_The Face of Paris_

I shall never forget the poignant impression that Paris made on me that
first morning in early June when I descended from the train at the Gare
de Lyon. After a time I came to accept the new aspect of things as normal,
to forget what Paris had been before the war, but as with persons so with
places the first impression often gives a deeper, keener insight into
character than repeated contacts. I knew that the German invasion, which
had swept so close to the city in the first weeks of the war, and which
after all the anxious winter months was still no farther than an hour's
motor ride from Paris, must have wrought a profound change in this, the
most personal of cities. One read of the scarcity of men on the streets,
of the lack of cabs, of shuttered shops, of women and girls performing
the ordinary tasks of men, of the ever-rising tide of convalescent
wounded, etc. But no written words are able to convey the whole meaning
of things: one must see with one's own eyes, must feel subconsciously
the many details that go to make truth.

When the long train from Switzerland pulled into the station there
were enough old men and boys to take the travelers' bags, which is
not always the case these war times when every sort of worker has
much more than two hands can do. There were men waiters in the station
restaurant where I took my morning coffee. It is odd how quickly one
scanned these protected workers with the instinctive question--"Why
are you too not fighting for your country?" But if not old or decrepit,
it was safe to say that these civilian workers were either women or
foreigners--Greeks, Balkans, or Spanish, attracted to Paris by
opportunities for employment. For the entire French nation was
practically mobilized, including women and children, so much of the