Paris War Days | Page 3

café. A young
Frenchman named Raoul Villain, son of a clerk of the Civil Court of
Rheims, pushed a revolver through the window and shot Jaurès through
the head. He died a few moments later. The murder of the socialist
leader would in ordinary times have so aroused party hatred that almost
civil war would have broken out in Paris. But to-night, under the
tremendous patriotic pressure of the German emperor's impending
onslaught upon France, the whole nation is united as one man. As M.
Arthur Meyer, editor of the Gaulois, remarked: "France is now herself
again! Not since a hundred years has the world seen 'France Debout!'"
At four o'clock this afternoon I was standing on the Place de la Bourse
when the mobilization notices were posted. Paris seemed electrified.
All cabs were immediately taken. I walked to the Place de l'Opéra and
Rue de la Paix to note the effect of the mobilization call upon the
people. Crowds of young men, with French flags, promenaded the

streets, shouting "Vive La France!" Bevies of young sewing-girls,
midinettes, collected at the open windows and on the balconies of the
Rue de la Paix, cheering, waving their handkerchiefs at the youthful
patriots, and throwing down upon them handfuls of flowers and
garlands that had decked the fronts of the shops. The crowd was not
particularly noisy or boisterous. No cries of "On to Berlin!" or "Down
with the Germans!" were heard. The shouts that predominated were
simply: "Vive La France!" "Vive l'Armée!" and "Vive l'Angleterre!"
One or two British flags were also borne along beside the French
tricolor.
I cabled the following message to Mr. Ogden Reid, editor of the _New
York Tribune_:
Tribune, New York, Private for Mr. Reid. Suggest supreme importance
event hostilities of Brussels as center of all war news. Also that Harry
Lawson, Daily Telegraph, London, is open any propositions coming
from you concerning Tribune sharing war news service with his paper.
According best military information be useless expense sending special
men to front with French owing absolute rigid censorship.
BARNARD.
I based this suggestion about the supreme importance of Brussels
because it has for years been an open secret among military men that
the only hope of the famous attaque brusquée of the German armies
being successful would be by violating Belgian neutrality and
swarming in like wasps near Liége and Namur, and surprising the
French mobilization by sweeping by the lines of forts constructed by
the foremost military engineer in Europe, the late Belgian general, De
Brialmont.
I subsequently received a cable message from the editor of the Tribune
expressing the wish to count upon my services during the present crisis.
To this I promptly agreed.

Sunday, August 2.
This is the first day of mobilization. I looked out of the dining-room
window of my apartment at Number 8 Rue Théodule-Ribot at four this
morning. Already the streets resounded with the buzz, whirl, and horns
of motor-cars speeding along the Boulevard de Courcelles, and the
excited conversation of men and women gathered in groups on the
sidewalks. It was warm, rather cloudy weather. Thermometer, 20
degrees centigrade, with light, southwesterly breezes. My servant,
Félicien, summoned by the mobilization notices calling out the
reservists, was getting ready to join his regiment, the Thirty-second
Dragoons. His young wife and child had arrived the day before from
Brittany. My housekeeper, Sophie, who was born in Baden-Baden and
came to Paris with her mother when a girl of eight, is in great anxiety
lest she be expelled, owing to her German nationality.
I walked to the chancellery of the American Embassy, Number 5 Rue
de Chaillot, where fifty stranded Americans were vainly asking the
clerks how they could get away from Paris and how they could have
their letters of credit cashed. Three stray Americans drove up in a
one-horse cab. I took the cab, after it had been discharged, and went to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where I expected to find our
Ambassador, Mr. Myron T. Herrick. M. Viviani, the President of the
Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, was there
awaiting the arrival of Baron de Schoen, the German Ambassador, who
had made an appointment for eleven o'clock. It was now half-past
eleven, and his German excellency had not yet come.
I watched the arrival of the St. Cyr cadets at the Gare d'Orsay station on
their way to the Gare de l'Est. These young French "West Pointers" are
sturdy, active, wiry little chaps, brimful of pluck, intelligence, and
determination. They carried their bags and boxes in their hands, and
their overcoats were neatly folded bandélière fashion from the right
shoulder to the left hip. Then came a couple of hundred requisitioned
horses led by cavalrymen. Driving by the Invalides, I noticed about five
hundred requisitioned