Switzerland, New York, and London. The Opera Comique gave several
performances of familiar operas each week, rendered patriotic by the
recitation of the _Marseillaise_ by Madame Chenal clothed in the national
colors with a mighty Roman sword with which to emphasize "_Aux armes,
citoyens!_" The Francaise also was open several times a week and some
of the smaller theaters as well as the omnipresent cinema shows,
advertising reels fresh from the front by special permission of the
general staff.

The cafes along the boulevards did a fair business every afternoon,
but there was a striking absence of uniforms in them owing to the strict
enforcement of the posted regulations against selling liquor to soldiers.
That and the peremptory closing of cafes and restaurants at ten-thirty
reminded the stranger that Paris was still an "entrenched camp" under
military law with General Gallieni as governor.... The number of women
one saw at the cafes, sitting listlessly about the little tables, usually
without male companions, indicated one of the minor miseries of the great
war. For the _midinette_ and the _femme galante_ there seemed nothing to
do. A paternal government had found occupation and pay for all other
classes of women, also a franc and a half a day for the soldier's wife
or mother, but the daughter of joy was left very joyless indeed, with the
cold misery of a room from which she could not be evicted "_pendant la
guerre._" They haunted the cafes, the boulevards,--ominous, pitiful
specters of the manless world the war was making.

Hucksters' carts lined the side streets about the Marche Saint-Honore
as usual, and I could not see that prices of food had risen abnormally
in spite of complaints in the newspapers and the discussion about
cold storage in the Chamber of Deputies. Restaurant portions were
parsimonious and prices high as usual, but the hotels made specially