PARIS, August 8, 1916.

rance to-day is sharply divided into two sections; within the greater you can come and go almost as freely as before the war. All that is necessary is a sauf conduit easily obtained from your commissaire de police, which you are never called upon to exhibit. But the other, the Zone des Armées, in common parlance the war or military zone! There is only one thing in France more difficult of contact, and that is a member of the middle or lower bourgeoisie.

     For nearly three months now I have felt like an inverted snob trying to ingratiate myself with, or even to meet members, of that curious caste which exists only in France; a caste reserved, proud, suspicious, intensive, detesting foreigners only less than it does the aristocracy, and averse from variety of any sort. If you bring even one letter to society, either in France or any European capital, all doors are open to you, for society is accustomed to strangers and variety, and is often bored with itself; which the bourgeoisie, of France at least, never seems to be. So, if in the course of these and other letters, I allude, however casually, to princesses and duchesses, spare me the ready democratic sneer; but if, with affected indifference, I mention now and again a name without territorial significance, then, if you like, exchange derisive glances and exclaim: “Aha! So she has ‘got there’ and would have us believe she takes it as a matter of course.” However—to return to the war zone.

     I made no attempt to enter this proscribed region for six or seven weeks after my arrival, having the thousand and one phases of woman’s work in the war to examine. But when these researches drew to a close I began to plot to get to the front—no other word is applicable unless a woman happens to be a Red Cross nurse. At first I applied to a number of eminent Americans on more or less intimate terms with the powers. I quickly found that, amiable and interested as they were, their own powers had a limit. It was comparatively easy in the beginning of the war to go to the front, but the barrier grows deeper every day.

     One referred me to a Frenchman of great influence who has a special liking for Americans. He told me in the friendliest manner that when I obtained permission to go to the front he would provide me with the necessary letters, but that as I was an American I must obtain that permission through my embassy. This I did not even consider. I have spent a good part of my life in Europe, and long since came to the conclusion that all American embassies feel they are created for is to look solemn and important and give receptions. They never by any chance do anything for other Americans except in times of extreme danger, and then they behave very well.

     I tried one or two members of the haute bourgeoisie without avail, and then took my troubles to a duchess. There I was more fortunate. The young Duchess d’Uzès has turned her castle near Amiens into a hospital, the sixth or seventh she has established since the beginning of the war, and is therefore on friendly terms with the Service de Santé (the Military Hospital Service Board). She asked one of its principal Secretaries to meet me at breakfast, and I was able to disabuse his mind of any suspicion he might have that I merely wanted to “do” the front, assuring him that it was my solemn duty to visit the base hospitals in behalf of a new oeuvre just formed (Le Bienêtre du Blessé), founded by Countess d’Haussonville, President of the first division of the Croix Rouge, to supply convalescents in the military hospitals at the front with delicacies they would be able, in their weakened condition, to retain.

     I told him that, as I had agreed to do the publicity work for this oeuvre, I felt I should see things at first hand, if only to be able to make my articles of appeal interesting. He agreed that this was a most reasonable argument, asked for my permis de séjour and my immatriculation, and promised that I should have my carnet rouge the following week and go with the duchess to Amiens.

     I waited nearly a month. I received consolatory promises and nothing more. Meanwhile I could not go outside of Paris, as without my permis de séjour I was unable to obtain a sauf conduit. (If you lose your permis de séjour you cannot leave Paris until the end of the war.)

     Finally one of the Vice-Presidents of Le Bienêtre du Blessé (the well-being of the wounded) sent in a petition, and I received a note from the Ministry of War asking for two photographs similar to that of my passport, and inclosing a paper to sign. Two days later I was summoned to the office of the Service de Santé. I had engagements, but I broke them ruthlessly. We all do when the War Office summons. Royalty itself would not be considered.

     The Vice-President of Le Bienêtre du Blessé who had asked them to hurry, went with me, and after we had wandered all over an immense building in the Boulevard St. Germain we finally found ourselves in a reception room on the top floor. It was filled with patient people, but we sent in our names and were not kept waiting. There two charming gentlemen (and no people in the world are as kind and charming as high officials in France when they are gentlemen) told me I could go to Rouen and Meaux.

     This was a joke. It was like the labors of the mountain to bring forth a mouse. Rouen is entirely given over to the British, and much as I admire the British I came to France to write about the French. As for Meaux, although the battleground of the Marne at any of its points is interesting to good Americans as the scene of the definite finish of German hopes of world dominion, my ambition was the “front,” not a slice of the future tourists’ paradise.

     I made known my desires with firmness, and all the eloquence at my command, being able, fortunately, with these accomplished gentlemen, to employ my native tongue. “I want to go to Amiens, and at once,” I concluded.

     Alas, if it were only a month earlier—before the battle of the Somme began. Now it was quite impossible. The Grand Quartier Générale (brief for Joffre) would never consent. Amiens was too close to the big guns. I replied pertinently that I had made my application nearly a month ago. Alas! it took so long for an application of that sort to progress along the winding ways of Le Ministère de la Guerre. But, of course, I must see something besides Meaux (I flatly refused to go to Rouen), and if I would make out a list of other names they would do their best to get me the necessary permission. I asked my companion to make out the list, as she knew what base hospitals it would be best for me to visit in the interests of the oeuvre. She dictated Châlons-sur-Marne, Vitry, Révigny, and Bar-le-Duc. The last was the only name with a quickening quality, as it is shelled by taubes every few days. I added that on my own account I should like Verdun, Nancy, Rheims and Thann. My new friend was most sympathetic and considerate. He would do his best, but Verdun—an American lady! He feared the Grand Quartier Générale would not take the responsibility. He was sure, however, he could get me something much better than Meaux.

     So I went off with my carnet rouge, that precious little red book full of blank permits, only one of which is filled out at a time.

     A French friend, Mme. Camille Lyon, went with me to Meaux. The battlefield of the Marne is one of the most impressive sights in the world. Imagine vast fields of waving grain broken irregularly, but with pathetic frequency, by drooping and faded flags marking the graves of the fallen. On the crosses below the flags there are no names, merely figures, ranging from fifty to three and four hundred. A small trench was dug and filled with bodies covered with quicklime, but, in spite of haste, the mound, the cross, and the flag were not forgotten, and the identification disks were carefully preserved.

     There are also three or four cemeteries, one new, and filled only with the identified dead—officers, of course; and older graveyards half filled before the war. These, being surrounded by high walls, had been used as intrenchments. There are rough holes on all sides, showing that the little company had been surrounded by Germans, and had crouched, firing their mitrailleuses through the sheltering walls. The church of Barcy is a ruin and three or four of the houses, but considering that it was under fire so many days, it is surprising there should be anything left of it. The Mayor told us that he and his family and all of the village people that did not run away had not left his cellar for six days; and during that time the shells never ceased to shriek overhead. “However,” he added philosophically, “it was not so bad as ‘70.”

     A few days later I was summoned once more to the Ministère de la Guerre, and my polite and charming friends told me that I was graciously allowed to go to Châlons, Vitry, and Bar-le-Duc. As for the others, well, perhaps later. Perhaps—also—when I was inside that Chinese wall I might persuade some General to take me closer to the front. I sniffed and grumbled, but received nothing further but sympathy. The particular official to whom I was turned over for these interviews, and who is the politest man I ever met, looked up the trains for me, calculated how much money I had better take, was inspired (fortunately, as it turned out) to write out a letter asking the military authorities of the zone I was about to visit to show me every civility, and sent it to receive the imposing stamp of le Ministère de la Guerre; and then assured me that he would do his best to get a military automobile for a trip closer to the lines.

     As I am more susceptible to manners than to anything in the world (I think that is one reason I hate the Germans so, theirs being the worst in the world), I went away quite happy, and determined to make the most of this trip. After all, something was sure to happen at Bar-le-Duc, and Châlons had once been shelled by a long-range gun. I had no yearning to come to close quarters with big guns, or even taubes, but I did want to see and hear something after enjoying the comforts of Paris for three months. During the first week of the battle of the Somme I could hear the guns distinctly night and day, but otherwise, were it not for the blind and legless men one meets constantly in the streets, there would be no external evidence here of war.

     I was obliged to go on this trip alone, but although I regretted that my former charming companion could not accompany me, I reflected that it did not much matter; the unique experience would suffice. The great station—Gare de l’Est—was crowded with soldiers as usual. I have now been on a number of trips outside of Paris and invariably these stations are packed with men in uniform, all looking healthy and contented. One passes, also, hundreds of military trains, out of whose windows are hanging rows of soldiers in “horizon blue.” One wonders if the whole front is not off on a vacation.

     The soldiers travel second and third, the officers first. As my carriage was full of officers, and the trip to Châlons lasted two hours, I once more had time to observe at my leisure these men who hold the destinies of France in their hands. Again I was struck by their height, not one being under five feet ten, and many six feet and over. Some few are lanky, weedy, but for the most part they are well knit and very erect, the result not only of military training but of the outdoor sports which for the last generation have been more in vogue than ever among country gentlemen. In coloring they were fair rather than dark, but seldom blond. They talked very little to one another, unless standing out in the corridor. I was the only woman on the train, and no doubt they took me for a spy and observed the warning printed at every turn: “Taisez-vous. Méfiez-vous. Les oreilles enemies vous écoutent.”

     They were all on their way to the front, and might not be alive on the following day. They looked like men on their way to a week-end party, and when they did not read magazines and novels went to sleep. It struck me more forcibly than I have ever received any impression that this was a race of men of strong nerves. In fact, I doubted if they had any; certainly not at times when nerves were undesirable occupants. The Frenchman has arranged his brain in watertight compartments. When he is at the front or on the way to it he is a fighting machine, businesslike and unemotional. During his six days’ leave he enjoys himself as thoroughly as if war had never been; either in his family or otherwise. Even the poilus, having exhausted their first joy of reunion, sit down and examine their books, if they happen to be shopkeepers, or mend the furniture, or plow the fields. I believe it was early in 1914 that some German General said the war would be won by the stoutest nerves. After two years of the hardest fighting the world has ever known, and the most terrific strain ever put upon human endurance, the French have nerves of pure steel. They are not a fat race, either, like the Germans, and do their own thinking. What the matter was with Frenchmen in ‘70 is beside the question. They are invincible to-day.

     Châlons looked promising. There were cabs at the station, and a tram. Having shown my carnet rouge, I was permitted to leave the dépôt, and the officials stationed there to examine papers directed me to a hotel with a resounding name: “Haute-Mère-Dieu.” This was situated in a large square in which there was nothing to be seen but a line of gray military automobiles and three or four cabs. The upper windows about the square were all closed. The shops looked very quiet. It was a gray scene, and the stillness was oppressive, sinister.

     However, the hotel was not unattractive. As I entered the vaulted passageway I saw that it was built about a court, and caught a glimpse of a pleasant tearoom. Entering a door on the left, I found myself in the office of the concièrge, and its chair was occupied by a girl of about twenty-two who was reading a novel. If she had been an American she would have been chewing gum. I asked her if I could have a room for the night and she asked me if I had been to the Bureau de Place and received permission to remain in the town. I could not have a room until my carnet rouge had been stamped by this dignitary. Could I have a cup of tea (it was 2:30 and I had missed lunch) and then leave my bag in the office while I ascertained if I should graciously be permitted to remain overnight, or be sent back to Paris? She yawned, nodded, touched a bell, gave an order for tea, and returned to her novel.

     I had a very good cup of tea and then went out and hired a cab by the hour, as I had a letter to the Préfet from M. Joseph Reinach and also wanted to see something of the town. At the Bureau de Place an imposing official read my carnet rouge, looked at my picture and record on the first page, and then turned to me with narrowed eyelids. I drew a short breath and shifted from one foot to the other. Frenchmen have very keen eyes and when they half close them you feel as if blinking aside a knife-blade. If I had had a guilty secret during that trip into the war zone I should have given it up. Indeed, so often did I encounter this glance that I began to wonder uneasily if there were not something wrong with me, if there were not depths of treachery in me that I so far had not suspected, if I really had not in some moment of aberration committed a wrong against France. Such is the power of suggestion, of moving constantly in an atmosphere of suspicion. But I reminded myself that I had heard a few days since that there was a price on my head in Germany, and took courage.

     “What had I come to the war zone for?” “To visit the base hospitals.” “Ah?” “No, I was not a nurse. I was inspecting in behalf of my oeuvre, Le Bienêtre du Blessé. I was also writing a book about the women of France in war time.” “Ah!” Again that steel blade between narrowed lids. I bethought me of the letter from the Minister of War. The atmosphere cleared as by magic. My carnet rouge was stamped, and I was bowed out not only with the politeness to which I was accustomed, but with frank pleasant eyes, wide open, and some practical information regarding the formalities of departure.

     After I had called on the Préfet and driven about the gray, silent, shuttered town, and seen practically no evidences of life but hundreds of army wagons (there are trenches just outside of the town, but no permit would take me there), I wondered what I was to do with myself until the morrow. My object in stopping at Châlons was to make it a headquarters from which I could visit the other towns, but this, I had found, was impossible; I could go nowhere that day and return for the night. It was only 3:30. I had no intention of visiting the hospitals at Châlons, as there were two at Bar-le-Duc to which I had personal letters. I told the coachman to drive to the shopping street, if there was such a thing. He drove to a street in which there were a few shops. In one I found a Dumas novel and bought it—“Le Collier de la Reine!” Then I went back to the hotel and once more interviewed the young lady at the desk. She was still reading the novel, but condescended to inspect my carnet rouge and to give me her own permission to pass the night in the hotel. I could not have a front room, however; they were all taken by officers. She rang her bell, and a servant escorted me across the court, which contained a stable under one side of the hotel, and up a rickety staircase to a sombre room on the first floor. I immediately inspected the bed—I had brought a bottle of turpentine—but the maid announced with pride that the sheets were washed after every guest and that the hotel was famous for its neatness. I asked her if the natural color of the blanket was gray, and she nodded with a reassuring smile. The linen certainly was clean, and, as a matter of fact, the turpentine was supererogatory. However, I still harbor doubts about the blankets.

     What was I to do in this war town seventeen kilometers from the soundless front (I had been told that when Verdun was thundering people rocked in their beds)? It was too hot to walk and there was nothing more to see. There was, indeed, no resource but the necklace of Marie Antoinette.

     The room was dark, with a window in one corner. I carried the least uncomfortable chair to this window, and there, amid the silences of the tomb and the aromas of the stable, I read a story of 1784. This was the war zone which it took weeks of plotting and the most powerful influences to reach.

     However, there was still the morrow and Bar-le-Duc.

PARIS, August 8.

ooking from the windows of the train between Paris and Châlons, I had seen little evidence of war beyond the rigid sentries with their upright guns standing beside the track at intervals of two or three hundred yards—two beside the bridges which have been rebuilt and are once more of stone. But on the following day, after passing Vitry, the crosses among the wheat became abundant, and between Révigny and Bar-le-Duc there had evidently been no attempt to till the fields, which had a curious burned look. This, I was afterward told, was due to the poisonous gases and frequent bombardments. More than half of Révigny is in ruins, and wrecks strew the way to the far more important town, which is intact.

     Once more the train, which had started at Paris and was bound for Nancy, was crowded with officers and soldiers, but a great many descended at Bar-le-Duc, no doubt to go by automobile to Verdun or by branch lines to other points near the front. At all events, I left the train with such a mass of blue uniforms that it was a long time before I could reach the exit gate, and then, as I was the only stranger, I was held up until a more important official could be found to inspect my carnet rouge. As he was very amiable and passed me on promptly, I asked him to tell me the name of the best hotel in Bar-le-Duc. He threw his hands up. Mon Dieu! The best! There was a place called Hotel du Commerce. But! Well, I had been told at Châlons that it was the “least bad,” and started off with resignation. After all, one is not trained to expect luxuries in the war zone, and the hotel at Châlons had been endurable.

     I emerged into the large open space behind the station. It was filled with that curious surging mass of soldiers who in time come to seem almost like “properties.” There were also two or three gray army automobiles, but not a cab, not a tram, not a porter. I inquired if it were possible to find a boy to carry my bag. No. Visitors were unusual. Boys did not come down to the station in the hope of picking up a franc. Where was the Hotel du Commerce? A vague sweep of the hand toward the straggling gray distance. Fortunately, my bag was light, as one takes the least possible on these incursions, but American women hate carrying things, and I had also a book and a parasol. However, there was no alternative and I started off, down a long, winding, dusty road without trees—the thermometer was about 80, and it was half-past 12—toward the town.

     Like all French towns, it swept about itself in circles, coiled upon itself, abruptly uncoiled and wandered off into nowhere. As far as might be possible I kept straight ahead, every soldier of whom I asked the way replying that he was a stranger also, and knew naught of the Hotel du Commerce. Finally I met a short fat man in civilian clothes, who interrupted himself—he was gesticulating violently to a friend who had arrived on the train—and told me to turn into the long street just above and keep on. It was a very long street and so many similar streets branched out of it that it was difficult to know which was which. And it was dull and dirty and gray and deserted, save for the strolling poilus.

     Nevertheless, it had a character of its own! Every hundred yards or so along the base of the houses I noticed a pile of sand bags and a poster printed in heavy black letters and numbers: “Cave voutée, pour 100 (or 50) personnes.” It was very hot but my brains were not addled. Bar-le-Duc is subject to frequent air raids and many have been killed by the bombs, which do not bury themselves in the earth, by the way, but explode as they touch and scatter death far and wide. These were the famous stone cellars into which the population tumbles pêle-mêle the moment the whistles shriek. I wondered if it would be my lot to spend a few hours in one of those damp “caves” with a mass of sweltering humanity. Almost I would brave the taube.

     I must have walked fully a kilometer from that station, when, asking once more to be directed to the Hotel du Commerce, I was told that I stood before it. I looked up and saw faded letters confirming the fact, and then along its lower front in search of a door. The only mode of ingress, a large archway, apparently led to the rear. As I dislike asking too many questions, I explored this vaulted passageway and came upon a door at the side. I opened it without ceremony and found myself in quite the dirtiest cashier’s office I have ever seen.

     The girl was even more impertinent and indifferent than the one at Châlons. As girls are now scarce in the war zone, no doubt the few left become spoiled with too much attention. There was a dining room beyond, and I determined to banish my midday hunger before entering upon further adventures. There are two things that the French, no matter of what degree, morals, manners, or disposition, invariably understand, and those are politeness and formality. You gain nothing by sharpness or hauteur; on the contrary, you stand to lose all. When Americans attempt familiarity with strangers they receive contempt. Bearing this principle in mind, one can never go wrong in France.

     As the dining room beyond and, no doubt, the hotel itself, was crowded with officers, there was a manifest intention on the young woman’s part to treat me as if I did not exist. I, therefore, inquired in my best manner if I could leave my things in the office and have déjeûner. She nodded and I went into a long, low, crowded dining room, which, had it not been for the uniforms, would have looked exactly like a Western eating shed. There was a seat vacant at one of the longer tables, to which I made my way unescorted. The entire company was waited on by two boys of about 16. They looked distracted. The tablecloth was soiled, but I was prepared to accept trifling variations upon ordinary standards with equanimity. I secured the attention of one of the boys, and, being left to my own devices for some time, my eyes, after wandering up and down the room, fell once more upon the table. I made another discovery. It was covered with flies. Large, torpid, viscous flies. I had a vision of these flies rising in a dark cloud from the battlefields of Verdun and traveling to Bar-le-Duc on top of the hundreds of covered army wagons that go back and forth daily.

     While I was digesting this horrid fact a plate of potatoes swimming in oil was placed before me. I waved it away. Oil to me is more abhorrent than milk. It was succeeded by a dish of tripe. I covered my eyes and shuddered. C’est la guerre. Oh, yes. But—Mon Dieu!

     I managed to make a spare meal of mutton that tasted as if killed an hour before, and dry potatoes, but dared not touch the water, and rose from that table in the least possible time, determined to accomplish the object of my visit during the afternoon and return to Paris that night. I did not even want to look at the upper rooms. Turpentine I felt would avail not in this hotel, which looked a thousand years old and resurrected from the dead.

     I returned to the office. There was now an older woman there, and, chastened by years and the rivalry of youth, she answered my questions amiably. No, there was not a conveyance of any sort to be had in the city. How, then, was I to find the Commissaire of Police and have my carnet rouge viséd, how visit the hospitals, which were out of town? She could not say. Then I bethought me once more of the letter given me by the War Office. I would go straight to military headquarters and ask them for an automobile. She vaguely directed me, and once more I started forth, leaving my things in her charge. The woman had told me to turn to the right. As I was leaving the girl called out that I must turn to the left. I revolved with that helpless feeling one has occasionally in the war zone, and they both began to talk at once, as is the habit of French people of that class when giving advice. If they had been ten they would all have talked at once and advised me differently.

     I escaped to the street and, seeing a white-haired man standing in front of a provision store, I went over and asked him to direct me. This he not only did intelligently, but ran a block after me bare-headed to tell me of a better turning. I walked quite half a mile and finally reached a fine building situated in a park. I entered the grounds without hindrance, but a soldier barred the way when I attempted to pass under the arch that leads to the offices about the courtyard. He looked amazed. I showed my carnet rouge. He drew his eyelids together and I encountered the familiar steel. I was not to be overawed by a common soldier, but to save time I showed the letter. He had been quite polite, but now he relaxed his military mask and smiled. The entire staff was out for lunch and I could not enter until their return, but if I would graciously sit under the trees——.

     It was cool under the trees and I was glad to rest. The soldier sent me an encouraging smile occasionally and finally made a triumphant signal indicating that the military nabobs were coming. A moment later several imposing figures marched past. They were chatting amiably and I was thankful that destiny had so arranged matters that I was to ask my favors of them after lunch. I knew they had not déjeuned at the Hotel du Commerce.

     I was summoned to the presence immediately. They acted exactly as I had anticipated, for they were Frenchmen, and gentlemen, and of exceeding importance. Of course they read the letter at once; in fact, I shoved it under their noses before they had time to say “How do you do?” and when I asked for an automobile assented promptly.

     “Will you give your man orders to get me back to the station for the 5:20 train?” I asked. “I will not sleep in that hotel or eat another meal there if I have to walk back to Paris.” They laughed sympathetically and assured me that I should accomplish the object of my visit in comfort and take my train. The chauffeur would take the best of care of me.

     So it proved. I visited both of the great hospitals, Savonières and Hôpital Central, inside of an hour, for a military automobile goes like lightning and turns aside for no one. The former hospital is situated in a beautiful park some distance from Bar-le-Duc, and the greater one in a cup of the hills, and looks like a new Western mining town. There are some twenty or thirty barracks, two of concrete; but it is so unmistakably a hospital and nothing else (in France) that a taube recently had no difficulty in picking out the main building and dropping a bomb in the operating room. It killed two men on the tables.

     It is not my purpose to describe the hospitals here. I visited them in behalf of Le Bienêtre du Blessé, and later, when writing more fully of that oeuvre, shall describe these and other military hospitals which receive the wounded straight from Verdun. There had been few during the last two or three days, they told me, and the guns were still silent.

     My amiable chauffeur then took me for a drive within the city limits, and once more I saw a silent shuttered town. No doubt the greater part of the population had been evacuated (military euphemism for turned out), but I saw thousands of military wagons (camions) and a signpost with an arrow painted on it and the words “à Verdun.” It brought it pretty close, but I reflected that this was about as close as I would get. As we approached the station I observed that the roof looked as if it had been through a hurricane, and my driver nodded. Yes, they dropped a bomb there every once and a while. They usually came about 5 o’clock. It was now 3 and I had two hours and twenty minutes to wait in that station.

     However, it was easy to get out of, the sky was so blue and clear that the taubes could be seen a long way off, and I certainly did not propose to wait until 5:20 in that hotel. I had retrieved my belongings, visited the police, and there was nothing to do but make myself as comfortable as possible and read Dumas.

     The station was already packed with soldiers waiting for various trains. They move so constantly, these poilus, they produce an impression of indescribable confusion. I have never seen them betray the least excitement, any more than I have ever surprised an expression of anxiety on their cheerful faces, but the repose of their officers is unknown to them. Their bodies and their tongues never cease from movement. I often wonder if they ever feel tired. They look as if they could endure Verduns for the term of their natural lives.

     There was a small first class waiting room and I took refuge in it. An officer was asleep on a bench. Another was talking to his mother and there were two other women in the room. Presently there entered a drunken Algerian soldier. He was very drunk and he carried a gun almost as tall as himself. As he was out of place in a ladies’ waiting room two poilus entered and attempted to induce him to leave. He shouted defiance and, lifting his gun, flung it to the floor with a crash. It made such a noise that the soldiers without surged to the doorway. It is to our credit that not one of the women jumped. He repeated this performance four times, and we sat quite still and looked at him with curiosity.

     If any one had told me a month earlier that I should sit unmoved while a drunken soldier flung a loaded gun on the floor in front of me—twice it pointed directly at me—I should have dismissed him as a contemptible flatterer. But there is something about this military area—well you simply experience no sensations at all. You are in the zone of death. Human life has no value whatever. You, too, suddenly become as callous as if inoculated.

     He was led out, and I opened my book. But the room was very warm. I asked the doorkeeper to let me wait for the train on the platform beside the tracks. Of course he refused. Petty officials never deviate from their cast-iron rules. However, he was a réformé, with one arm, and I determined to take a base advantage of him. The next time he had occasion to open the door I was behind him, and I walked out and seated myself on a bench in the fresh air. “Now,” I said, “here I am, and here I shall stay. What are you going to do to me?” For a moment he scowled at me, then shrugged his shoulders and walked away. A few moments later the other women followed my example, and we sat and talked, occasionally glancing up through the shattered glass roof; particularly as the hour of 5 approached.

     One of the women, who looked like a farmer’s wife, judging by her dress and the large basket she held on her lap, told me that she had come from the south of France to the Hôpital Central just too late to see her boy, who was dead of typhoid fever. Once or twice she looked as if she were going to cry, but did not. The mothers of France are stoics these days.

     No taubes appeared, and I slept in Paris. The next day I took my wrath to the War Office. I now have a promise of a military automobile for a trip to Révigny, Nancy and Remiramont. No Rheims, no Verdun—unless we can cajole some General within the lines. It is astonishing the high value the French place upon the life of a mere woman. James M. Beck visited Amiens on his way from England to Paris, and within two days of his arrival went off on a tour of the immediate front. The day after his return, off he went again with Owen Johnson, to call on General Joffre. I reminded my friends in the War Office that men were as easily killed as women, even American men. But they seem to think that the explosion of an American woman, especially if she happened to be “of a prominence,” would make too much noise in the world to be agreeable. They have trouble enough on their hands.