Every automobile which passed had at least one soldier in it. Almost
every well-dressed woman had a soldier beside her. Those who did
not, looked sympathetically at every soldier who passed, and now
and then stopped to chat with the groups--soldiers on crutches,
soldiers with canes, soldiers with an arm in a sling, or an empty
sleeve, leading the blind, and soldiers with nothing of their faces
visible but the eyes.
By every law I knew the scene should have been sad. But some law
of love and sunshine had decreed that it should not be, and it was
not.
It was not the Paris you saw, even last summer, but it was Paris with
a soul, and I know no better prayer to put up than the cry that the
wave of love which seemed to throb everywhere about the soldier
boys, and which they seemed to feel and respond to, might not--with
time--die down. I knew it was too much to ask of human nature. I was
glad I had seen it.
In this atmosphere of love Paris looked more beautiful to me than
ever. The fountains were playing in the Place de la Concorde, in the
Tuileries gardens, at the Rond Point, and the gardens, the Avenue
and the ambulances were bright with flowers. I just felt, as I always do
when the sun shines on that wonderful vista from the Arc de
Triomphe to the Louvre, that nowhere in the world was there another
such picture, unless it be the vista from the Louvre to the Arc de
Triomphe. When I drove back up the hill at sunset, with a light mist
veiling the sun through the arch, I felt so grateful to the fate which had
decreed that never again should the German army look on that
scene, and that a nation which had a capital that could smile in the
face of fate as Paris smiled that day, must not, cannot, be conquered.
Of course after dark it is all different. It is then that one realizes that
Paris is changed. The streets are no longer brilliantly lighted. There
are no social functions. The city seems almost deserted. One misses
the brightness and the activity. I really found it hard to find my way
about and recognize familiar street corners in the dark. A few days of
it were enough for me, and I was glad enough to come back to my
quiet hilltop. At my age habits are strong.
Also let me tell you things are slowly changing here. Little by little I
can feel conditions closing up about me, and I can see "coming
events" casting "their shadows before."
Let me give you a little example.
A week ago today my New York doctor came down to spend a few
days with me. It was a great event for a lady who had not had a visitor
for months. He wanted to go out to the battlefield, so I arranged to
meet his train at Esbly, go on with him to Meaux, and drive back by
road.
I started for Esbly in my usual sans gêne manner, and was disgusted
with myself on arriving to discover that I had left all my papers at
home. However, as I had never had to show them, I imagined it
would make no difference.
I presented myself at the ticket-office to buy a ticket for Meaux, and
you can imagine my chagrin when I was asked for my papers. I
explained to the station-master, who knows me, that I had left them at
home. He was very much distressed,--said he would take the
responsibility of selling me a ticket if I wanted to risk it,--but the new
orders were strict, and he was certain I would not be allowed to leave
the station at Meaux.
Naturally, I did not want to take such a risk, or to appear, in any way,
not to be en règle. So I took the doctor off the train, and drove back
here for my papers, and then we went on to Meaux by road.
It was lucky I did, for I found everything changed at Meaux. In the first
place, we could not have an automobile, as General Joffre had
issued an order forbidding the circulation inside of the military zone of
all automobiles except those connected with the army. We could
have a little victoria and a horse, but before taking that, we had to go
to the Préfet de Police and exhibit our papers and get a special sauf-
conduit,--and we had to be diplomatic to get that.
Once started, instead of sliding out of the town past a guard who
merely went through the formality of looking at the driver's papers, we
found, on arriving at the entrance into the route de Senlis, that the
road was closed with a barricade, and only one carriage could pass
at a time. In the opening stood a soldier barring the way with his gun,
and an officer came to the carriage and examined all our papers
before the sentinel shouldered his musket and let us pass. We were
stopped at all the cross-roads, and at that between Barcy and
Chambry,--where the pedestal of the monument to mark the limit of
the battle in the direction of Paris is already in place,--we found a
group of a dozen officers--not noncommissioned officers, if you
please, but captains and majors. There our papers, including
American passports, were not only examined, but signatures and
seals verified.
This did not trouble me a bit. Indeed I felt it well, and high time, and
that it should have been done ten months ago.
It was a perfect day, and the battlefield was simply beautiful, with the
grain well up, and people moving across it in all directions. These
were mostly people walking out from Meaux, and soldiers from the
big hospital there making a pilgrimage to the graves of their
comrades. What made the scene particularly touching was the
number of children, and the nurses pushing babies in their carriages.
It seemed to me such a pretty idea to think of little children roaming
about this battlefield as if it were a garden. I could not help wishing
the nation was rich enough to make this place a public park.
In spite of only having a horse we made the trip easily, and got back
here by dinner-time.
Two days later we had an exciting five minutes.
It was breakfast time. The doctor and I were taking our coffee out-of-
doors, on the north side of the house, in the, shade of the ivy-clad
wall of the old grange. There the solitude is perfect. No one could see
us there. We could only see the roofs of the few houses at
Joncheroy, and beyond them the wide amphitheatre-like panorama,
with the square towers of the cathedral of Meaux at the east and
Esbly at the west, and Mareuil-lès-Meaux nestled on the river in the
foreground.
You see I am looking at my panorama again. One can get used to
anything, I find.
It was about nine o'clock.
Suddenly there was a terrible explosion, which brought both of us to
our feet, for it shook the very ground beneath us. We looked in the
direction from which it seemed to come--Meaux--and we saw a
column of smoke rising in the vicinity of Mareuil--only two miles away.
Before we had time to say a word we saw a second puff, and then
came a second explosion, then a third and a fourth. I was just rooted
to my spot, until Amélie dashed out of the kitchen, and then we all ran
to the hedge,--it was only a hundred feet or so nearer the smoke, and
we could see women running in the fields,--that was all.
But Amélie could not remain long in ignorance like that. There was a
staff officer cantoned at Voisins and he had telephonic
communication with Meaux, so down the hill she went in search of
news, and fifteen minutes later we knew that a number of Taubes had
tried to reach Paris in the night, that there had been a battle in the air
at Crépy-les-Valois, and one of these machines had dropped four
bombs, evidently meant for Meaux, near Mareuil, where they had
fallen in the fields and harmed no one.
We never got any explanation of how it happened that a Taube
should be flying over us at that hour, in broad daylight, or what
became of it afterward. Probably someone knows. If someone does,
he is evidently not telling us.
Amélie's remark, as she returned to her kitchen, was: "Well, it was
nearer than the battle. Perhaps next time--" She shrugged her
shoulders, and we all laughed, and life went on as usual. Well, I've
heard the whir-r of a German bomb, even if I did not see the machine
that threw it.
The doctor did not get over laughing until he went back to Paris. I am
afraid he never will get over guying me about the shows I get up to
amuse my visitors. I expect that I must keep a controlling influence
over him, or, before he is done joking, the invisible Taube will turn into
a Zeppelin, or perhaps a fleet of airships.