ilization is only one of
the concomitants of martial law, and that martial law is not
comfortable to live under--at least till one gets used to it.

At first its main purpose, to the neutral civilian, seemed certainly
to be the wayward pleasure of complicating his life; and in that
line it excelled in the last refinements of ingenuity. Instructions
began to shower on us after the lull of the first days: instructions
as to what to do, and what not to do, in order to make our presence
tolerable and our persons secure. In the first place, foreigners
could not remain in France without satisfying the authorities as to
their nationality and antecedents; and to do this necessitated
repeated ineffective visits to chanceries, consulates and police
stations, each too densely thronged with flustered applicants to
permit the entrance of one more. Between these vain pilgrimages, the
traveller impatient to leave had to toil on foot to distant railway
stations, from which he returned baffled by vague answers and
disheartened by the declaration that tickets, when achievable, must
also be _vises_ by the police. There was a moment when it seemed
that ones inmost thoughts had to have that unobtainable _visa_--to
obtain which, more fruitless hours must be lived on grimy stairways
between perspiring layers of fellow-aliens. Meanwhile one's money
was probable running short, and one must cable or telegraph for
more. Ah--but cables and telegrams must be _vises_ too--and even
when they were, one got no guarantee that they would be sent! Then
one could not use code addresses, and the ridiculous number of words
contained in a New York address seemed to multiply as the francs in
one's pockets diminished. And when the cable was finally dispatched
it was either lost on the way, or reached its destination only to
call forth, after anxious days, the disheartening response:
"Impossible at present. Making every effort." It is fair to add
that, tedious and even irritating as many of these transactions
were, they were greatly eased by the sudden uniform good-nature of
the French functionary, who, for the first time, probably, in the
long tradition of his line, broke through its fundamental rule and
was kind.

Luckily, too, these incessant comings and goings involved much
walking of the beautiful idle summer streets, which grew idler and
more beautiful each day. Never had such blue-grey softness of
afternoon brooded over Paris, such sunsets turned the h