f the crowds, the
absence of young manhood, the larger proportion of women and old
fogeys among those who remained. The life of Paris was being
drained of its best blood by this vampire, war. In the Latin Quarter
most of the students went without any preliminary demonstrations in
the cafe d'Harcourt, or speeches from the table-tops in the cheaper
restaurants along the Boul' Miche, where in times of peace any
political crisis or intellectual drama produces a flood of fantastic
oratory from young gentlemen with black hair, burning eyes, and dirty
finger-nails. They had gone away silently, with hasty kisses to little
mistresses, who sobbed their hearts out for a night before searching
for any lovers who might be left.

In all the streets of Paris there was a shutting up of shops. Every day
put a new row of iron curtains between the window panes, until at the
end of the twelfth day the city seemed as dismal as London on a
Sunday, or as though all the shops were closed for a public funeral.
Scraps of paper were pasted on the barred-up fronts.

"Le magasin est ferme a cause de la mobilisation."
"M. Jean Cochin et quatre fils sont au front des armees."
"Tout le personel de cet etablissement est mobilise."

A personal incident brought the significance of the general
mobilization sharply to my mind. I had not realized till then how
completely the business of Paris would be brought to a standstill, and
how utterly things would be changed. Before leaving Paris for Nancy
and the eastern frontier, I left a portmanteau and a rug in a hotel
where I had become friendly with the manager and the assistant
manager, with the hall porter, the liftman, and the valet de chambre. I
had discussed the war with each of these men and from each of
them had heard the same expressions of horror and dismay. The hall
porter was a good-humoured soul, who confided to me that he had a
pretty wife and a new-born babe, who reconciled him to the
disagreeable side of a life as the servant of any stranger who might
come to the hotel with a bad temper and a light purse...

On coming back from Nancy I went to reclaim my bag and rug. But
when I entered the hotel something seemed different. At first I could
not quite understand this difference. It seemed to me for a moment
that I had come to the wrong place. I did not see the hotel porter nor
the manager and assistant manager. There was only a sharp-
featured lady sitting at the desk in loneliness, and she lo