The lady shook her head in a most decided negative.

“The present valet de chambre is a bald-headed man, and clean-shaven, monsieur.  It must have been another hotel where you stayed.”

I began to think that this must undoubtedly be the case, and yet I remembered the geography of the hall, and the pattern of the carpet, and the picture of Mirabeau in the National Assembly.

Then it dawned on both of us.

“Ah!  Monsieur was here before August 1.  Since then everyone is mobilized.  I am the manager’s wife, Monsieur, and my husband is at the front, and we have hardly any staff here now.  You will describe the shape of your bag...”

2

The French Government was afraid of the soul of Paris.  Memories of the Commune haunted the minds of men who did not understand that the character of the Parisian has altered somewhat since 1870.  Ministers of France who had read a little history, were terribly afraid that out of the soul of Paris would come turbulence and mob-passion, crises de nerfs, rioting, political strife, and panics.  Paris must be handled firmly, sobered down by every possible means, kept from the knowledge of painful facts, spoon-fed with cheerful communiques whatever the truth might be, guarded by strong but hidden force, ready at a moment’s notice to smash up a procession, to arrest agitators, to quell a rebellion, and to maintain the strictest order.

Quietly, but effectively, General Galieni, the military governor of “the entrenched camp of Paris,” as it was called, proceeded to place the city under martial law in order to strangle any rebellious spirit which might be lurking in its hiding places.  Orders and regulations were issued in a rapid volley fire which left Paris without any of its old life or liberty.  The terrasses were withdrawn from the cafes.  No longer could the philosophic Parisian sip his petit verre and watch the drama of the boulevards from the shady side of a marble-topped table.  He must sit indoors like an Englishman, in the darkness of his public-house, as though ashamed of drinking in the open.  Absinthe was banned by a thunder-stroke from the Invalides, where the Military Governor had established his headquarters, and Parisians who had acquired the absinthe habit trembled in every limb at this judgment which would reduce them to physical and moral wrecks, as creatures of the drug habit suddenly robbed of their nerve-controlling tabloids.  It was an edict welcomed by all men of self-control who knew that France had been poisoned by this filthy liquid, but they too became a little pale when all the cafes of Paris were closed at eight o’clock.

“Sapristi!  Qu’est qu’on peut faire les soirs?  On ne peut pas dormir tout le temps!  Et la guerre durera peut-etre trois mois!”

To close the cafes at eight o’clock seemed a tragic infliction to the true Parisian, for whom life only begins after that hour, when the stupidity of the day’s toil is finished and the mind is awakened to the intellectual interests of the world, in friendly conversation, in philosophical discussions, in heated arguments, in wit and satire.  How then could they follow the war and understand its progress if the cafes were closed at eight o’clock?  But the edict was given and Paris obeyed, loyally and with resignation.