too late. By the time it
occurred to him, and he could telephone to the Demi-Lune, it had passed
that guard in the same way--and disappeared. It did not pass Meaux. It
simply disappeared. It is still known as the "Phantom Car." Within half
an hour there was a barricade at the Demi-Lune mounted by armed men--too
late, of course. However, it was not really fruitless,--that
barricade,--as the very next day they caught three Germans there,
disguised as Sisters of Charity--papers all in order--and who would have
got by, after they were detected by a little boy's calling attention to
their ungloved hands, if it had not been for the number of armed old men
on the barricade.

What makes things especially serious here, so near the frontier, and
where the military movements must be made, is the presence of so many
Germans, and the bitter feeling there is against them. On the night of
August 2, just when the troops were beginning to move east, an attempt
was made to blow up the railroad bridge at lie de Villenoy, between here
and Meaux. The three Germans were caught with the dynamite on them--so
the story goes--and are now in the barracks at Meaux. But the most
absolute secrecy is preserved about all such things. Not only is all
France under martial law: the censorship of the press is absolute.
Every one has to carry his papers, and be provided with a passport for
which he is liable to be asked in simply crossing a road.

Meaux is full of Germans. The biggest department shop there is a German
enterprise. Even Couilly has a German or two, and we had one in our
little hamlet. But they've got to get out. Our case is rather
pathetic. He was a nice chap, employed in a big fur house in Paris. He
came to France when he was fifteen, has never been back, consequently
has never done his military service there. Oddly enough, for some
reason, he never took out his naturalization papers, so never did his
service here. He has no relatives in Germany--that is to say, none with
whom he has kept up any correspondence, he says. He earns a good salary,
and has always been one of the most generous men in the commune, but
circumstances are against him. Even though he is an intimate friend of
our mayor, the commune preferred to be rid of him. He begged not to be
sent back to Germany, so he went sadly enough to a concentration camp,
pretty well convinced that his career here was over. Still, the French
do forget easily.

Couilly