From the balcony you can see, close by, the Louvre, with its
sculptures extending from Jean Goujon to Carpeaux; the Church of
St. Clotilde, where Cesar Franck for forty years hid his genius away
from popularity; the railway station of the Quai d'Orsay, which first
proved that a terminus may excite sensations as fine as those
excited by a palace or a temple; the dome of the Invalides; the
unique facades, equal to any architecture of modern times, to the
north of the Place de la Concorde, where the Ministry of Marine has
its home. Nobody who knows Paris, and understands what Paris
has meant and still means to humanity, can regard the scene
without the most exquisite sentiments of humility, affection, and
gratitude. It is impossible to look at the plinths, the mouldings, the
carving of the Ministry of Marine and not be thrilled by that supreme
expression of national art.

And all this escaped! That is the feeling which one has. All this
beauty was menaced with disaster at the hands of beings who
comprehended it even less than the simple couple playing
ball, beings who have scarcely reached the beginnings of
comprehension, and who joined a barbaric ingenuousness to a
savage cruelty. It was menaced, but it escaped. Perhaps no city
was ever in acuter peril; it escaped by a miracle, but it did escape. It
escaped because tens of thousands of soldiers in thousands of taxi-
cabs advanced more rapidly than any soldiers could be expected to
advance. "The population of Paris has revolted and is hurrying to
ask mercy from us!" thought the reconnoitring simpletons in Taubes,
when they noted beneath them the incredible processions of taxi-
cabs going north. But what they saw was the Sixth Army, whose
movement changed the campaign, and perhaps the whole course
of history.