Louise Closser Hale

“ War is sad—as much for us as for you. We had to shoot your mayor as his citizens fired upon our soldiers. We make war upon soldiers, not upon civilians. It is France who has wanted the war, and your Poincaré. ”

“ We had passed a Cercle on our way to the station. As the duration of the war has extended itself like a great serpent unrolling horrid unsuspected coils, new demands have arisen for the comfort of the men on their vacations. They are obliged to take these periods of rest. Thousands come, too, from the invaded districts. They have no homes and no people left, and seeing Paris on five cents a day is a poor prospect even to a French economist. ”

“ It is like a district under a spell, and it gives one a pain in the heart to know that the spell will not be broken for a long time, and when we do go over the road once more that boys will stump out on wooden pegs, or will lift painfully an arm that should not rightly hang to the warm body of any man, to serve us.
At Chantilly masses of soldiers went on up the line to the Somme sector, yet we were not without the usual crowd of blue which descended at Senlis, and packed themselves with us about the improvised exit. ”

“ The end came by post forwarded to us by the concierge of our hotel, after we had returned to America. It was concise yet elegant in form, for the simple police of Senlis "invited" us to be present at our trial for illegally carrying a camera in La Zone d'Armée, and the trial had taken place one week before our kind invitation was received! They say, unless we invoke the Minister of Justice himself, an invitation less pleasant awaits us when we return to Paris. Yet there will be one consolation: if we are sentenced to hard labor, we shall be working for France. ”

“ Our permits from the Maison de la Presse came when least expected, and feverishly fingering our watches, passes, dog, credentials, and luggage we raced for the train to Senlis. One gets a permit to go into the war zone on a certain date and return on a certain date. I don't know what the consequences would be if we didn't go—there might not be any—but I have an uneasy suspicion that the police of the arrondissement would stop me on the Champs Elysées and demand sternly, "Why are you not at Senlis to-day, en route to Villers-Cotterets and thence to Compiègne?"—for so our orders read. ”

“ While we could get to Villers-Cotterets, there was no longer any train running between that town and Compiègne for the excellent reason that the track was in the range of the German guns. This was sufficient reason for me to give up the trip; but would that satisfy the Army if they found us wandering along by other routes to Compiègne? One could not say disrespectfully to the Army: "It is your fault. Why did you send us that way?" For fear of the Army gets into your joints in France. ”

“ Only beer and light wine are sold in the war zone, but occasionally an overzealous sympathizer smuggles the soldiers a bottle of more deadly spirits.
We took a cab—the cab—to the hotel, so relieved that there was a hotel left that we did not ask price or distance. Two of the inns mentioned in our carefully secreted German Baedeker were burned by the invaders, but the Grand Cerf remained. It is so near the station that we were inclined to be stern with the cabby over the fare. ”

“ It was a relief to find them gay. There is so much that is somber about Frenchmen in fighting array. They do not grumble, but they do not laugh. But here in Crépy it was like recess at school—récess, as we called it then. ”

“ Very firmly he bought tickets (three of them, one for the dog) for a small place called Longueil, marched us into the station buffet from its back door, dined us, one at a table, one on the floor, and passed us directly onto the station platform from the front door. In a little while we were again in the railway carriage by ourselves.
We reached Compiègne late. The journey was ten miles from Crépy by road, and we had been three hours en route, but one does not complain now in France. One whining stays at home. It was dark, and Compiègne was black as the pit, and there were no cabs. ”

“ In fact, he was debating the sketch question in the hope that neither the Army nor the police, correctly pugnacious, would suddenly think of "Why Crépy?"
The crowd increased amazingly. It was a dull afternoon for them and they were ready to hope almost anything might happen. It occurred to me as the examination continued, most gloomily for us. that, among a people to whom bloodshed was now a common thing, one death more or less would make little difference. The officer who had been standing passively by thought it might be more pleasant for me if the inquisition continued in the jail. ”

“ And "Why Crépy?" indeed, since we had no excuse for being there beyond the wilfulness of a railway train which would not continue to Villers-Cotterets? Yet he did not ask that. A sleuth by appointment of man, not Heaven, he asked instead, "Why sketching?" And to this the Illustrator replied that he was permitted to sketch, it was his business to sketch, he left Paris to sketch. Otherwise why leave Paris? The Illustrator seemed to feel that the finish of his sketch was the most important thing in the world. ”

“ We have need—great need of it," she replied, quietly.
Just as the train drew up which was to take us in the direction of Villers-Cotterets, a distinguished-looking officer appeared and rendered himself more distinguished by holding us up to ask pointed questions. We were politely invited to enter a small room, blocking out the curious crowd which grew indifferent to taking a train, and asked why we had been making pictures of Senlisians coming out of church. The sketch was permitted, but the camera—no. We had offended. We must go to court. ”

“ An army car, gray paint and white letters, was sent to us by Doctor Carrel to take us on to Château d'Annel, which, I believe, is the only field hospital under the American flag. The men are taken here directly from the front, often with only such bandaging as the stretcher-bearers can manage. ”

“ Back of all this tatting is a certain sacrificial reason for the sticking to it. These ladies do not wish to encroach upon the poor and needy women, for these are engaged by the Government to make bandages as a means of livelihood. ”