since that time,
I have been in London during a number of
air raids, some by Zeppelins and others by
aeroplanes. The last was on July 7, 1917, on
which occasion twenty-two planes sailed over
London, dropping bombs and doing considerable
damage in broad daylight. The people
of London accepted these raids as spectacles
too precious to miss. I was writing a letter in
the Overseas Officers' Club in Pall Mall at
the moment when I received my first intimation
that anything out of the ordinary was
happening. This intimation came to me by my
noticing that everyone in the club, men and
women alike, was rushing into the streets to
see the German planes overhead, surrounded
by the bursting shells of our anti-aircraft guns.
Only in the immediate neighborhood of the
exploding bombs was anything but curiosity
shown by the populace. The spots where the
bombs struck attracted the curious during the
rest of the daylight hours.
All of which goes to show that human
nature is much the same the world over--except
in Germany, where by some kind of perverted
reasoning the people seem to imagine that
these child-mutilating, women-killing raids
cause widespread terror amongst the English
and French people. The real result is disgust
for such barbarous methods, hatred against the
Huns who employ them, and a more firm
determination on the part of the allies to
continue the war until the German perpetrators
of these atrocities, realizing the enormity of
their offenses against the laws of civilization
and real culture, decide to honor their treaties,
abide by the laws of nations, and keep faith
with the other people of the world.
On Sunday morning I visited Napoleon's
old church, the Madeleine, noting as I walked
along the streets that any business houses with
German names had an extra allowance of
French and allied flags across their fronts.
These air raids made them nervous! The
Madeleine was jammed to the doors, many of those
present being, like myself, strangers in the city.
The service was an elaborate high mass, and I
found it high in more ways than one, for four
collections were taken up: the first for the
seats; the second for the clergy; the third for
_les blessés_--the wounded; and the fourth for
the soldiers. I could not help but think that
they should have taken up a fifth from the
soldiers, the clergy, and the wounded, for the rest
of us, for when I got outside I possessed only
my gloves and a sense of duty well done!
That afternoon I visited the Bois de Boulogne.
Thousands were there. It might easily
have been a Sunday during any of the
previous forty years of peace. On superficial
inspection one could not see any sign of the
injury done to the trees due to many of them
being cut down at the beginning of the war in
preparation for the defense of Paris. The tea
houses of the Bois were doing their usual
business, and it was just as difficult as at other
times to find a table.
Two of the famous sights of Paris to which
the tourist always goes are Napoleon's Tomb
in the Invalides, and Notre Dame. At the
former in ordinary times one will always find
a crowd of sightseers of various nationalities,
admiring the beauty of the immense porphyry
sarcophagus and its surroundings; dreaming of
Napoleon's days of greatness as a youthful
general in Italy, or as dictator of the whole
of Europe except Britain; or giving a pitying
thought to his last days at St. Helena. Today,
as I strolled in, few were there, and they
were mostly the veterans who live in the
Invalides, and I have no doubt their thoughts
consisted of hopes that another would arise
with the military genius of Napoleon to drive
the invader from the soil of France, and to
once more dictate terms from Berlin.
On my return I went for a moment into
the Louvre from which most of the art
treasures, such as the Venus of Milo, have been
removed to underground vaults, safe from
bombs dropped by the destruction-loving Hun.
And a painting that I looked for, but did not
find, was Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the
lady of the mysterious smile, the stealing of
which had caused such a furore in the world
of art. It had just been returned before my
last visit to the Louvre.
The following day I wandered across the
Seine and viewed again that magnificent
Gothic pile, the church of Notre Dame de
Paris. It happened to be a holy day and
immense crowds were entering. Someone said
to me that the war seems to have brought back
religion to the spirit of France. After all,
there are few people in the world who, when
beset by troubles, do not glance upward at
times and utter a prayer that the Supreme
Being will take notice of them and have pity
on them. I joined those entering, and mingled
with them as they made their way into the
solemn interior of the great edifice. It seemed
that thousands were there. Those entering
were directed in such a way that they passed
in order before two immense lifelike paintings
arranged on one side of the church, one
above the other--the Last Supper, and the
Crucifixion. Before these paintings myriads
of candles were burning, and as the people
passed each took one or two or three more
candles and lit them. It was a splendid, solemn,
and impressive spectacle.
To send telegrams or cables from France
was a most troublesome procedure. You had
to get the written consent of the military
police after they had interviewed you as to your
objects in sending the message, and had
scrutinized the message carefully to find if,
perchance, you had hidden somewhere within it
information that might be of service to the
enemy.
But even this was an easy matter
compared with getting out of Paris once you
had entered. For to get out was very much
more difficult than to get in. You had first
to report to the police station nearest to your
hotel that you were leaving the city. Then
you had to go to the office of the Consul of
the country to which you were going, explain
the purpose of your change of residence, and
have the consul or his representative _visé_ your
passport. Then finally you had to call at the
Prefecture of Police--akin to our central police
station in a large city--and again get your
papers certified. Each of these moves meant
considerable time lost, sometimes as much as
a day, since long lines of people were at each
of these places hours before they opened for
business.
On my departure, during my visit to the
British Consulate, I had an amusing experience
that is worth relating. As I turned into
the court of the building in which the
consulate is situated, an automobile drove up, and
out stepped a stylish and pretty woman of
perhaps thirty years. She followed me into
the court, and after looking about her
doubtfully for a minute, she turned and asked if I
could direct her to the office of the British
Consul. I had walked there the day before to
"learn the ropes," and so knew my way about.
I replied that it was up a couple of flights of
stairs, but as I was just going there I should
be pleased to show her the way.
We went up the two flights of stairs, and
reaching the waiting room found some thirty or
forty people ahead of us. We took our place
in the line to await our turn, which meant a
delay of an hour or two. As the people waited
conversation was quite free, as was also
criticism of the consulate for not having more help
at a time of pressure such as the present. The
lady whom I had shown up was next to me in
the line. She looked upon me as an American
compatriot, for she was from New York, and
apparently felt quite safe in carrying on a
conversation with a stranger in a strange city.
She mentioned that she was on her way back
from Spain to England.
"Spain," I said in some surprise. "Might
I be curious enough to ask why a young woman
like yourself should be traveling in Spain in
times like the present?"
"Oh, I'm a eugenist," she replied readily,
"and I have been in Spain studying the
effects of the war on the Spanish people in
relation to eugenics for a book I am preparing
for publication. I am going to spend some
time in London, in the British Museum,
looking up some data to complete my manuscript." And
then quite voluntarily she went on to criticize
the majority of all the cherished institutions
of society, and as she became more enthusiastic
her criticisms became more free, more
radical, almost nihilistic. She ended in a
tirade against civilization as we know it, not
by any means becoming at all boisterous, but
simply youthfully animated in her fault-finding
with the world in general.
I could hardly believe my ears. Here was
a pretty American woman of thirty, highly
educated, whose outlook on life was more
nihilistic than that of the most extreme German
socialist. But finally she capped the climax
by telling me frankly that she was an
anarchist; had taken part in two anarchistic plots
in Italy; and promised me that the next ruler
who was going to pay the death penalty for his
tyranny was King Alfonso of Spain. Beginning
to feel certain that she was "ragging" me,
I asked her jokingly if she expected me to
believe her.
"Does it sound like something that a young
woman would claim were it untrue?" she asked,
and I was forced to admit that it did not. "I
will tell you something further," she continued,
"I dare not return to New York at the present
time or I should be put in jail. For the last
time I was there I was jailed for some of my
writings. I obtained my freedom on bail of
three thousand dollars, and, hearing that I was
to be railroaded to prison, I jumped it."
"Why do you tell a stranger like myself
this story?" I asked. "How do you know that
I am not going to report you to the police?"
"I know you are not going to report me to
the police," she answered coolly, "because if
you did I would shoot you."
"Do you carry much of your artillery on
your person?" I asked, laughing. And seeing
that I was taking it all as a joke, she joined
in the laugh.
"It's your turn, madam," said the porter to
her, and she passed out of the line into the
office of the consul, giving me a charming smile
and curtsy as she left.
Whether her story was the result of mischief,
insanity, or conviction, I really have no
idea; but I do know that I have in my life
passed many more tedious and less interesting
hours than the one I passed while awaiting my
turn at the office of the British Consul that
day.