were under the Embassy's protection. Ambassador Herrick, suave,
decisive, resourceful, possessed the gift of acting in a great
emergency with the same ease and simplicity as in a small one,
which is a gift sometimes found wanting when a crisis breaks upon
the routine of official life.

He had the courage to act and the ability to secure a favour for an
American when it was reasonable; and the courage to say "No" if it
were unreasonable or impracticable. No one of the throngs who had
business with him was kept long at the door in uncertainty. In its
organization for facilitating the home-going of the thousands of
Americans in Paris and the Americans coming to Paris from other
parts of Europe, the American Embassy in Paris seemed as well
mobilized for its part in the war as the German army.

In spite of '70, France still lived. You noted the faces of the women in
fresh black for their dead at the front, a little drawn but proud and
victorious. The son or brother or husband had died for the country.
When a fast motor-car bearing officers had a German helmet or two
displayed, the people stopped to look. A captured German in the
flesh on a front seat beside a soldier-chauffeur brought the knots to a
standstill. "Voilà C'est un Allemand!" ran the exclamation. But Paris
soon became used to these stray German prisoners, left-overs from
the German retreat coming in from the fields to surrender. The
batches went through by train without stopping for Paris, southward to
the camps where they were to be interned; and the trains of wounded
to winter resorts, whose hotels became hospitals, the verandas
occupied by convalescents instead of gossiping tourists. It is très à la
mode to be wounded, monsieur--très à la mode all over Europe.