ommandant of Paris, and he and General Febrier and two other
officers of Gallieni's staff, who would have been up to their eyes in
work if there had been a siege, wanted to see something of that army
whose valour had given them a holiday. Why should not Roberts and
myself come along? which is the pleasant way the French have of
putting an invitation.

Oh, the magic of a military pass and the companionship of an officer
in uniform! It separates you from the crowd of millions on the other
side of the blank wall of military secrecy and takes you into the area
of the millions in uniform; it wins a nod of consent on a road from that
middle-aged reservist whose bayonet has the police power of millions
of bayonets in support of its authority.

At last one was to see; the measure of his impressions was to be his
own eyes and not written reports. Other passes I have had since,
which gave me the run of trenches and shell-fire areas; but this pass
opened the first door to the war. That day we ran by Meaux and
Chateau Thierry to Soissons and back by Senlis to Paris. We saw a
finger's breadth of battle area; a pin-point of army front. Only a ride
along a broad, fine road out of Paris, at first; a road which our cars
had all to themselves. Then at Claye we came to the high-water mark
of the German invasion in this region. Thus close to Paris in that
direction and no closer had the Germans come.

There was the field where their skirmishers had turned back. Farther
on, the branches of the avenue of trees which shaded the road had
been slashed as if by a whirlwind of knives, where the French
soixante-quinze field-guns had found a target. Under that sudden
bath of projectiles, with the French infantry pressing forward on their
front, the German gunners could not wait to take away the cord of
five-inch shells which they had piled to blaze their way to Paris. One
guessed their haste and their irritation. They were within range of the
fortifications; within two hours' march of the suburbs; of the Mecca of
forty years' preparation. After all that march from Belgium, with no
break in the programme of success, the thunders broke and lightning
flashed out of the sky as Manoury's army rushed upon von Kluck's
flank.

"It was not the way that they wanted us to get the shells," said a
French peasant who was taking one of the shell-baskets for a
souvenir. It would make an excellent umbrella stand.

For the French it had been the turn of the ti