p the estaminet open by day for the
men too old to fight and for the rapidly increasing number of
"reformes": those who had lost a leg or arm or were otherwise
incapacited for service.

A sister, who lived in Paris, immediately applied for one of the
thousand vacant posts in bakeries, cut bread and buttered it and made
toast for a tea-room in the afternoon, and found another job to sweep
out stores. This woman had a son still under age but in training at
the Front. He had been in the habit of paying her periodical visits,
until this woman, already toiling beyond her strength to support her
other children, sat down one day and wrote to the boy's commanding
officer asking him to permit no more leaves of absence, as the ordeal
was too much for both of them.

The third story was of a woman whom the Mayoress had often
entertained in her homes, both official and private. When this
woman, who had lived a life of such ease as the mother of eleven
children may, was forced to take over the conduct of her husband's
business (he was killed immediately) she discovered that he had been
living on his capital, and when his estate was settled her only
inheritance was a small wine-shop in Paris. She packed her trunks,
spent what little money she had left on twelve railway tickets for
the capital, and settled her brood in the small quarters behind the
estaminet--fortunately the lessee, who was unmarried, had also been
swept off to the Front.

The next morning she reopened the doors and stood smiling behind the
counter. The place was well stocked. It was a long while before she
was obliged to spend any of her intake on aught but food and lights.
So charming a hostess did she prove that her little shop was never
empty and quickly became famous. She had been assured of a decent
living long since.

IV

When I arrived in Paris in May (1916) a little girl had just been
decorated by the President of the Republic. Her father, the village
baker, had made one of those lightning changes from citizen to soldier
and her mother had died a few weeks before. She was an only child. The
bakery had supplied not only the village but the neighboring inn,
which had been a favorite lunching place for automobilists. Traveling
for pleasure stopped abruptly, but as the road that passed the inn was
one of the direct routes to the Front, it still had many hasty calls
upon its hospitality.

Now, bread-making in France is a science, the work of the expert