I glanced into the face of one of these figures as I
passed. She was quite a girl to whom the spring-song should have
called with a loud, clear note of joy. But her head drooped and her
eyes were steadfast as they stared at the pathway, and the sunshine
brought no colour into her white cheeks... She shivered a little, and
pulled her crepe veil closer about her face.

Down the broad pathway between the white statues came a
procession of cripples. They wore the uniforms of the French army,
and were mostly young men in the prime of life, to whom also the
spring should have brought a sense of vital joy, of intense and
energetic life. But they dragged between their crutches while their
lopped limbs hung free. A little further off in a patch of sunshine
beyond the wall of the Jeu de Paumes, sat half a dozen soldiers of
France with loose sleeves pinned to their coats, or with only one leg
to rest upon the ground. One of them was blind and sat there with his
face to the sun, staring towards the fountain of the nymphs with
sightless eyes. Those six comrades of war were quite silent, and did
not "fight their battles o'er again." Perhaps they were sad because
they heard the spring-song, and knew that they could never step out
again to the dance-tune of youth.

And yet, strangely, there was more gladness than sadness in Paris
now that spring had come, in spite of the women in black, and the
cripples in the gardens. Once again it brought the promise of life.
"Now that the spring is here," said the old cab-driver in the white hat,
"France will soon be free and the war will soon be over."

This hopefulness that the fine weather would end the war quickly was
a splendid superstition which buoyed up many hearts in France.
Through the long, wet months of winter the women and the old
people had agonized over the misery of their soldiers in the trenches.
Now that the earth was drying again, and the rain clouds were
vanishing behind a blue sky, there was new hope, and a wonderful
optimism in the spirit of the people. "The spring will bring victory to
France" was an article of faith which comforted the soul of the little
midinette who sang on her way to the Rue Lafayette, and the French
soldier who found a wild flower growing in his trench.

16

I have written many words about the spirit of Paris in war. Yet all
these little glimpses I have given reveal only the trivial characteristics
of the city. Through all these episodes and ou