now, the sound of the piano was forbidden in the city,
and that made the desolation complete. Work and recreation had been
taken away, and only war was left. And when Marie, our favorite maid in
the club, sent her husband, our doorkeeper, to the front, that brought
war inside our household.

As the Germans drew near Paris, many of the club girls thought that they
would be endangered. Every one was talking about the French Revolution.
People expected the horrors of the Revolution to be repeated. Jaures had
just been shot, the syndicalists were wrecking German milk shops, and at
night the streets had noisy mobs. People were fearing revolution inside
Paris, more than the enemy outside the city gates. War was going to let
loose that terrible thing which we believed to be subliminal in the
French nature.

Women had to be off the streets before nine o'clock. By day we went up
the block to the Boulevard, and there were the troops--a band, the
tricolor, the officers, the men in sky blue. Their sweethearts, their
wives and children went marching hand in hand with them, all singing the
"Marseillaise." In a time like that, where there is song, there is
weeping. The marching, singing women were sometimes sobbing without
knowing it, and we that were watching them in the street crowd were
moved like them.

When I crossed to England, I found that I wanted to go back and have
more of the wonder of war, which I had tasted in Paris. The wonder was
the sparkle of equipment. It was plain curiosity to see troops line up,
to watch the military pageant. There I had been seeing great handsome
horses, men in shining helmets with the horsehair tail of the casque
flowing from crest to shoulder, the scarlet breeches, the glistening
boots with spurs. It was pictures of childhood coming true. I had hardly
ever seen a man in military uniform, and nothing so startling as those
French cuirassiers. And I knew that gay vivid thing was not a passing
street parade, but an array that was going into action. What would the
action be? It is what makes me fond of moving pictures--variety, color,
motion, and mystery. The story was just beginning. How would the plot
come out?

Those pictures of troops and guns, grouping and dissolving, during all
the twelve months in Flanders, never failed to grip. But rarely again
did I see that display of fine feathers. For the fighting men with whom
I lived became mud-covered. Theirs was a dug-in and blown-out existence,