We stopped several times on the journey--I remember a puncture,
involving a couple of hours' delay, somewhere north of Beauvais--and
found ourselves talking in small hot rooms with peasant families of all
ages and stages, from the blind old grandmother, like a brooding Fate in
the background, to the last toddling baby. How friendly they were, in
their own self-respecting way!--the grave-faced elder women, the young
wives, the children. The strength of the _family_ in France seems to me
still overwhelming--would we had more of it left in England! The
prevailing effect was of women everywhere _carrying on_--making no
parade of it, being indeed accustomed to work, and familiar with every
detail of the land; having merely added the tasks of their husbands and
sons to their own, and asking no praise for it. The dignity, the
essential refinement and intelligence--for all their homely speech--of
these solidly built, strong-faced women, in the central districts of
France, is still what it was when George Sand drew her Berri peasants,
nearly a hundred years ago.

Then darkness fell, and in the darkness we went through an old, old town
where are the French General Headquarters. Sentries challenged us to
right and left, and sent us forward again with friendly looks. The day
had been very long, and presently, as we approached Paris, I fell asleep
in my corner, only to be roused with a start by a glare of lights, and
more sentries. The _barrière_ of Paris!--shining out into the night.

Two days in Paris followed; every hour crowded with talk, and the vivid
impressions of a moment when, from beyond Compiègne and Soissons--some
sixty miles from the Boulevards--the French airmen flying over the
German lines were now bringing back news every morning and night of
fresh withdrawals, fresh villages burning, as the sullen enemy