ere devoted to these social ceremonies which the
enthusiastic and hospitable French would have made almost endless.
Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased from the working
day calendar. The American commander sounded the order "To work" with
the same martial precision as though the command had been a sudden call
"To arms."

On the morning of the third day after General Pershing's arrival in
Paris, the typewriters began clicking incessantly and the telephones
began ringing busily in the large building which was occupied on that
day as the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constantine. It faced the
trees and shrubbery bordering the approach to the Seine front of the
Invalides. The building was two stories high with grey-white walls and a
mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately identified as the one
in front of which stood a line of American motor cars, as the one where
trim United States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors
through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages.

Ten days before, the building had been the residence of a Marquis and
had contained furniture and art valued at millions of francs. All of
those home-like characteristics had been removed so effectively that
even the name of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure that
he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could not have recognised
his converted salons where the elaborate ornamentation had been changed
to the severe simplicity typical of a United States Army barracks.

General Pershing's office was located on the second floor of the house
and in one corner. In those early days it was carpetless and contained
almost a monkish minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair,
and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal standard for one of
those one-piece telephone sets with which Americans are familiar only in
French stage settings. A book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's
table and chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors,
comprised the furniture inventory of the room.

One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with a large mirror with
a gilt frame, and in the other wall was a plain fireplace. There were
tall windows in the two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de
Constantine and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de Grenelle
windows there was a small, deeply shaded park w