brought to the Invalides, a few companies of city guards on horseback
and of colonial troops in soiled uniforms formed the escort down the
Champs Elysees behind the ancient gun carriage that bore the poet's ashes.
There were many wounded soldiers, hopelessly crippled or convalescing, in
the theaters, at the cafes, and on the streets. As the weeks passed they
seemed to become more numerous, though the authorities had taken pains to
keep Paris comparatively empty of the wounded. One met them hobbling down
the Elysees under the shade of the chestnut trees, in the metro, at the
cafes, the legless and armless, also the more horrible ones whose faces
had been shot awry. They were so young, so white-faced, with life's long
road ahead to be traveled, thus handicapped! There was something wistful
often in their silent eyes.

To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute,
Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_"
decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the
numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and
children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north
and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc.
All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization
to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and
hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been
written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot
refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by
their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid
inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been
exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the
Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation,
the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony
to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also