buyers and sellers.

The gendarmes were out-witted in various ways. One plan--Madame
explained it to me with delight--was to drop a coin, as if by
accident, into the lap of the countrywoman who was selling butter.
Ten minutes later the purchaser returned and bought the butter under
the eyes of a satisfied policeman at the fixed price. The original
coin represented the difference between what the butter woman was
willing to accept and what the authorities thought she ought to get.
That experiment in municipal control of prices lasted about a month.
Then the absurdity of the thing became too obvious. The French are
much saner than the English in this. They do not go on pretending to
do things once it becomes quite plain that the things cannot be done.

Food shortage--much more serious now--was beginning to be felt while
I lived with Madame. There were difficulties about sugar, and
Monsieur had to give up a favourite kind of white wine. But neither
he nor Madame complained much; though they belonged to the _rentier_
class and were liable to suffer more than those whose incomes were
capable of expansion. No one, so far as I know, appealed to them to
practise economy in a spirit of lofty patriotism. They simply did
with a little less of everything with a shrug of the shoulders and a
smiling reference to the good times coming _apres la guerre_. And, on
occasion, economy was forgotten and we feasted.

One of the last days I spent in Madame's house was New Year's Day,
1917. I and my fellow-lodger, another padre, were solemnly invited to
a dinner that night. It was a family affair. All Madame's nieces,
married and single, were there, and their small children, two
grand-nieces and a grand-nephew. Madame's one nephew, wounded in the
defence of Verdun, was there.

Our usual table was greatly enlarged. The folding doors between the
drawing-room and dining-room were flung open. We had a blaze of lamps
and candles. We began eating at 6.30 p.m.; we stopped shortly after
10 p.m. But this was no brutal gorge. We ate slowly, with
discrimination. We paused long between the courses. Once or twice we
smoked. Once the grand-niece and grand-nephew recited for us,
standing up, turn about, on their chairs, and declaiming with fluency
and much gesture what were plainly school-learnt poems. One of
Madame's nieces, passing into the drawing-room, played us a pleasant
tune on the piano. At each break I thought that dinner was over. I
was wrong