merely added the tasks of their husbands and
sons to their own, and asking no praise for it. The dignity, the
essential refinement and intelligence--for all their homely speech--of
these solidly built, strong-faced women, in the central districts of
France, is still what it was when George Sand drew her Berri peasants,
nearly a hundred years ago.

Then darkness fell, and in the darkness we went through an old, old town
where are the French General Headquarters. Sentries challenged us to
right and left, and sent us forward again with friendly looks. The day
had been very long, and presently, as we approached Paris, I fell asleep
in my corner, only to be roused with a start by a glare of lights, and
more sentries. The _barriere_ of Paris!--shining out into the night.

Two days in Paris followed; every hour crowded with talk, and the vivid
impressions of a moment when, from beyond Compiegne and Soissons--some
sixty miles from the Boulevards--the French airmen flying over the
German lines were now bringing back news every morning and night of
fresh withdrawals, fresh villages burning, as the sullen enemy
relaxed his hold.

On the third day, a most courteous and able official of the French
Foreign Office took us in charge, and we set out for Senlis on a morning
chill and wintry indeed, but giving little sign of the storm it held
in leash.

To reach Senlis one must cross the military _enceinte_ of Paris. Many
visitors from Paris and other parts of France, from England, or from
America, have seen by now the wreck of its principal street, and have
talked with the Abbe Dourlent, the "Archipretre" of the cathedral, whose
story often told has lost but little of its first vigour and simplicity,
to judge at least by its effect on two of his latest visitors.

We took the great northern road out of Paris, which passes scenes
memorable in the war of 1870. On both sides of us, at frequent
intervals, across the flat country, were long lines of trenches, and
belts of barbed wire, most of them additions to the defences of Paris
since the Battle of the Marne. It is well to make assurance doubly sure!
But although, as we entered the Forest of Chantilly, the German line was
no more than some thirty-odd miles away, and since the Battle of the
Aisne, two and a half years ago, it has run, practically, as it still
ran in the early days of this last March, the notion of any fresh attack
on Paris seemed the merest dream. It was indeed a strik