For a while, in September and October, the streets were made
picturesque by the coming and going of English soldiery, and the
aggressive flourish of British military motors. Then the fresh faces
and smart uniforms disappeared, and now the nearest approach to
"militarism" which Paris offers to the casual sight-seer is the
occasional drilling of a handful of _piou-pious _on the muddy
reaches of the Place des Invalides. But there is another army in
Paris. Its first detachments came months ago, in the dark September
days--lamentable rear-guard of the Allies' retreat on Paris. Since
then its numbers have grown and grown, its dingy streams have
percolated through all the currents of Paris life, so that wherever
one goes, in every quarter and at every hour, among the busy
confident strongly-stepping Parisians one sees these other people,
dazed and slowly moving--men and women with sordid bundles on their
backs, shuffling along hesitatingly in their tattered shoes,
children dragging at their hands and tired-out babies pressed
against their shoulders: the great army of the Refugees. Their faces
are unmistakable and unforgettable. No one who has ever caught that
stare of dumb bewilderment--or that other look of concentrated
horror, full of the reflection of flames and ruins--can shake off
the obsession of the Refugees. The look in their eyes is part of the
look of Paris. It is the dark shadow on the brightness of the face
she turns to the enemy. These poor people cannot look across the
borders to eventual triumph. They belong mostly to a class whose
knowledge of the world's affairs is measured by the shadow of their
village steeple. They are no more curious of the laws of causation
than the thousands overwhelmed at Avezzano. They were ploughing and
sowing, spinning and weaving and minding their business, when
suddenly a great darkness full of fire and blood came down on them.
And now they are here, in a strange country, among unfamiliar faces