Part 13

This is the twenty-third day of the war. Another warm, sunny day, with northwesterly breezes. Thermometer at five P.M. 24 degrees centigrade.

Better news from the front this morning. The great battle that has been raging for three days from Mons to Virton, during which the French and British attacks were repulsed, has been resumed, and renewed German attacks have been checked. Considerable anxiety as to the result nevertheless prevails. My concierge, Baptiste, for instance, shakes his head in a mournful way and says: "Ah! Monsieur, there is already terrible loss of life. My brother-in-law, who left Luxemburg three weeks ago to join his reserve regiment in France, is without a cent in the world, and what will become of his wife and two little children--the Lord only knows! Their little farmhouse, with all their belongings, has been burned, and nothing is left."

I breakfasted to-day at the restaurant Champeaux, Place de la Bourse. Two agents-de-change (official members of the Paris Stock Exchange) took very gloomy views of the situation. It seems, however, that the French rentes maintain their quotation of seventy-five francs. Mr. Elmer Roberts of the Associated Press and Mr. Hart O. Berg sat at our table. Both thought that the war would be much longer than at first expected and would depend upon how long Germany could exist, owing to the impossibility of obtaining food from abroad. "Eight months," said Mr. Berg.

After lunch I went with Roberts to see the departure of the first contingent of American volunteers from the Gare Saint-Lazare. These youths are a tall, stalwart lot, marching with a sort of cowboy swing. They were not in uniform, but wore flannel shirts, broad-brimmed felt hats, and khaki trousers. They carried a big American flag surmounted with a huge bouquet of roses, and alongside this a large French flag. They were loudly cheered as they were entrained for Rouen, where they will be drilled into effective shape.

I met Mrs. Edith Wharton, who remains in Paris, and is doing good work with her ouvroir, or sewing-circle, which, with Mrs. Thorne, she has organized in the Rue Vaneau. This ouvroir is to supply work to unmarried French women and widows. Among those who have liberally subscribed to this are Mrs. William Jay, Mrs. Elbert H. Gary, Mrs. Beach Grant, and Mrs. Griswold Gray.

I went in the afternoon to see Madame Waddington at her ouvroir, 156 Boulevard Haussmann. Madame Waddington makes an appeal by cable to the New York Tribune, calling upon all American women and men to aid her indigent French sewing-women, who are employed in making garments for the sick and wounded, for which they receive one and a half francs (thirty cents) and one meal, for a day's work. Madame Waddington wore a gray linen gown, with a red cross, and was working away very merrily, distributing materials to the women. She told me that her son had joined the colors as a sergeant in an infantry reservist regiment and was at the front.

M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian writer and philosopher, is living at his quaint Abbaye de Sainte-Wandrille, on the Seine near Caudebec. The author of La Vie des Abeilles has been helping the peasants gather the wheat harvest.

After three weeks, during which relief funds have been advanced to Americans at the Embassy, the demands for money continue to be as heavy as ever. Paris is a human clearing-house, into which new arrivals are now coming every day from Switzerland and elsewhere. Although many tourists have been helped and started on their way for the United States, new ones take their places before they are fairly out of the way.

Thus, although the Embassy hoped that it had succeeded in getting the persons in most urgent need off to America on the Espagne, the departure of that vessel has caused no let-up in the demand for funds, and some individuals who have already been helped once are now coming back for further assistance.

One of the negro song and dance artists, who was given some money a couple of weeks ago and who was supposed to have left on the Espagne, presented himself and asked for further funds after that vessel steamed. When asked how it happened that he did not go, as arranged, he replied: "'Deed, Ah overslept mahself."

"Considering that the boat train left at six o'clock in the evening," remarked Major Cosby, who has charge of the administration of the relief fund, "he would seem to be a good sleeper."

In the case of all persons who are helped, the stipulation is made that they must take the earliest possible means of transport to America. The Government has no intention of financing tourists who desire to visit Europe at this time. The sole object of the relief fund is to get them back to the United States as soon as possible.

In addition to the ordinary relief fund, one hundred and seventy thousand francs have been paid out at the Embassy this week by cable orders against funds already deposited with the Department of State. This is a purely business transaction, the Government having already received the full amount of the payment made, but it has been a source of much relief to many travelers.

Wednesday, August 26.

Twenty-fourth day of the war. Dull, cheerless weather, with a Scotch drizzle in the afternoon and heavy rain in the evening. Southwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.

The great battle on the Sambre and Meuse continues with frightful slaughter on both sides. The allies have been partially forced back but resist with dogged determination.

Mrs. Hermann Duryea, a family relative of mine, and whose husband's horse "Durbar" won the English Derby this spring, has come to Paris for a few days from their country place near Argentan in Normandy, and is stopping at her apartment in the Avenue Gabriel. Mrs. Duryea's chauffeur, who is a young Frenchman, says that Belgian chauffeurs have reached Normandy from the north, telling harrowing tales of the brutality and cruelty of the Germans, and announcing that the "German cavalry and armored motor-cars would soon prevent people from leaving Paris." Mrs. Duryea, who is an exceedingly cool-headed, plucky woman, came to me for advice. I told her that there was no probability at present of communication from Paris to the westward being interfered with. She sent some of her servants home to the United States and made arrangements to rejoin her husband at Bazoches-en-Houlme, near Argentan. The château has, through the generosity of the Duryeas, been turned into a Red Cross hospital.

President Poincaré has taken a leaf from Great Britain, and Premier René Viviani has reconstructed a new Cabinet with eminent men, representing all political parties, making a government of national defence. Since the outbreak of the war, the Cabinet has been taking advice from statesmen such as MM. Millerand, Delcassé, Briand, and Ribot. These men now form part of the Ministry, the formation of which was announced to a group of journalists at 11.30 this evening at the Ministry of War, when we assembled there for the usual nightly communiqué. The new Cabinet is made up as follows: Prime Minister (without Portfolio), M. René Viviani; Vice-President of Council and Minister of Justice, M. Aristide Briand; Interior, M. Malvy; Foreign Affairs, M. Delcassé; War, M. Millerand; Navy, M. Augagneur; Finance, M. Ribot; Agriculture, M. Fernand David; Public Works, M. Marcel Sembat; Labor, M. Bienvenu-Martin; Commerce, M. Thomson; Public Instruction, M. Albert Sarraut; Colonies, M. G. Doumergue; Minister without Portfolio, M. Jules Guesde.

M. Etienne Alexandre Millerand is an illustrious member of the Paris Bar, who has been several times a cabinet minister. As head of the War Department, two years ago, he did more than any living Frenchman towards the reconstitution of true esprit militaire in the French army. He prepared the way for the three years' service, and reorganized the forces of the nation that had grown rusty during the decade that preceded the alarm caused by the German Emperor at Agadir. It is quite probable that M. Millerand will prove to be the Lazare Carnot--"The Organizer of Victory"--of the present war. With M. Théophile Delcassé as Minister of Foreign Affairs, French diplomacy cannot be in better hands. In calling upon M. Jules Guesde, socialist deputy for Lille, and upon M. Marcel Sembat, a red-hot socialist--both unified socialists and trusted friends of the late Jean Jaurès, the Government is assured of the hearty support of the extreme "revolutionary" parties.

MM. Guesde and Sembat can certainly do the Government less harm inside the Cabinet than they might do outside of it. No better evidence that all bitterness of political parties is now in the melting-pot can be found than in the comment of the reactionary, ultra-Catholic, royalist Gaulois, which says: "We are to-day all united in the bonds of patriotism in face of the common enemy. We place absolute confidence in the men who have assumed a task, the success of which means the salvation of France and the triumph of civilization." M. Georges Clemençeau was offered a place in the Cabinet, but declined to accept it.

The appointment of General Joseph Simon Galliéni as commander of the army of Paris, and military governor, in succession to General Michel, means that France is resolved to put Paris in a thoroughly efficient state of defence, and to be ready for the worst possible emergencies. General Michel is an admirable organizer and administrator, but he has not had the vast military experience of General Galliéni, who is, by the way, a warm friend and comrade of the former military governor. Moreover General Michel will now serve under General Galliéni's orders.

General Galliéni, as a strategist, enjoys the same high reputation as the commander-in-chief, General Joffre. He was born on April 24, 1849, at Saint-Béat in the department of the Haute Garonne. He entered the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1868, and was appointed a sub-lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Marine Infantry two years later, and he fought with his regiment through the war of 1870. Since then he has distinguished himself in Tonkin, Senegal, and Madagascar. Everywhere he has shown exceptional qualities, both as a soldier and administrator. His brilliant career finally led to his appointment as a member of the Higher Council of War, and, in acknowledgment of his great services, he was maintained on the active list after passing the age limit. He is a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

President Poincaré to-day confers further extraordinary powers upon General Joffre, authorizing him to exercise the almost sovereign right of promoting officers on the spot, just as Napoleon did, by simply naming them to the posts where he thinks they may be most useful. Thus, General Joffre can make a captain a colonel or a full-fledged general-of-division, by word of mouth. This privilege was not even granted by Napoleon to his marshals. These promotions are, however, only provisional during the war, and when peace is made, must be ratified by Parliament. This renders it possible to replace general officers, killed or wounded, by officers selected on the battlefield, and above all enables important commands to be filled by young officers, who give proof of their qualities in face of the enemy.

An idea of the infinite tragedy of war was brought home to many Parisians by a visit to the Cirque de Paris, where twenty-five hundred Belgian refugees, men, women, and children, have been provided with at least a temporary shelter.

The vast building, where so many famous boxing-matches have taken place, is now completely transformed. The ring has been cut in two, and hundreds of fauteuils have been placed in small groups so arranged as to form substitutes for beds. The boxes have been reserved for the many women with infants in arms.

Hardly were they installed, and hardly had the news spread in Paris of their miserable plight, than hundreds of Parisians visited the Cirque de Paris, all bringing gifts of food, drink, or clothing. It was a pathetic and at the same time a cheering sight to watch the refugees hungrily eating the midday meal which their French sympathizers had helped to provide. These refugees, many of whom carry babies in arms, will probably be sent into Normandy and Brittany to be cared for.

Thursday, August 27.

Twenty-fifth day of the war. Rain, severe thunderstorm at noon, northwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 17 degrees centigrade.