Rents for flats and houses soared proportionately.

One explanation of the fantastic rise in rents is characteristic. During
the war and the armistice, the government--and not only the French
government--proclaimed a moratorium, and no rents at all were paid, in
consequence of which many house-owners were impoverished and others
actually beggared. And it was with a view to recoup themselves for these
losses that they fleeced their tenants, French and foreign, as soon as
the opportunity presented itself. An amusing incident arising out of the
moratorium came to light in the course of a lawsuit. An ingenious
tenant, smitten with the passion of greed, not content with occupying
his flat without paying rent, sublet it at a high figure to a man who
paid him well and in advance, but by mischance set fire to the place and
died. Thereupon the _tenant_ demanded and received a considerable sum
from the insurance company in which the defunct occupant had had to
insure the flat and its contents. He then entered an action at law
against the proprietor of the house for the value of the damage caused
by the fire, and he won his case. The unfortunate owner was condemned to
pay the sum claimed, and also the costs of the action.[26] But he could
not recover his rent.

Disorganization throughout France, and particularly in Paris, verged on
the border of chaos. Every one felt its effects, but none so severely as
the men who had won the war. The work of demobilization, which began
soon after the armistice, but was early interrupted, proceeded at
snail-pace. The homecoming soldiers sent hundreds of letters to the
newspapers, complaining of the wearisome delays on the journey and the
sharp privations which they were needlessly forced to endure. Thus,
whereas they took but twenty-eight hours to travel from Hanover to
Cologne--the lines being German, and therefore relatively well