Paris War Days | Page 6

city was under martial
law, and the police showed very plainly that they did not intend to be
trifled with.
Instead of shouting crowds and stone-throwing by excited youths and
women, one saw only a few citizens walking slowly along. One group
of policemen took shelter from the intermittent showers under the
marquise of the Vaudeville Theater, and other detachments were in
readiness at corners all along the line of the boulevards, which were
dotted with isolated policemen.
No one was allowed to loiter. To wait five minutes outside a house was
to court investigation and possibly arrest. There was no sound except
that of footfalls and a low murmur of conversation. It was the first night
of war's stern government.

Germany officially declared war upon France at five forty-five this
evening. The notification was made by Baron von Schoen, the German
Ambassador to France, when he called at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to ask for his passports.
Baron von Schoen declared that his Government had instructed him to
inform the Government of the Republic that French aviators had flown
over Belgium and that other French aviators had flown over Germany
and dropped bombs as far as Nuremberg. He added that this constituted
an act of aggression and violation of German territory.
M. Viviani listened in silence to Baron von Schoen's statement, and
when the German Ambassador had finished, replied that it was
absolutely false that French aviators had flown over Belgium and
Germany and had dropped bombs.
Immediately after this interview, M. Viviani telegraphed to M. Jules
Cambon, French Ambassador in Berlin, instructing him to immediately
ask for his passports and to make a report on France's protest against
the violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg and the ultimatum sent to
Belgium. M. Cambon will leave Berlin to-morrow.
Since acts of war were committed by German troops two days ago, the
delay in the recall of the German Ambassador had appeared
inexplicable to the great majority of French people, to whom Baron von
Schoen appeared to be decidedly outstopping his welcome.
The Ambassador himself seemed conscious of this feeling, for not only
did he take care to proceed to the Quai d'Orsay in as inconspicuous a
manner as possible, but he also applied to the authorities to detail a
policeman to accompany him in his automobile.
Baron von Schoen's departure from Paris was a solemn affair. He left
the Embassy last, after a vast collection of luggage had gone off in
motor-wagons and other vehicles. A few minutes before ten o'clock,
wearing a soft felt hat and black frock coat adorned with the rosette of
the Legion of Honor and carrying a rainproof coat over his arm, he left
in a powerful automobile, which, by way of the Invalides, the

Trocadero, and the Boulevard Flandrin, conveyed him to the station.
The station employés and the police on duty at the station formed a
silent cordon, through which the departing Ambassador passed with
downcast eyes.
Not a word was spoken as the baron stood for a few minutes on the
platform.
Then the stationmaster said quietly: "En voiture," there was a shrill
whistle, and the train, composed of five coaches and three goods trucks,
glided slowly out of the station.

Tuesday, August 4.
We are now in the third day of mobilization. Weather slightly cooler,
17 degrees centigrade, with moderate southwest wind.
At seven this morning I went with Sophie to the registration office for
Germans, Alsatians, and Austro-Hungarians, Number 213 Place
Boulevard Periere. A crowd of some five hundred persons--men,
women, and children--were waiting at the doors of the public
schoolroom now used as the Siège du District for the seventeenth
arrondissement. Although a German by birth, Sophie is French at heart.
She came to Paris when only eight years old and has remained here
ever since--she is now sixty-one--and has been thirty-two years with
me as housekeeper and cook. All her German relatives are dead. Hers is
a hard case, for if expelled from France, she would have to become
practically a stranger in a strange land. Fortunately she has all her
papers in order, and can show that she has nine nephews actually in the
French army. I made a statement in writing for her to this effect, which
she took to the registration office, but she had to wait, standing without
shelter from eight in the morning to six o'clock at night. After carefully
scrutinizing her papers, the officials told her that her papers must go for
inspection to the Prefecture of Police, and that she must come back for
them to-morrow. She had with her photographs of three of her nephews

in military uniforms. One of these nephews had received a decoration
during the Morocco campaign for saving his captain's life during an
engagement.
I managed