After a brief enjoyment of his freedom in Switzerland and Paris, Whitlock could at last rejoin the government to which he was accredited. Following the fall of Antwerp the Belgian Army had been slowly forced back to the Yser. There King Albert had given orders that the retreat must stop. The dykes at Nieuport were opened, and behind the mile-wide reaches of the Yser the Belgians made their stand. A little triangular segment of his country thus remained to the King, and establishing headquarters at La Panne, he remained there until the close of the war. The Belgian Government and most of the diplomats accredited to it were meanwhile given asylum by the French in the small suburb of Havre called Ste.-Adresse. Along the beach at this suburb the Paris merchant, Dufayel, had established a summer resort, including hotels and villas. The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took up its residence in the Villa Louis XVI; most of the diplomatic corps lived in a hotel called l'Hôtellerie.

Whitlock had not a little trouble in making himself at home in this strange place. Havre had ceased to be a French town and become an international city, a weird and wonderful conglomerate. The harbor was still a great French naval station. Through the city itself poured British forces, and all around the town were British cantonments, rest stations, and convalescent camps. Out toward the old town of Harfleur with its reminiscences of Henry V of England was a huge camp of strapping Australian soldiers. Americans in khaki soon began to arrive. Belgian troops were numerous, and Italians, Portuguese, and finally Brazilians were to be seen in numbers. British Indian troops mingled with the Chinese coolies employed in Schneider's munitions works. It is evident that Whitlock found the scene fascinating---though he detested Havre for its filth, confusion, and constant rain. He quickly established his old relations with the Belgian Cabinet under Premier de Broqueville. He seized the first opportunity for a visit to the King. He made one of the chief friendships of his later life with "good old Nicholson," the British commander in Havre. And once settled with his records about him, he began to write the tale of his experiences in Belgium.

April 4, 1917.---Early this morning Campbell sent me a synopsis of the President's message, and I read it with tears, of a kind of joy, to see us at last---much as I hate war---ranged on the side of the right!

The reporters came promptly, then Gregory, whom I asked to dictate a statement regarding the C.R.B. I embodied it in the long dispatch I sent to the Department. I wrote them, indeed, a long one about the journey, one about Villalobar and the revictualing, in an effort to prevent Hoover's implacable hatred of Villalobar from interfering with the continuance of the work. Hoover is trying to exclude the Spaniards altogether, and Villalobar especially-and I am telling the Department that Berlin communicates with Mexico by wireless to Madrid, whence the German Ambassador forwards the dispatches by cable to Mexico. I thought the Government ought to know this---for what it may be worth. It was a task, dictating all those telegrams, and a little statement for the press, one in English and one in French, and it was nearly noon when Nell and I got out for a little stroll.

The day is beautiful, the sun clear, and the mountains presenting a wonderful view of themselves. We wandered through the streets---the old arcades, the old gates of the city, and so on, and back for lunch. The Swiss are an unsympathetic lot, heavy, ugly, German to the core. One is sick of the German signs, the German gutturals, the German taste---or lack of it. The Swiss are no doubt a worthy and a moral lot, but from all things German and from living in Berne good Lord deliver us!

Le Baron de Groot, Belgian minister at Berne, and the Baroness... called. Then the Comte d'Assche, after tea, remaining until dinner-time, and we had to hurry to get to Stovall's, he having invited us to dinner. Stovall is a good sort, good-looking and kind; he comes from Georgia or South Carolina .... Mrs. Stovall very elegant, assiduously pronounces "diplomat" "diplomah" under the impression that that is the French pronunciation. Paul Beau, Ambassador of France at Berne---the French have an Ambassador here, I don't know why; there is a story in the fact, no doubt---a fine, big Gaulois, formerly in Cochin China, was the biggest vegetable, as they say at Brussels. The de Groots were there, and the Spanish Minister, a good little sort, who talked of Villalobar with a hidden, though nonetheless evident, hatred. Campbell and his wife, and the Ruddocks were there. After dinner a reception---a vast horde of diplomats who poured into the house, and for two hours in that jam I stood and received and talked. Particularly delighted with the Italian Minister. I had brought here from Heineman for him Desamblancx's splendidly, exquisitely bound copy of Frederick Locker-Lampson's London Lyrics---a book I had long coveted, and once nearly bought, but at two hundred and fifty francs it was beyond me. I told him I envied him so and hated to give up the book. I was delighted too with Sir Horace Rumbold, the new British Minister---a typical Englishman with a monocle screwed into a face that never changes expression, that never moves save to let the monocle fall, and the monocle deftly caught is instantly restored. We talked for half an hour---a good sort---excellent fellow and a clever man, who I hope and believe can keep these crafty pro-German little Swiss bargainers straight.

Back to the hotel at midnight with a mortal fatigue! I shall never be rested! I ache as though I had been maltreated and kicked by heavy boots!

April 5, 1917.---Reporters again---among them a nice little French chap named Réné Arcos who knows Romain Rolland. He is down at Villeneuve, and I'd rather see him than anything in Switzerland. M. Arcos promises to put us in communication.

Nell and I went out for a walk, for the weather is clear and there is a brilliant sun. The mountains, in their snow, are lovely. We went to the Cathedral, which dates from early in the fifteenth century. A verger in a red gown opened a little grating and pointed to the wall. "There is the cost, Monsieur." It costs, according to the tariff---well named!---twenty centimes to enter into the house of God. I went down into my pockets and hadn't a sou---nothing but German paper money brought out of Belgium. But here in German Switzerland they love everything German but German money, and won't take a cent of it, which in a way, in a cathedral, certainly was a blasphemy, for if William the Hohenzollern's money isn't good for an entry in God's house, whose would be? It was the same everywhere---the little man who made the wooden toys was afraid of German money .... When the policeman on the bridge, who rebuked me for walking on the left side of the bridge, spoke to me in German I said, "Speak French, if you please."

There is nothing much to see in Berne; the arcades, the walls, the famous clock at the old city gate---the clock tower, and so on. We had to content ourselves with looking at the carvings in the portal of the cathedral, one scene in the tympanum, the Last Judgment, very naïve in the crude carvings and high coloring. There are carvings everywhere in wood, and the "sudden cuckoo" clock.

"For this was Tell a hero, for this did Gessler die."

After luncheon, terribly fatigued, I had a nap, a blessed experience, then at four went with Stovall to call on the Government. First, we called on Dumont, of the Political Department, a charming man---grandson, by the way, of Albert Gallatin, who was a Genevois. Then to see Dr. Hoffman, one of the Federal Council, a little, alert man, very clever and very pro-German. Stovall told me on going in to look out for Hoffman, who was strongly pro-German but afraid, of course, to say so and made a pretence of neutrality---had to, in fact. Hated Stovall and America generally. Then to the President, Dr. Schulthess, a heavy doctoral man, in black, also very pro-German, though otherwise very intelligent. We chatted a moment, then I saw his hand glide toward his water pot and I promptly arose and left. Very simple, very democratic, everybody and everything in the Federal Palace; very much like a city hall at home, in Milwaukee, for instance, everything free and easy, too much so. The buildings, impressive in their way, are not pleasing to me, so heavy, so German in taste, even if they are modeled on the Florentine style.

We hear that the Senate has voted for war with Germany, and much as I detest war, I welcome it in this instance because there seems to be no other way known to man to deal with a nation of stupid dolts and slaves, led by mad generals who are blindly idolized. It is a recompense for all the horrors we have witnessed in Belgium, to see our own country arrayed against barbarism, whose defeat is now assured.

I should write more in detail if I had the energy---I am so tired! ---the impressions I have in being in a free land once more and the emotions I feel in beholding my own country enter the lists for civilization, for humanity, for liberty. It feels good to be allied with noble, adorable France and with stubborn old mother England in this struggle for all one holds dear in the world, gives the heart an uplift and the soul a new sense of life, even of hope---so different from the long depression in Belgium, with never a bit of hope, with nothing but the continual sight of those brutal German soldiers. Here one sees occasionally an English soldier in his khaki uniform, hobbling on a cane, for there are many interned in Switzerland. One sees too, now and then, a French soldier, but not many; they are, so one is told, in French Switzerland. We shall see them in Lausanne, where we go tomorrow.

April 6, 1917.---Lady Acton called, to inquire about the de Lignes. It is Good Friday, and raining; the mountains having withdrawn behind their veil of mist. Drove out to call on Mrs. Stovall at their house; her daughter, a vivacious little Southern girl, was with her, and a dear little white dog scratching at the low window-door to get in. Drove from there to the house of Sir Horace Rumbold. Lady Rumbold came in from church, a charming, pretty Englishwoman, with whom it would be easy to fall in love. Then to see the Spanish Minister. Back to luncheon (there is a large table of German and Austrian diplomats near us, one of the Germans being a von Bethmann-Hollweg, a young man! They are our enemies now and we mustn't look at them or pretend to see them; it seems so absurd! I had prepared to send von Falkenhausen and von Moltke little souvenirs of their kindness in arranging our departure, but Nell says it would not be safe!) The hotel is the headquarters of the staff officers of the Swiss army. There is always a large group of them, in their smart uniforms taking coffee in the hall after meals, and all posing striking attitudes, very fair ones it must be admitted. How impossible it is for soldiers to be anything but childish!

And we are in war---or nearly there! For the Senate has voted eighty-two to six for the declaration of war.

The French papers were never so interesting---and what a joy to see them once more the same day or the day after they are published. One has Le Journal de Genève too, about the best paper I know. I was reading the addresses in the French Chamber aloud to Nell and Mlle., and three times tried to read Deschanel's burst of poetic eloqunce---and each time broke down when 1 came to the words, "The French Republic... sends to the beloved sister, the American Republic, the laurels of the Marne, the Yser, of Verdun, and of the Somme .......

But the thought of the two republics united for the same holy cause is enough of itself to make me weep tears of joy, of a noble emotion of gratitude that such perfection can exist still in the world as that of France and America one!

Left Berne at two .... Arrived in Lausanne at five and came here to the Hôtel Beau Rivage at Ouchy.

April 7, 1917.---

This is the way I have long hours sought
And mourned because I found it not!

The loveliest spot, Lac Leman, blue in the sun, and the noble mountains opposite white with the snow! Nell and I and Kin Kung and Taï Taï walked all morning in the sun. This afternoon we climbed up to the town---Lausanne---and had tea at Old India. It seems so odd this having tea in tea-rooms with the crowd, the hotel dining-rooms, just as in old normal times, the lounges and coffee and all that. All somehow so strange and normal! Though there is the bulletin---the House has ratified the Senate resolution declaring war. It is done now and better so.

April 9, 1917.---Arose this morning with determination. Romain Rolland is at the Hôtel Byron, at Villeneuve. Telephoned; would he receive me? Yes, delighted, any time. Accordingly took a train at 2:35-cold, raw, windy day---passed through Vevey, Montreux--- vast Easter Monday crowds and train very slow, crowded with third-class passengers---bound on "pleasure exertions," as Octavia used to say, soldiers, and the like. Finally, after an hour and a half, passing the Castle of Chillon, reached the little village of Villeneuve. It was but a little walk to the Hôtel Byron, over a bridge, by a little church, under a row of those curious, stunted, clipped trees, with gnarled branches, the châtaigniers, that abound along the avenues in this land, to the hotel---a large hotel in a quiet park, quiet and vaguely second-class, not perhaps wholly so, a slightly faded tint and a perceptible odor. The porter said that Monsieur Romain Rolland was expecting me; and he led the way down a long hall on the ground floor. On the way we met a woman, tall, thin, with coarse black hair, coarse red lips, dark, unhealthy skin, a black scowl and piercing eyes behind thick pince-nez---a reformer type of woman---evidently an admirer, adorer, thought I, of the kind one inevitably finds near great men, especially greatness of the unconventional sort .... She passed hurriedly on down the hall, unconscious, apparently, of our presence .... At the end of the long hall, in a corner of this wing of the hotel, overlooking the lovely park, I was shown into a bare little sitting room---and there was Romain Rolland.

As usual in such cases, one must pause an instant, in the slight shock at finding the real personality wholly other than the imagined, to adjust oneself. Instead of the rather fierce, impetuous madman that one was led to expect by the remarkable figure of Jean Christophe, here was a slight, timid, sensitive, exceedingly modest man, frail, valetudinarian, one would say. Not quite my height (I am six feet), thin, dressed in dark blue clothes---a lounging coat and a clerical waist-coat buttoned to the throat to meet the high collar that nearly choked its wearer---no cravat, long, narrow pointed shoes---on the whole the aspect of a Protestant pastor. A finely modeled head, with high, bald forehead, the thinning yellow hair combed over the dome. A long thin nose and a scanty yellow moustache---the most sensitive of mouths and incisive blue eyes---a thin smile flitting, hovering on the intelligent, delicate features, coming and going like the varying moods of the lake on a calm day, and yet an impression of great nervous force, of courage, of much reserve, as of one who had lived and suffered, and found, not peace, perhaps, but principles by which to be guided in an exigency of life.

And this was the author of Jean Christophe, the greatest book of the last quarter of a century, and one of the greatest books of all time; this was one of the great personalities of France, the greatest conscience perhaps in all Europe. One could see that he has suffered (there is much of the musician about him), suffered because of the war, whose horrors must be a nightmare to him, suffered too by being misunderstood, and mistreated because he will not run and bay and howl with the pack, and whose patriotism is too high above the stupid, banal hatred of the mob that bellows whenever a Minister waves a flag and pronounces the silly word "boche." Hardly a miserable penny-a-liner writes his diurnal paragraphs of silliness for a newspaper that doesn't have his cheap fling at him---him who will rise above all the calumny of the times and live long when the noisy voices of his time are forgotten.

The interview did not begin well; he was rather difficult to talk to. I expressed my gratitude, my debt for the pleasure he had given me, and he inclined his head with that wan, nervous smile. Did not seem, indeed, to be sure of me, as though perhaps he had been so pursued and so hounded that he had grown suspicious---as who wouldn't---in a world of spies and insane persons!

And then the woman whom I had seen in the hall came in, and he presented her simply as "my sister." He told me afterwards that she had come on from Paris to spend the Easter holidays with him.

We talked awhile about Jean Christophe, but not long; he told me he had planned it all before writing it, that it was all down in his mind before he began to write; it had taken him a long time, how long he did not say. The talk turned soon on the war. Romain Rolland had been talking to soldiers. None of them likes the war, even the Germans, and he was sure that there is revolution brewing in Germany. "It is growing," he said. He spoke too of the awful fatalism the war has generated, of the "je m'en fichism" in France "don't worry; let what comes, come."

"We were too happy in France," he said. "Never had men so much liberty as in the last twenty years. And now we must ask ourselves if after the war that liberty will return." He spoke of the reaction towards authoritarianism in all the Allied countries, and was indignant with the censorships.

"Will you have a censor now that you are in the war?" he asked.

"I suppose so," I answered. "We must be in the fashion."

I asked him what books had been written that were worth reading, and he mentioned two: Le Feu, by Henri Barbusse, a copy of which I had got in Berne the other day, and La Guerre Infernale. He praised each; La Guerre Infernale is on the Index in France, but the censor passed Le Feu---Romain Roliand couldn't understand why.

Tea was served---we talked---Romain Rolland thawing out, his sister's eyes lighting up with a remarkable intelligence. I wished to know more about them; where they came from, and so on, for neither speaks with the Parisian accent.

I grew to like Romain Rolland, so simple, so sincere, so fond of living and so intelligent, so far above the herd---he used the word again and again.

He wished to know something of my books. I have none with me, and he knows no English. Perhaps he can read Michelin's translation of The Turn of the Balance some day. He asked me for a copy. We talked about the whole miserable stupidity of war---sadly, and getting nowhere, as is usual in such discussions. He is a great pacifist, an intellectual, living in a sphere far above that inhabited by the average man. I had to keep my eye on my watch; my train left Villeneuve at 5:23. As the time approached he asked if he might walk down with me. His sister brought his overcoat, a muffler and a great felt hat, and wrapped him up for this promenade. When she left the room to put on her hat, he took my hand, peered into my eyes, and with emotion thanked me for coming to see him. I was quite embarrassed by his eagerness.

We walked along down to the station, under the chestnuts, in quiet conversation. When I told him of a dispatch in today's papers to the effect that Bryan had offered his services as a private, he paused, threw up his hands and looked at his sister in a kind of despair, as a new defection. I explained Bryan to him then.

My train came---and I left them standing, poor lonely souls, waving at me. Lonely, I say, because a great genius is always misunderstood, all the more so in a crazy time like this, with which his nature is wholly out of tune. But I left with that sense of benediction one has when one has been with a great personality, in the presence of a great soul.

April 11, 1917.---Brazil has entered the dance!

What a price Germany has paid for the folly of her generals!

She has now the world arrayed against her because of her infatuation with submarines, her whole commercial fleet seized, her commerce ruined for fifty years---all she has gained lost. And all for the subserviency to a few mad leaders like Hindenburg and von Tirpitz. A nation of fools! She might have come out of the war better without her submarines. She has reached the point of diminished returns.

A lovely sunny day. We lunched at Dexter's, the American consular agent. His father and mother there---typical Americans with a wonderful hospitality, pressing us to eat, and eat, and eat of the rich dishes---mayonnaise and Bernaise sauce on everything until we came away sick. Nell said she couldn't bear to look at the mountains. "They look like heaped up dessert!" she said.

Walked up with Nell to the Beau-Séjour, where we went to have tea with Lady Plunkett---et me voila!

Lady Plunkett says the English are terribly down on the Belgian "nobles," who have been sponging on them in England since the commencement of the war. And well they may be, for a more detestable lot of leeches never existed. And yet all those absorbent nobles, with their faces of brass, all look down on the Belgians who remained in their land. They would never endure the presence of the "boche." Not they!

April 14, 1917.---The most serene and beautiful of evenings---all a tender blue, mountains, lake and sky with tender wisps of silver and white, like softest, finest gauze, diaphanous.

Reading Le Feu---a great book with such description of the real life of soldiers in the trenches, simply told and so all the more effective; unanswerably true, to make one shudder at the stupidness of man! A really great book.

Today, at luncheon the Duchess d'Arenberg, yellow hair, pearls and all, at a table in the dining-room. She has come here to await the arrival of her mother, the old Princess Charles de Ligne, who comes on from Paris to see her. The last time I saw the Princess Charles she was sitting in my room at the Legation weeping, hysterical, rocking back and forth, bewailing the fate of her son who had just been wounded near Antwerp---back there so long ago!---and between exclamations of pity for her son denouncing the Germans. "They are barbarians! They are savages! They are 'boches'! They are pigs---all of them"---and then she ceased weeping, leaned forward energetically and said, pointing a finger sharply at me, "Except my son-in-law!"

Sunday, April 15, 1917.---We are off to Paris tonight. The white clouds rolling along the blue surface of the lake are trailing away west, leaving the mountains clear and blue. And there is the sun! ---And Swift wishes to lock up the pouch, and I wish to put the journal in. One never knows!

At Paris. Left Lausanne at five, at Geneva at six something, the ride along the Lake beautiful, though Mont Blanc, alone of all the peaks, reticent, revealing, like Jehovah, only his hinder parts. Dinner at Beau Rivage, and at 8:20 the sleeping car---ironical phrase!---was attached to the train. Haskell, our consul at Geneva, came down to see us off; said the French Government had refused to give other foreign diplomats such an honour as that of a sleeping car put through to Geneva, until I came along. We appreciated the compliment. The car was an ancient one, with two compartments "de luxe," each with three beds, covered like a dentist's chair---and not as comfortable---and in them we passed an awful night, over roads as rocky as that to Dublin-O! At Bellegarde, first station in France, we saw the French flag-which filled us with joy. No examination; every one extremely polite.

April 16, 1917.---Paris again, after so long a time, but Paris still and always, smiling under a bright sun, gay with flags, the American flag most conspicuous of all, entwining its folds with the tricolour---Paris, the charming, the capital of the human mind!

At the station-the Gare de Lyon-met by Sharp,(1) Bliss, Frazer, Blount, Maurice Carré, second in command of the Protocol Service, who welcomed me on behalf of the President of France, reporters, photographers, cinematograph men. Drove with Nell, Sharp and Carré to the Ritz---and the joy to see again the rue de Rivoli and the Louvre, and the Tuileries, and the Castiglione and the place Vendôme!

I was never so tired, or so soiled with travel; a long wait for the trunks, then luncheon, and awhile afterwards the trunks. Then a bath, and so forth, clothed again and in my right mind. I had told all the reporters to come at three-and they came, all there are in Paris and in the world, a great horde of them, French and American. No interview to give, but they stood and baited me, cross-examined me after the manner of reporters---especially American reporters---who seem to feel themselves authorized to interpellate public men impudently, and grow angry when one will not commit indiscretions and make a fool of oneself to create an American holiday. French more polite. At the conclusion of the séance, one of the Americans exclaimed pettishly, "Well, I guess the photographers are the only ones to get anything out of this," and stalked out. I had prepared a little statement for them in writing.

At five to the Embassy, for tea--special invitation. Cold salon, with small fire. Mme. Sharp and Mother Sharp---mother of the Ambassador---with two women callers, huddled over a tiny fire at one end of the room, with two long rows of empty chairs trailing down the empty salon; whole house had bald, barren, cold aspect, not as nice as the Herricks' place in rue François I. But the salon filled up after awhile---many Americans---types of the idle who live abroad, for the most part, barren, useless, aimless lives, their patriotism a thing of flags and bunting .... Penfield(2) came, arrived, rather, ostentatiously, after awhile; rather good-looking man, bristling little moustache, long frock coat, something like Theodore Burton, went teetering about, placing the tips of his fingers together -highly ambassadorial, pompous and important, like Sharp himself, who came in after awhile, also on his tip-toes most of the time, very heavy, impressed, keeping up appearances, consciously reassuring himself, "I am the American Ambassador." Empty men, both ....

The one bright spot in the afternoon was Edith Wharton, whom I met just as we were leaving. Charming, and still pretty, and nicely groomed, and highly intelligent. Talked with her about Romain Rolland, whom of course she appreciates highly.

April 17, 1917.---A fine night's sleep---to awake in Paris!

Reporters again, returning to the attack; two soldiers in uniform, the new light blue of the French army that is so chic, came to take my photograph for the Government to use in propaganda.

Blount called. Out for a walk before lunch---and then with Nell to Voisin's, which we found unchanged, thank God, all as before, le patron recounting his experiences in 1870! A delicious lunch, of which I ate too heartily. While there the Ruddocks arrived, with the Grews,(3) just in from Vienna, and sticking together like magnetic poles in that close corporation of all American secretaries, who regard all ministers and ambassadors, unless they are holdover Republicans, as interlopers and intruders.

Everywhere soldiers, the light blue of the new French uniforms and the khaki of the English officers. We might as well be in London as at the Ritz; the English seem to have taken Paris as the Germans have Brussels. In the dining-room one sees the English officers in their khaki, gilt buttons, belts and cross-straps, flannel shirts, fine, hardy-looking fellows (one can't tell their rank; there seem to be no two uniforms alike) at all the little tables with the soft lights. And lovely English women, clear English types, like du Maurier used to draw, bless their sweet, sad faces!

I should prefer them, however, in London; I like Paris to be---Paris, and exclusively French. I don't like to speak English, or to hear English in Paris---and all clerks, waiters, and so on, practice their English on one, their abominable English.

A long visit from Maurois, who had been in Brussels in 1914, then at four to the Embassy.

Sharp at his table---highly ambassadorial. By an unlucky, asinine chance, I happened to mention Herrick, and he went off into a long, detailed explanation and exposé of Herrick's treatment of him when he, Sharp, came here in the summer of 1914, with a complete, minute examination of Herrick's motives. The least he could say of Herrick was that he was a consummate villain, as are all curly haired men, so he said. Herrick had been nasty to him, evidently tried to compromise him and to have him recalled, so he could stay on, for Myron died hard, very hard. But Ribot, Premier of France,(4) was waiting, and Sharp went pompously on, making an argument, like a country lawyer to a country jury piecing his evidence together. "I shall touch on that point later, and so on, that you may see just what a villain he is." Convincing enough, but very wearying, and I on nettles, for I wished to see Ribot, not Sharp. The little clock chimed four and Sharp went on wrapped up in himself, in his own hatred of Herrick, his own troubles. Herrick, he said, had exaggerated about his expenditures, had claimed to spend $8,000 a month, had intimated that Sharp was not rich enough for the post. "I have as much taxes as Herrick does." Herrick had intimated that Sharp didn't know French! But he, Sharp, knew more French than Herrick. (As a matter of fact neither knows two words of French.) And so on, and so on, enough to make one sick. And old Ribot waiting! After awhile I hesitatingly said, "But Ribot is waiting." Then he remembered; at last got started and, in a taxi---after pausing to be photographed---and after Sharp had tried to say "Affaires Etrangères" and failed---we were off ....

We waited only a moment in the great red antechamber there on the quai d'Orsay, and were shown into a rich, handsome apartment, lofty ceilings, beautiful tapestries---and rising from a handsome Louis XV table, with brass ornaments, a distinguished old man, tall, stooped, all in black, long loose redingote, a flowing black tie, a shock of white hair, and a white beard---Alexandre Ribot, President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Premier of France, in the most tragic epoch of her history---was advancing with a charming smile to meet us. He gave us his left hand and motioned us to seats at his table, speaking French. Sharp was bellowing:

"Musseer Ribot speaks English better than we do."

Musseer Ribot smiled and spoke to me in French. He talked English to Sharp, but to me always in French. He asked me about Belgium, thanked me for what I'd done, and so on---nothing especially important---and then Sharp interrupted him to ask for something concerning the departure of the Austrian consuls from America---some facilities for the sailing of certain ships---which Ribot granted. We talked of the war, of course; he said he had no news of the battle today, only that the Germans were shelling the cathedral at Rheims again, evidently determined to destroy it. After a moment Sharp arose and said he had to go, but that I should stay. It was embarrassing; but he went and I remained only a moment, however, and then left. We had talked about the Germans. "One cannot destroy, one cannot crush a nation, but we ought to destroy their system," said he. An attendant brought in a cup of milk and placed it on a table; evidently the old statesman and intellectual needed careful attention---and I went.

A fine old man, giving the impression now of great age, but no decline in his intellectual forces. Bowed and bent with his years and his cares, his face showed the lines of life-he has had a stormy career. Was he not, with his wife, on the Bourgogne when she went down years ago, fighting his way through the excited, panic-stricken sailors for places for himself and his wife in the life-boats? But the face is sweet, serene and kindly. One knows that one faces a cultured, highly organized, experienced man who has lived much and properly ....

I came away and out on to the quai. No taxi, and I knew that my old friend T. P. O'Connor, who had sent me a note from the Crillon early in the afternoon, was waiting for me at the Ritz---I had asked him to tea. I was anxious to see him; I hadn't seen him since January, 1914, when we had tea in the House of Commons, with Francis Neilson, John Burns, and a lot of others. It was dry, the sun had come out; I walked across the bridge of Alexander III---plain Nicholas Romanoff now!---to the Champs Elysées; no taxi; walked to the place de la Concorde, there found a taxi---and at the Ritz, good old T. P., Mme. Allard, Mlle. Allard, and the Comtesse de Lesseps were there, Nell entertaining them. We all had tea. T. P. had much to say of English and Irish affairs; the Revolution---the sad Revolution, another big British blunder; in the British manner of handling it a blunder. The Revolution was nothing, but the executions made it a mighty blunder. He had gone to Asquith to save Casement, not because of sympathy with Casement but to save the British nation from a mistake. Asquith did not dare interfere, was much troubled .... Casement clearly insane; a dreadful person; worst of all, bad morals; had left a diary, an awful thing, with minute descriptions.

T. P. had seen it. Asquith knew of it; "thank God I haven't read it!" but couldn't find two independent physicians in the Empire to declare Sir Roger insane. Asquith had been growing stronger since his fall. Lloyd George had come to power by methods that one couldn't approve; is ambitious, but by no means corrupt or desirous of Tory honours. Afraid, however, of the Tories, afraid to offend Carson---a man now at the head of the Admiralty who a few years ago was heading a rebellion!---and so somewhat paralyzed. Could make no decision regarding Ireland. T. P. thought perhaps there would be another failure and that afterwards Ireland would be freed. More bigotry, more stupidity in Ireland now than in all the thirty-seven years he had been in Parliament; the Irish Party had taken the position that Ulster counties could not be included against their will, and that, per contra, no other counties could be excluded against their will. But Lloyd George can not see this elementary principle---the whole trouble, the great defect of Lloyd George being that he has no principles---which is precisely what Richard McGhee said to me one day long years ago, in that dim past before the war, as we sat in the House of Gommons. That is, Lloyd George has no idea, no intellectual conception of democracy. Is a kind of natural democrat, is poor, simple, miserably dressed, never has his hair cut, and so on, cares nothing for rank or title, but that is all---is eager for power.

He did not see how the Government could long endure; Lloyd George's fears of Sir Edward Carson and the Tories generally having caused him to make a great blunder with regard to Ireland .... T. P. stayed until seven o'clock, until long after the others had gone; then he said, referring to the Comtesse de Lesseps, whose blonde loveliness was most striking in her widow's garb---black with the white border in her cap---praising her beautiful placid face: "When I see a woman like that----he must be Catholic and devout---I think on the wonders of the church and marvel; but when I see the priests--- Och! it's all otherwise. My father always voted against the priests. The priests are our greatest danger! They are ruining Ireland. In their hearts they are against home rule, against liberty everywhere. And protest as they may, on that day when we are free, they will come out against us. They are for privilege everywhere---in their secret hearts they are for it in this war."

Nell and I ran off to dine at the Café de Paris---one of the few places left unchanged in this world, though that is changed too since there are always groups of English officers, sturdy, handsome chaps, sitting about everywhere; now and then the new blue uniforms of the French, or the showy uniforms of their officers. We had our seats side by side against the wall on the long divan (why can't we have such cozy, intimate arrangements in New York?) and sat there, over a delicious dinner, with that ever-interesting world of Paris before our eyes, under the haze of cigarette smoke. They have no music now, which is a blessing---Oh! the suffering caused by the chronic din of those braying, beating savage bands in New York, with their thundering tom-toms!---and there is less drinking than before; indeed the war has made people temperate. The people are serious, too, but not depressed. There is nowhere to be seen in the faces of the soldiers on this side of the line that dumb, supine, heavy and docile, homesick look of endurance one sees on the faces of the German soldiers; temperamental, partly, I suppose, but then these are more intelligent, more individual, less like oxen than the Germans; and then here there is the encouragement of America's entry into the war and of the victories in Champagne .... On our divan, two very pretty cocottes; next them an English boy in khaki, fresh, clean, wholesome. One of the cocottes tried to attract him, finally spoke to him; he deliberately turned his back on her .... Across the room, a woman in mourning, weeping, her escort with his arm around her, trying evidently to console her; she, not to be consoled, wept steadily, now and then wringing her hands. What was that little drama? The war---some one killed lately at the front? Ah well! The world goes on! The chary English boy stalks out---the cocotte draws out a little mirror, a little powder puff, powders her face, takes a pencil and reddens her lips, adjusting their outline, lights another cigarette.

April 21, 1917.---Havre.(5) All morning dictating telegrams to Washington; one saying that Ruddock can be spared though I regret to lose his services and his and Margaret's company, as I told the Department. One about recognition in the Congo of Belgian sovereignty. One announcing my arrival. One about Gray remaining in Brussels. Then came a long, characteristic telegram from Hoover, in his rough, positive tone, protesting against the Belgian Government's attitude in regard to Gray, criticizing Villalobar, and so on .... So my telegram to Washington had to be redrafted and recoded, for I don't wish to go contrary to Hoover's wishes in Commission matters.

Nell and I went to l'Hôtellerie to have tea with Madame Vandervelde. (Her husband was among my callers yesterday; he came to see us and at the same time to see the Russian minister, Nellidow, who is at this hotel; he is about to go to Copenhagen to try to undo the deviltry the German Socialists have been doing there with the Russian "comrades." He thought I was Nellidow, talked to me about his plans, I was confused, in a sort of daze---then he saw it was a mistake!) Madame --- came to tea with us, knew Villalobar, a most brilliant woman. English, with an intellectual grasp of things, very clever, bright and entertaining. Not at all pretty, strange eyes, and dressed in a yellow plaid gown with a string of enormous yellow beads about her neck, amber I suppose. Was quite outspoken in her criticism of Belgians, hinted that the Belgian Government here are old fogies, and so forth, said most of them should be shot and would be after the war if the Belgians had any spirit left. Talked of Lloyd George, saying precisely what T. P. said the other day about his lack of principle and his truckling to Tories; said he had no real following any more in any quarter, that neither Tories nor Liberals liked him.

We came away and walked on the cliff. Madame said Havre was too deadly dull and the Belgian ministers were too deadly stupid for her to remain here---and she is right.(6) Never was there such a group... as the Government, with perhaps four or five exceptions---Berryer, de Broqueville, Carton de Wiart .... Hymans, who is at London, and Vandervelde, who is too much of a Socialist to be wholly intelligent---as the others are not enough of Socialists to be intelligent. She wanted to know what would happen in Belgium when the Government returned. Would there be revolution? No, I said, only elections. And what will happen in the elections? In Asquith's words, I said, "Wait and see."

It was pleasant, it was strange, it was unusual to talk once more with a bright woman with modern views---like the fresh breeze that blows off the sea to the cliffs.

She told us how, when her husband went to America with the Belgian Commission at the beginning of the war, she wished to go but the Belgian Government wouldn't consent; then she wished to go alone to make speeches, raise money, and do propaganda work for the Belgians. The Ministers were shocked---the idea of a woman doing such a thing! She appealed to the King, and he said "Go!" She said that the Ministers here have no idea of what the Americans had done for Belgium, have no idea of the C.R.B., thought the Americans were in it only to make money! Most of them disliked Hoover, and so on, and so on!

Ah well! The best of the Belgians are in Belgium or in the trenches. The others don't count!

She told a story, too, of Poullet.(7) The day of the Russian revolution she came running in with the news. "How glorious it is!" said she. "Not at all!" said Poullet. "Look how they've arrested the Ministers!"

I gave Mme. Vandervelde 1,000 francs for her relief work among Belgian soldiers.

April 26, 1917.---A clear, cold day, with an icy wind from the sea and a coldly glittering sun. Will one never in this life be warm again?

Climbed the two hundred steps of the cliff to see Berryer this morning about going to La Panne---that dreadful journey that confronts us!---but there was some misunderstanding. He had gone to a meeting of the Cabinet. Climbed up again this afternoon; he will write to La Panne to know when the King can receive us. Asked me to thank my Government for the allotment of $80,000,000 for feeding Belgium. I telegraphed.

Telegraphed also suggesting that this is an appropriate time to recognize Belgian sovereignty in the Congo. It is an idea I have long had in mind. The United States followed England's lead in refusing recognition in old Leopold's time; England and America both having had one of those moral shocks to which the moral Anglo-Saxon race is subject over the late Sir Roger Casement's exposure of the atrocities in the Congo. But whatever abuses there were---and there were some no doubt---were corrected by the reforms King Albert wrought, and England has long since recognized the Belgian sovereignty. The Belgium Government always claimed that by demanding exequaturs for consuls we had recognized it, but I suggest to the Department that this would be a gracious act on our part at this time. I have never mentioned the matter to a Belgian.

The new régime---evening without meat---is in force, as I said; it touches nobody, however, save us poor devils doomed to live in hotels, and we are already sufficiently put upon as it is---what with the ferocious rapacity of landlords who bleed us white. With this latest excuse they serve a light supper in the evening---for the price of a grand dinner in the old days---and send us cheerless to bed.

The owner of this hotel, who owns a furniture shop as well, said with a great flourish of generosity, that if the furniture in our rooms was not sufficient---it consists of chairs covered with bright yellow plush, miles on miles of which was bought when the hotel was opened---if the furniture was not sufficient we might buy some at his shop and ourselves select the hour when we would go to examine it!

Today I received my invitation from the City of Paris to attend the ceremonies at l'Hôtel de Ville last Saturday in honour of the Franco-American alliance. Too late---alas---to go and hear Sharp's speech.

He is clever-in a way. He has the volubility of an Ohio country lawyer, can talk on and on and on indefinitely, never tiring any one but his hearers, and saying nothing. He can not speak a word of French, stands up, and solemnly delivers long harangues in English to French audiences, who do not understand a word but sit with French politeness and pretend to listen. Then, some one ---Sharp must have a clever secretary somewhere---translates or prepares a long address in French, which is published in all the Paris newspapers next day. All Paris reads them, thinks that Sharp pours them out spontaneously, and has for them that relish the French always have for fluent, flowing, unending tides of speech! Sharp has absolutely no sense of humour; if he had he couldn't stand up and talk by the hour as though he were haranguing a crowd, or pleading to a jury, in a language no one understands. It must be a sight for Gods and men! That bold, bony, solemn, expressionless face, that high knob of a bald crown, that long frock coat, those enormous hands---and that unceasing flow of words!

Sunday, April 29, 1917.---The 1000th day of the war.

Loafed most of the day---painting awhile this afternoon.

Tonight Sir Francis and Lady Villiers(8) gave a dinner here at the hotel---fourteen covers. Took out Mme. Ansel, a charming Frenchwoman, wife of Havre deputy. General Nicholson, commanding the British base here,(9) very handsome in his khaki, among the guests, and Admiral Didelot, Governor of Havre, a distinguished looking French naval officer, in uniform.

After dinner talking to van der Elst.(10) He had never heard of my having refused the post at Petrograd; thought it très chic. Evident that much that America and Americans have done in Belgium has been kept from the King, and the Government here.

A curious coincidence. We fell to talking of Caillaux. At the time of the Agadir incident, van der Elst had talked with Floto, the German minister to Brussels. Van der Elst had said, when Flow asked him what he thought of it, "It means war." "No," said Floto, bringing down his foot with a smart stamp. "When you wish to discuss something with a man it is well to draw his attention by first treading on his toes." Then of Caillaux: "We are in agreement," whispered Floto. I told van der Elst what von der Lancken told me one day at Brussels of his relations with Caillaux at the time of the Agadir incident. It was a striking piece of dovetailing of circumstantial evidence.

May 3, 1917.---Last night, about midnight, I was awakened out of a sound sleep by the scream of a shell. Jumped out of bed, looked out of my little window---the sea, pale and lovely in the moonlight---such a moon as hung over Trouville!---with the boats riding at anchor. There were many shots, deep reverberations. I thought it was a submarine. The boats in the roadstead were winking their signal lights incessantly. While I was trying to find out whence the firing, a waiter knocked at our door---"To the cellar! To the cellar!" he cried. We all got up, called Marie, Nell took Kinnie and we went below to the cellar. No one there save some servants! So I came up .... There in the hallway were all the guests of the hotel---in what motley array! They looked like Falstaff's army, or worse, since they were women, and women look worse than men in dishabille. Zeppelin alarm! they said. Our admiral was running about, telephoning. The firing ceased. Then it was declared to be a false alarm. So---back to bed.

We are all blue today. Sir Francis says that the French lost 20,000 killed, and 100,000 prisoners, which must be a fearful exaggeration. An English destroyer has been torpedoed near here.

May 4, 1917.---This morning early, as we were in the hurry and confusion of preparation, Madame ------- came, her eyes bright with eager interest. "The King wants to give you the Grand Cordon!" said she. She had permission from her husband to be the first to tell me. And then her face fell, because I had not responded to her enthusiasm. I explained to her the inhibition against our accepting decorations, asked if it would not be possible for her to save me the embarrassment of a refusal, if she would not tell her husband and have him communicate in some way with the King, do something at any rate! And she went away promising to do so.

We left the hotel about 10:30, in two big grey military automobiles provided by the Belgian Government, Nell and I in the first, the Ruddocks in the second. It was a beautiful morning, spring was in the air, and as we got out toward Etretât the apple-trees everywhere in bloom. "It was apple-blossom time in Normandy," as our summer song has it. Ah! those happy summers of long ago! This is de Maupassant's country, and Flaubert's; Madame Bovary lived here somewhere and all those too intensely human people that de Maupassant writes about.

The road rolled out like a white ribbon over the green hills. In the fields men, not many, alas! were working; here and there were splendid Norman horses with ribbons in their manes and tails and rosettes at their foreheads, I don't know why, unless it is some fête day for horses. Once in awhile we would see a lone poilu toiling along the side of the road in a sun unseasonably hot; after awhile in the chalky dust the long column of an English convoy going to the front, strings of horses, heavy lorries rumbling by, then more and more Englishmen, the smartest, cleanest-looking soldiers, quite the best of all of them.

Then the dust would lift, and now and then we would have glimpses of the blue sea through the embrasure of the hills. Then Dieppe with its interesting basin.

And so on to Eu. It was about one o'clock when we descended at the little Hôtel du Commerce et du Cygne, its name uniting the practical with the poetic. It is a typical hotel of the French provinces, with its courtyard and all that, and the déjeuner not too bad. There were two French officers lunching, and a Belgian Major-General with many decorations, Order of Léopold and all, at another table flirting with a young woman who was lunching alone; he flirted to such good effect that before the déjeuner was finished the young woman had gone over and taken her place with the Belgian General.

We were away after luncheon in a hurry; the road was more and more crowded with troops and the evidences of war as we progressed on through Abbeville and through countless little villages, in one of which there was a post of Portuguese soldiers, dark little fellows in flimsy grey uniforms with yellow trimmings, who did not look as if they would be good for much in this business of war. Everywhere one sees the domination of the English, English signs that were posted all about, for the English can not or will not learn French. It is amusing, sometimes irritating, to observe this naïve sense of superiority, this insular provincial attitude that the English and the Americans have toward those who speak any other language---as when Gregory said: "Those Dutch are excellent men, they all speak English," as though that were the supreme test, and all other languages were inadequate substitutes for the English tongue! But one must admire the English, one must especially admire their soldiers, so clean of limb, so well set up, so smart in their khaki uniforms, all their accoutrements so clean, the harnesses of the horses of artillery and the saddles of the cavalry horses well oiled and polished; far otherwise than those heavy, dirty Germans we used to see around Brussels and who literally stank---odor germanicus---so heavy in their clumsy brutal boots. Another thing, the Germans never smile, perhaps it is temperamental with them. Here every face is smiling, or if not smiling, interested and interesting. One sees it in the English and in the French and in the Belgians. These English lads with the fresh ruddy faces know perfectly well what they are about. They hate this war but they know why they are fighting and they are going to make a good job of it while they are at it. The French grumble always and are game ....

It was half past four when we rolled into St.-Omer. I told the chauffeur to go to some place where we could have tea and he halted rather helplessly in the vast public square, before an unknown hotel. I waited in some indecision and then saw two Englishmen coming down the street, both in khaki, but one of them wore the collar that is buttoned behind, and above his open khaki coat there showed a clerical waistcoat, and I knew him for a curate. He would certainly know where to get tea! I asked him and sure enough, without hesitation, he directed me to the proper place and there we went and had an excellent cup of tea with brioches and cakes and all sorts of things. The English invasion has done one great thing for France at any rate, it has taught the French people to serve good tea.

The Ruddocks had got lost somewhere, une panne d'auto, perhaps, and we went on alone up the canal toward Socx, passing a great French aviation camp. The country was growing familiar, red-tiled roofs and the trees that bend always toward the east in the west winds that have been blowing across the low lands for ages. We were in French Flanders and the land took on the friendly quality of the pleasant Belgian scene.

Thus in the quiet evening about five o'clock we rolled into the park of the château where de Broqueville is installed. It is a lovely spot; the château with its four stone towers is surrounded by a moat and off a little way across the fields the village of little red-tiled roofs and the church spire. And everywhere peace, one would have no notion war is so near!

De Broqueville received us in the great salon that he has fitted up as a bureau. He is still suffering from sciatica but is very game, and General Melisse, Chief Surgeon of the Belgian Army, was with him. De Broqueville is always gallant, always debonair, very much of the grand seigneur, and received us with hearty hospitality. I had not seen him since that historic day in the Chamber when, striking the tribune with his fist, his seal ring punctuating his words, he had cried: "The watchword is, To arms!" Much water has passed under the bridge since then!

His daughter-in-law was with him, and insisted on our taking tea.

Dinner at half past seven. De Broqueville with Nell on his right, Margaret on his left, his daughter-in-law presiding at the table with me on her right and Ruddock on her left and her husband, a Lieutenant in the Belgian Army, sitting beside me, and General d'Orjo de Marchevrolette, who is to be our escort tomorrow.

Early to bed, a large restful old bedchamber with a dressing-room in the tower and the moat below and peace and quiet all around. Strange that we cannot hear the guns here when we used to hear them so plainly at Brussels!

May 5, 1917.---Off at 9:30 for La Panne, General d'Orjo de Marchevrolette accompanying us. We have three automobiles, one for Nell and me and the general, one for the Ruddocks and a third in case of accident, whirling away at the speed military chauffeurs love. We drive on toward Dunkirk. The general suggests that we go in and see the town, which is bombarded nearly every week and has suffered much, especially the church, the boches having an uncontrollable penchant for bombarding churches. Despite the shelling, however, Dunkirk is very much alive, swarming with English soldiers. Strange sight, when one thinks of those ages long past when they fought here---and sold Dunkirk to the French!

There are signs here and there in Dunkirk of the various bombardments to which the town has been subjected by the German destroyers in the channel, but the people seem unconcerned and move about as usual, children playing in the streets, life going on just the same. "They don't get on badly," remarks the General. Here and there, at intervals, red signs: "Refuge in case of alarm," rooms fitted out and protected with sand bags, where the people may rush for safety when the Germans get to work. The bombardments do not last long.

Out of Dunkirk and along the canal in a country all green with the beauty of French Flanders---picturesque scenes that remind one of Victor Gilsoul's paintings; indeed he must have painted much about here. The scenes of the road, so spirited in these times, flicker by as in a cinema, groups of soldiers, now and then a battery of artillery, and always convoys.

After awhile the general says: "We are in Belgium!" Strange sensation to be once more on that soil! We are two hours from Brussels and yet it has taken us how many days and what hard traveling to get here, through four countries, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and France! And then, on the road a regiment of Belgian soldiers, sturdy chaps in khaki now, with the new casque they wear, though here and there one sees the familiar police cap. They seem like old friends. We pass a flag, and the general takes off, his cap: "It's a command just relieved," he says. Happy lads, they are going to the rear after their turn in the trenches!

Then at last, the little village of La Panne, historic for evermore---a few houses and stark, desolate summer hotels on the sand dunes changed into hospitals now .... An officer is standing by a high gate motioning; a sentinel presents arms and going out on the seashore on the sand dunes, we roll into the yard of what de Broqueville this morning laughingly called "The Palace of the King." There are three haggard villas in a row, ugly as all villas are, standing in a hollow that seems to have been scooped out of the sand, and all about nothing but the monotony of the dunes, the yellow sands that have been swirled up and down this bleak and unhospitable coast for countless ages. In front the grey North Sea rolling its white breakers on the shores and a barricade of sand bags.

We enter the first of the villas and the general turns us over to General Biebuyck, the King's aide. The Countess Caraman de Chimay enters and conducts Nell and Margaret upstairs, leaving Ruddock and me.

The general informs me that His Majesty will receive me first and alone, there---and he points to the closed door, with a sentinel standing before it. We wait. The general goes out, comes back, finally motions towards the door. It opens, I enter and there is the King.

He is standing in the middle of the room, tall, strong, handsome in that khaki that becomes him so well;(11) its yellowish drab is on the key of his blond hair; he is ruddy, bronzed, very fit, as though campaigning agreed with him. He wears his pince-nez, through the thick lenses of which his mild eyes peer purblindly. I bow and he comes forward and puts out his hand and in that slow, heavy English that he uses, he says: "I am very glad to see you; it has been a long time. I thank you for all you have done for my country and for all that America has done; we can never thank you enough."

Then there is some hesitation, a moment's embarrassment. The King has a timid social manner always and the protocol demands that he lead in the conversation. He turns suddenly and seizing a box from the mantelpiece, he thrusts it into my hands and says: "Here is a little souvenir for you. I hope you will accept it. I... I... I hope you will not decline it." I take the box and open it and there within, glistens the star and the wide, stiff magenta ribbon of the Order of Léopold I, the bauble that is so coveted, and now, from him here, under these circumstances, has a new significance. It is the highest honour the King can confer. I stand there thinking of the American inhibition against accepting decorations and of how --- had evidently failed to arrange to save me from this embarrassment. I lay the box on the table---it is a very simple room that we are in---no carpet on the floor, curtains drawn at the windows, a bald white barren mantelpiece, a few wooden chairs---we should almost call them kitchen chairs in Southern Ohio, not quite that perhaps, but hardly good for the sitting-room---the whole apartment wearing a stark, temporary, bleak air.

The King goes on: "I hope you will not decline this. Sanford accepted one over forty years ago; it is a souvenir for you and for your nation." As he said "a souvenir for you and for your nation" I thought I saw a loophole of escape; if the American Constitution was in my way it wasn't in the nation's way! So I thanked him somehow and told him how highly I appreciated the great honour, but he changed the subject as though he were relieved to have that out of the way. He changed the subject, impulsively turned away---the Belgian protocol also demands that the King receive standing---and seizing one of the chairs by its back in his great strong hand, he planked it down on the floor beside the table, drew up one for himself and told me to sit down.

I had learned from --------, who has been able to gather many loose ends of the complot that has been going on for the last two and a half years, that some people near the King had tried to make much of the fact that I had not come around to Havre to see the King when I made my visit home to America a year and a half ago. I was determined that the King should know about it and we had not gone far in our conversation when I told him the reasons, how I was sick when I went away and how when I came back just at the time when Boy-Ed and von Papen had been bundled out it was a question as to whether I could get back to Belgium at all and that I thought the feeding of his people more important than ceremonial visits. He gave a gesture of impatience even at the mention of it: "Of course," he said, "I understand perfectly."

He began at once to talk about the President. He seemed by his allusions to go back to the first conversation I ever had with him, that first audience---and under what different circumstances!---there in the noble audience chamber in the palace at Brussels, with de Mérode, the Grand Maréchal, in uniform, and old Davignon a little to the rear of his sovereign, in uniform and an enormous sword, his hands folded across his huge paunch, looking on complacently and apparently bored to death---poor old man now gone forever!---and I hope bored no more!---and a great staff of aides around and a long line of footmen in red, with powdered wigs, stretching down to the place where the golden coach was waiting.

"You remember that I told you how much more powerful Presidents are than Kings." And then he added with a little laugh: "We Kings don't amount to much any more."

It was thus that he introduced our conversation about the President.

"Your President is the most powerful ruler in the world, he has more power than we Kings. He is the greatest statesman in the world today, he is the only statesman in the world today. We have no statesman in Europe. The President is the only statesman because he is the only one of all who looks ahead, who plans, who tries to build for the future. He has power to put his policies in effect; he rules, governs. How does he do it?"

He put the question in a tone of despairing envy.

"He rules," I replied, "by the force of public opinion, it is that which is supreme in our democracy."

He said: "Yes, but how does he know what public opinion is?"

"Ah!" I said, "that is the secret!"

The King smiled his appreciation, and I went on:

"He must be intelligent enough to discern it, to perceive it, to feel it, as it were. It is rather an instinctive or intuitive process, I think. And not only that but he must guide it and educate it at the same time. Unless he knows how to do that he loses his influence and authority and pretty soon ceases to be President."

I then spoke of how he, the King, embodied public opinion today in his own land, the hopes, the aspirations, the heroism of his own people, and I was pleased to be able to tell him how immensely popular he is in the land that is occupied by the German forces. He has a good deal of humour in a quiet way, has the King. "Yes, I have noted that Kings are popular when they are away from home and the farther away from home they are the more popular they become."

But he grew suddenly sober.

He began to ask me questions about conditions in Belgium, about the people, about the revictualing, about things there in general. Then about the Germans, who were there---he knew many of them or had heard of them---what they were doing, finally about the administrative separation and then about the deportations.

"Why did they do that?" he asked.

It was difficult to make the easy response, to say to a Coburg and a Hohenzollern that they did it because they were Germans. I gave him the reasons assigned by the Germans and those that occurred to me, and I told how that act had implanted a hatred in the hearts of the Belgian people that would not die out in three generations. If there had ever been the slightest possibility of toleration on the part of Belgium or of the two Flanders for the German Occupation, it had been destroyed by that one act; and I said that perhaps the men deported could have made no better sacrifice, could have rendered no better service to their country than they did in being thus the victims of a great and cruel injustice that would become historic.

The King spoke with feeling and appreciation, in his calm, slow way, of the interest that America had taken in the Belgians. I told him in some detail how America felt towards the Belgians and towards him and remarked that it was after all rather curious that there had never been so much feeling about the Poles. I told him what Paderewski had said to me when I saw him in New York, how he felt it; thought it strange that our people were not more interested in the Poles who had suffered perhaps more in a material way than the Belgians. The King smiled as though it were a good joke on the Poles and then checked himself and said:

"Your people probably would have more sympathy with us than with the Poles because we are more nearly of your blood. The Poles are Slavs. We are of the Northern races and the Northern races understand democracy, it is in their blood, they know how to govern themselves. The one great danger in our present situation is in Russia, they do not know how to govern themselves there. They are a peculiar dreamy people and there can never be, at least for a long time, such institutions as you have in America or as we have in Belgium."

Speaking thus of self-government, it was natural to think of the communal system in Belgium, and I told the King how much I admired it and how it had helped the Belgian people through this great crisis.

"We are a country of little cities each governing itself," said the King, "and we are very jealous of our rights; we wish to be let alone, we know how to govern ourselves. I know the Belgian people, they are stubborn, they resist. It is a relic of their old communal life. They are very jealous of their own rights, of their own institutions, of their own form of government and habits in life."

He then went on to express his great appreciation of the President and the satisfaction he felt that the President had pursued the political course he had and he charged me to present to the President the expression of his admiration and deep personal gratitude for all that had been done for the people of his unhappy land.

I explained to him then somewhat at length the development of the President's policies and told him of the articles that had appeared in the New Republic for so long a time, devoted to what they called the new Americanism, and the resulting view that Belgium's neutrality should be guaranteed by the United States, and how out of this new notion had grown the President's idea of the League to guarantee the neutrality of all small nations. The King of course knew most of this already, and he said it made him happy to think of it.

He was extremely interested in the proposal for a League of Peace and said that he hoped that Belgium would continue to have the support and protection of America, not only during the war but after the war. He said that when the war is over and the great task of reconstruction begins, there will be great need in Belgium for American enterprise and capital and a great opportunity as well in the Congo.

"We want you to help us build railroads and all that sort of thing and we want your assistance in building up Belgium. We are a small country but our people are industrious and self-reliant, they do not ask charity but they do ask your sympathy and assistance and there is, I think, much of mutual benefit that can be done. America has espoused Belgium's course, we hope to render ourselves worthy of that confidence and show our gratitude in practical ways."

There was another point also that he approached with great delicacy. "We look to America to sustain us in a crisis that will be upon us when the war is over. We love our friends and we are grateful to them but we wish to be wholly independent and to govern ourselves. That, I believe, is the President's wish. That is one of the principles of liberty, that a small nation should govern itself according to the will and the aspirations of its own people."

What the King meant, as I know from personal conversations I have had with many leading Belgians of all classes in the Government and out, but what was perhaps too delicate for him to put in so many words, was that Belgium fully expects, of course, to be delivered from the hands of Germany but she does not wish in so doing to fall into the hands of either England or of France; and there is a great fear all over Belgium, among the intelligent classes of all parties, that the situation of the country will be difficult because of a perhaps natural disposition on the part of either England or France or of some statesmen or politicians of the two countries to take advantage of the services they have rendered to Belgium in protecting her neutrality.

I understood the King to intimate that I should convey this thought to the President in the assurance that it would receive a sympathetic consideration.

"We shall need the President's help," he said, "when we assemble around the table to discuss the ultimate terms of peace."

I assured the King that any suggestion he might make and any wish that he might have would receive most careful consideration at the hands of the President; that it was the desire of all of us in America to cultivate closer and more intimate relations with his people.

He then said: "I think we had better join the others now."

We had talked for an hour, it was perhaps 12:30, and he arose and led the way through the door, putting on his khaki fatigue cap, which is like the caps the English officers wear.

"You will have to get your hat," he said, "for we are going over to the other house. This is where I have my office." There was a servant there who got my hat, and with the Order of Léopold under my arm, since I could not put it on my breast, we walked out on the sand, in the back yard as it were, and to the middle cottage, going into a room that was precisely like a sitting-room in the Middle West, a chimney and fireplace with a cushioned English fender, a table with a few papers, a few photographs, a few books---a dictionary, Le Petit Larousse, with the Almanach de Gotha and Macmillan's Statesman's Year Book.

And there was the Queen. I had not seen her since that day in the palace at Brussels that last Sunday afternoon before they all went away to Antwerp. How long ago and far away it all seemed! And what a changed world since! I think the same thought was in our minds. I kissed her hand and then she looked me in the eyes and said: "It has been a long time since we saw each other." She had that same wistful, charming smile, that comes and goes, playing about her sensitive mouth, that same effect of something timid and shrinking. She looked frail; life has written its experience on her face with a fine spiritual delicacy .... But there were presentations to be made. Nell made her curtsy and then Margaret, who did it beautifully, and I presented Ruddock. On the other side of the table was the little Crown Prince Leopold, taller than when I saw him last and brown with a lock of hair hanging over his forehead, he too, in khaki uniform---a soldier now; he is a Captain or officer of some kind in the Belgian army and as embarrassed as his father and mother seem most of the time to be. As we stood there I observed to the King that his son had grown much, and the King said: "But you ought to see my daughter! She is a young lady now, away at a boarding-school in Italy."

The Queen in that low girlish voice was saying:

"I want to thank you for all you have done; you have been so good to us and to our country,"

Luncheon was announced immediately and we went into the next room without ceremony, the King saying: "Will you sit at my wife's right?"

The King and Queen sit always at table, side by side, she on his right. He had Nell on his left, and I on the right of the Queen, on my left the Countess Caraman de Chimay, then came Ruddock and then the General Biebuyck, then Margaret, then the Prince and then Nell, completing the circle of the round table.

The luncheon was very simple. The King and Queen drank no wine, and the King leaning across and saying to me: "We are abstentionists." And he asked me about the temperance movement in America. I told him then about it and explained to him the meaning of wet and dry. The Crown Prince, however, is not an abstentionist, for he tipped up his glass of champagne with the best of them. Nell spoke to him once or twice but he is almost painfully shy and it seemed a kindness to let him alone.

Conversation is always difficult with Kings and Queens; one is always under the depressing influence of the protocol, that leaves the direction of the conversation to Their Majesties, one must not speak unless one is spoken to, and as these particular Majesties find conversation a rather trying task there are long and awkward pauses. Finally I decided, Majesties or no Majesties, to put them at their ease. The King had been talking about bombardments by air craft, bombs had fallen near their villa several times, only the other day the wife and two children of one of their servants was killed. I described to them the visits of the Allied aviators at Brussels, and the Queen said: "I suppose their bombs hurt as much as any even if our friends do shoot them."

We had grey bread except the Queen, who had white beside her plate, though she didn't eat it. She is very delicate .... The servants---all in black now, not the brave scarlet liveries and knee breeches of happier times---would enter, serve and then withdraw. The King would tap a bell at his right hand to call the servants back. There was a course first of eggs, then roast beef with potatoes and carrots, then a kind of thick apple pie, which wasn't very good, the Queen didn't eat it, though I did because I was hungry as I always am when I am rushing about and excited. Luncheon over, we went back to the drawing-room for the coffee. The King got a box of cigars and handed them about and then a box of cigarettes. I saw that Nell was anxious to smoke but did not know about the Queen.

"Does Your Majesty smoke?" asked Nell.

"Yes, I smoke too much and that is why I have had to stop," replied the Queen. "But do you smoke, and beside me, I like the odour." So Nell lit her cigarette. We all smoked cigarettes except the King, who in his purblind way took out a strange little cigar, short like a stunted stogie, with the end widened, fumbled about for some time on the mantelpiece and from a number of wooden cigar-holders scattered there, selected one and fixed his odd little cigar in it.

He seated himself on the English fender, stretching out his long legs in their puttees before him, a favorite posture of his, and motioned me to the chair near-by. Thus we had our coffee.

At the hospital (at La Panne) we were met by Dr. Depage, looking as out of place in khaki as doctors always do in uniform, not knowing in the least how to wear it---cap on the back of his head and spectacles far down on his nose. When last I saw him it was in Lambert's salon at Brussels, a long time ago that seems, he and his wife were there---his wife who went down on the Lusitania---whose body is buried here in the sand dunes near the hospital that she did so much to establish, the hospital that she fitted out with its American instruments and apparatus that she got while she was over there ....

We must go at once and look at the hospital. Depage is a very great surgeon, one of those men who is completely absorbed by his own occupation; he has but one interest in life, thinks and talks of but one thing and here in this vast establishment he is in his element. He showed us rigorously everything in it---and I detest being shown about hospitals, factories, and so on, it causes in me a fatigue and depression that are inexpressible. I always think of Riley, who accepted the invitation to go to Minneapolis provided they would not show him the new plough works. Well, Depage showed us everything, all the operating rooms, all of the dormitories where the wounded lay, all of the kitchens, all of the sterilizing plants, all of the offices for the doctors and surgeons, the laundry, the places where the nurses slept and where they ate, all the bathrooms, public and private, all the water closets, literally opened one door after another that not one should be missed.

It became confusing and I felt as though I were being whirled round and round through white operating rooms. In one of them a half dozen surgeons in white with their heads bound up and nurses were ready for an operation and on the table a naked woman with grey hair who hastily and instinctively gathered some sheets about her as we burst in upon her sacred privacy in this moment.

But Depage, with professional detachment, said:

"It is only a secondary operation," as if that made any difference! and led us on through. At last he took us to see the place where they manufacture artificial limbs and they do it splendidly. Really it was quite interesting; they take casts of the limbs and make a leg that is really like a man's, has toes carved in it, toes that will move. One of these legs costs thirty francs---$6.00---the most perfect leg ever made. In America, for an imperfect artificial leg, one pays six hundred francs or $120. These limbs are made by the war crippled and they make them for English officers, French officers, Belgian officers---for everybody except themselves. Depage had one man get up and show us how he could walk on his stump. Finally the long torment ended and that visit was over. But one must have great admiration for Depage, a splendid man and a humane one, who is doing a noble work. If I had twenty hats I'd take them off to him.

Just as we were going, his son arrived in uniform---a lad of sixteen who had just come out of the trenches---sprang at his father and kissed him, a touching scene. Many of the people in the hospital from Brussels asked me for news of their relatives, among them Emmanuel Janssen's brother. The nurses were all English, strong, ruddy, many of them pretty, healthy, and wholesome women.

Ah me! Those long white wards where the wounded lay, heads bandaged, arms dressed in splints, irrigating tubes and vessels about, some of them laughing, most of them happy; "the lucky wound"---the best they can have in life to be wounded and come to the rear.

Sunday, May 6, 1917.---Up early and away with adieux to de Broqueville and the soldiers saluting at the gate. A sunny morning, cooler than it had been, with the wind from the east. The chauffeurs drove like Jehus, eighty or ninety kilometres an hour, until near Crécy---what historic memories every name in these parts evokes!---the motor limped suddenly and gave out a terrible rattling sound precisely like that of machine-guns. I knew it was the left hind wheel. I tried to signal the chauffeur but he was looking up in the air evidently thinking of aëroplanes. We had been going so fast that the tread of a tire had been burned off. The chauffeur was principally sad because we should not get to Dieppe for luncheon. I asked him why it was necessary to get to Dieppe for luncheon; he did not know; simply another instance of an old vice in the human mind: l'idée fixe.

"I thought that you wished to lunch at the Tête de Boeuf."

"But we lunch at Eu just as well and you could perhaps go a little slower." And so we lunched again at Eu, and there was our Belgian officer with his petite amie once more.

The chauffeur took another route and we came back through Ste.-Valérie, Fécamp, Montivilliers, and Harfleur---Harfleur to which Henry V set out one day so long ago in other wars; back then at Ste.-Adresse for tea, and the dogs nearly frantic with joy at seeing us!

May 10, 1917---This morning, loud exclamations from Marie and Eugène in the hall---and there was Omer!---Omer, whom I had not seen since that morning long ago, when he knocked me up out of slumber at Bois Fleuri and stood there in my door, in linen trousers, blouse, and police cap---his hand at the salute, and said: "Excellence, c'est la guerre!"

Omer wears the police cap still, but of khaki now, and a khaki uniform, with leather puttees; he is bigger and all bronzed, and has a martial moustache---and he stands there grinning. We were glad to see him, and he glad to see us. He drives an ambulance now.

A call from Captain Priestley, head of the British Information Department, that is, spy system. Then Osborne, the consul, came, then Madame Carton de Wiart, who wished to hear about our trip to the front, and to talk over the publication of the translation she made, while in her prison cell at Berlin, of my Forty Years of It. This indefatigable woman has finished the translation, and it is in type---soon to be published. She wishes an introduction from my hand .... Has asked Berryer to wire Washington asking permission for me to accept the Order of Léopold.

The weather hot, and the news, especially that from Russia, where the radicals and doctrinaires are repeating their historic stupidity, is very depressing.

Have heard firing all day as though from the sea.

May 14, 1917.---We lunched today with General Nicholson, a fine type of English cavalry officer, commanding the British base here. He has a nice house near the Hôtel de Ville. His A.A.G. only other person there. Afterwards he took us in his motor to visit the base ---or part of it; it is too extensive to visit in an afternoon. We went to the salvage plant, where all the débris, all the rubbish, is brought back from the front---everything one can think of, blood-stained garments, accoutrements, cannon, guns, sabres, belts, 300,000 steel helmets---gruesome as a pile of skulls---gas masks with women testing them for holes, and so on. Six hundred women and girls are employed there. I was most interested in the camouflage of the many guns.

May 15, 1917.---I had, this morning, a call from Vandevyvere. He wishes to arrange a contract by which American capitalists will help to build up Belgium; they would like a loan to rehabilitate their railway system; they would like capital for the Congo, and so forth. It was, in a sense, a repetition of what the King said more generally and vaguely the other day, and afterwards of what the King had said about political arrangements, that at which van der Elst hinted---namely, that while Belgium hopes to be delivered from the hands of Germany, she doesn't wish to fall into the hands of England or of France; and she hopes that America will protect her in this and guarantee her neutrality.

May 16, 1917.---Lunched with Lord and Lady Kilmarnock.

After luncheon we went to Churchill's, British consul's, and then Churchill took us to see Mme. Trouvée, boulevard Strasbourg; she owns the country place that pleased us so the other day. It is indeed a charming spot; but the question of fuel and provisions worries us---one would have to go to Montivilliers, or to Osteville---the first four kilometres and the second three away---or else to Havre, about ten kilometres. Then, an automobile is necessary. Kilmarnock thinks the Belgian Government would give us a motor if I were to ask it, but I have no favours to ask of that institution. If after all that has happened they can't offer one---so be it.(12)

Mme. Trouvée proved to be a black-eyed, dark-skinned Norman woman, who at once adopted the tone common to most women when they talk business, namely that they are doing you a great favour, meanwhile demanding four prices for that which they are wild to sell. Much talk, then, about the beauty and desirability of the place; my husband loved it, had spent his summers there; my husband went out there even on Sundays when they were in town; my husband loved the open country, and so on and so on---my husband---dead these many years. There are many memories attached to the spot. I would not let the house to everybody---a great many would like to have it. Enfin---for all this she wants six hundred francs a month, no term less than three months, she reserving right of visit, and all the vegetables and so forth in the garden---we were not even to have the right of purchase. The souvenirs of my husband were, I presume, thrown in. We came away in disgust.

Tea at the hotel, and a call from the Osbornes, and then the worst dinner ever served on this planet. This hotel will drive me to some horrid crime yet! Such a thieving rascal as its proprietor was never seen.

The de Houcks in after dinner. They have been ordered to Washington. She is ill, and very sad, having just had word that her brother was killed in the Russian revolution. What a world we live in!

May 17, 1917.---Went with Osborne this morning to the coast near Osteville to see the wreck of an American ship, the S.S. Macona---the old City of Macon---which in the fog a night or two ago ran on the wreck of the hospital ship and tore open her side.

Wreck worth seeing but not worth going to see. English shipping man, Langstaff, there, with another man, arranging for saving the ship's cargo, worth $3,000,000.

Sunday, May 20, 1917.---We started at 10:30, Osborne the Consul and the two O'Rells in the O'Rell car for Etretât to have some golf, but it rained and we were late in leaving, so Osborne suggested we turn off and go to Gonneville, where he said there was an excellent restaurant formerly frequented by artists and quite famous for "its old dishes." I had a vague memory of Marshall Sheppey having mentioned some such restaurant to me but when Osborne spoke about another at St.-Jouin kept by La Belle Ernestine I remembered that that was the place of which he had spoken.

We went to Gonneville and to the hotel, an old house, its façade hung with plates and curios and pictures, all in the worst possible taste .... We drove then to St.-Jouin and to the restaurant of La Belle Ernestine, a charming house tucked away in a beautiful garden, the façade hung with the beautiful lavender color wistaria vines. The house inside was another museum, full of pictures and letters from Dumas Père et Fils, Gustave Flaubert, from de Maupassant, and pictures and little designs and sketches in crayon, one of them by Corot, and all dedicated with the homage of the author to La Belle Ernestine. La Belle Ernestine a little on the wane, a heavy fleshy woman in sabots, with white hair, who once may have been beautiful, her eyes indeed are charming still. She herself was interested when she found out I was a writer, and showed me all the letters, which she knows by heart, had much to say of de Maupassant, who was her great friend, some indeed intimate that he was something more. There was a photograph of him as a young man dedicated to La Belle Ernestine from her old and platonic friend, Guy de Maupassant. "He wrote Pierre et Jean here," she said to me. "He worked here a great deal. He would come and say to me: 'Tell me stories,' and I would tell him all I knew. Well, afterwards I saw them published in the journals, but not the way I had told them. All rearranged, you know." Oh yes, I could well imagine!(13)

She got down her album and asked me to write in it and I wrote: "And did you once see Shelley plain? "---Browning's poem. "And now," she said, "you will translate it for me into French," and so I translated it into French and she said "It is very lovely." She said that many people had come there trying to find out about her relations with de Maupassant, but that she would never tell. Once she had been asked to receive a woman journalist and she promised to do so. "But," she said, "the war had started, so she never came."---Like so many other things we were going to do if the war hadn't come!

She wanted me to come there and live awhile and I thought something of doing so; it is a charming place, one would be very quiet there. "You could write here," she said to me, "as much as you wish, and I would give you good things to eat, you know, ten francs a day all included; not the little dishes like the big hotels but as much as you wanted; you could tell me just what you desired."

But some discreet questioning elicited the fact that there were certain modern conveniences lacking. Pioneer life has no attraction for me even in such a romantic and charming spot, peopled by so many ghosts of the great who have gone...

She asked me then to go out and look at a house that belongs to her son, Besnard, the painter, whose father was the lover of La Belle Ernestine and who was also a painter. And so we went out in the rain to have a look at the house. It proved to be a great Norman hotel that the son evidently built with some view of accommodating the travelers from Etretât that the little grey house with the wistaria vines could not receive. There was a little grey church with a little Norman tower nearby. Inside they were singing the salutation, and I stood a long while there under the porch listening to the sweet music with emotions that are not to be described.

Then we went for a walk, crept down the strand along by the beach and then crept up again, across the fields with an excellent appetite for dinner to La Belle Ernestine. Nice white pieces of bread and real Norman butter and then we drove away and came home after a charming day even if we didn't have any golf.

June 7, 1917.---The dispatches today say that yesterday in America, amid an impressive quiet, 10,250,000 men between twenty-one and thirty enrolled in the army of democracy. What joy the news brings us! What solemn pride and gratitude!

But the English do not seem to be especially pleased! We gave a large dinner tonight in honour of Berryer---and Sir Francis only grunted when I spoke of it to him---hemmed and hawed. Nellidow, however, congratulated me---poor chap, he is ashamed of his own foolish country.

Sunday, June 10, 1917.---Drove out to look at another country house. Impossible---worst French bourgeois taste ....

Pershing has arrived in London.

This afternoon as Nell and I were driving through town, we saw three companies of soldiers in khaki, their colours in cases.(14) English, we thought; and were paying no attention, then something caught my eye---the colour of the khaki, the tunic, something---I know not what, and I said, "No, they're Americans!" And sure enough, they were, and we passed them, as it were, in review. Nell wept for joy, and at sight of the little flag on our car, those sturdy boys from home broke into broad grins.

June 11, 1917.---I have neglected my journal---dull and blue and liverish these days---and France in a bad way, very much discouraged. I forget to enter things---such as a fitting celebration of Ribot's speech in the Chamber, and the refusal of the French Government to let the Socialist asses go to Stockholm---and the names of the Belgian mission, contained in van der Elst's note, and the fact that the Ohio Wesleyan University has given me the degree of LL.D., and that Lansing has cabled telling me to send my Order of Léopold to Washington and that I may have it when I revert to private life. Nor have I properly characterized the dishonesty of the Normans, who rob everybody, prices here higher than in Belgium---nor have I properly stigmatized the black-browed robber who conducts this miserable hotel, notable as the worst villain unguillotined in France.

Pershing's staff has landed in France---Boulogne---an historical event worthy a poem, if I had enough sense left in my muddled head to write a poem.

I have heard a good story on King George V by the Grace of God, King---and so forth. When Paul Hymans presented his letters, the King, trying to speak French, said: "Je tacherai de vous supporter jusqu'à la fin de la guerre." Hymans, who knows English and saw at once the English translation, tells it.

June 12, 1917.---The situation in France is critical. The people are sadly discouraged. The papers are full of it---and of articles trying to buck them up. Much is made of the American preparations and of President Wilson's noble message to the Russians. It is a great state paper. He is easily the foremost mind of his generation.

Duranty says that winter will bring revolution to France---a coup d'état. Meanwhile Spain is on the point of revolution, the pro-German army threatening a Government by junta, and Italy has a crisis over Albania.

Today Violette announces that the supply of gas in hotels will be limited and there is to be hot water only on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The latter restriction will make little difference because the French nation, while heroic, only bathes once a week, and most of it not even then. The restriction does not apply to Paris where the Government fears the mob, and the restrictions in general apply only to hotels---because the occupants of the hotels have no votes.

June 19, 1917.---What a night! Fever and the wild phantasmagoria of awful dreams! There was a terrific storm---such thunder and lightning!

The Havre newspaper has a column all white from the censor; much more sensational and provoking than any story could be. The censored parts seem to have contained accounts of a race riot in town last night. Some Moroccan soldiers assaulted and finally killed a French soldier; afterwards French, and some say English soldiers, pursued the Negroes and killed about twenty of them, so that our land does not seem to be the only one where Negroes are mistreated.

I have the rest, as I suppose, of the story Berryer gave me Sunday as to the offer of peace by Germany to Russia. The papers today are full of the expulsion of Grimm, the Swiss Socialist, from Russia. And from Stockholm comes a dispatch, published in all the papers, of a proposition he was authorized by Hoffman to make to the Russian Government. Hoffman is that little man I saw at Berne, member of the national council for Switzerland, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, boche to the core, and now caught red-handed at his despicable little tricks. It will be interesting to watch him explaining.

Van der Elst came early this morning and left a note telling me of a house. We went for him in the motor at eleven, and together sallied forth to inspect the house. A curious, charming old place in the rue Jacques Louer---a pretty garden, enormous atelier, salon, and so on, much atmosphere, perhaps too much. Shown over the house by a pretty young French girl; then went, on advice, to see sisters of the proprietor---two old maids, in a charming setting---high voices, talking their excited French both at the same time. Live there with their purblind brother, who arrived bearing a bunch of lettuce---which one of the sisters snatched from him so that we shouldn't see him burdened so menially. Have wired proprietor, or proprietress.

June 29, 1917.---Twenty-five years ago tonight! Susie!(15) Ay di mi, ay di mi!

Lunched with Nicholson, Nell and I. Colonel Garrett said the American troops had arrived, he had seen the statement in a London paper. It is not in the French. We drove to the base camps at Harfleur, saw the soldiers in training---bomb throwing, bayonet charges, trench building and so on and so on. Tea with Colonel Harrison, a fine typical old English gentleman-at his headquarters ---officers of the Guard there, Duke, Stair, and so forth. An interesting time.

Wrote to Maeterlinck.

Can't finish my speech(16) to my satisfaction. I'm losing my grip, or something---and I can't make speeches to stir up hate. What I have written has a cheap, rhetorical sound. This war has so confused my ideas that I don't know any more---don't know. I know that democracy ought to win, must win, but---I don't like the stupendous folly of war. And yet what argument would prevail with that lunatic whom the silly Germans adore and prostrate themselves before? If you aren't patient enough to argue with a man, and convince him, and if your arguments don't come to mind rapidly enough---since thinking is hard work!---knock him down. That's war. But what if he knocks you down first? Nature is always with war. Different microbes have been warring in my arm for two weeks!(17)

Note from the Queen the other day thanking me for the medal.

Too lazy to write out the details of our visit to the base camps, and yet it might be worth while. Impressions remain with me-the company waiting to go forward, resting for a moment, on the ground, in their low, flat steel helmets (which save many a life) all of one colour, that of the ground, and therefore of a "low visibility"---yellow, drab, brown. Then the snub-nosed, enthusiastic director of athletics, working hard, shouting at his men as they went through the setting up exercises; the horses trotting about in rings, as at a circus---very much like a circus, the whole splendid organization; the camp of the "immatures"; then the gardens, lawns, flower-beds the men have made, one with the "red hand of Ulster" set out in red flowers, at the headquarters of the Ulster division; others for the Horse Guards, Life Guards, Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, and so on.

Off in the distance across the valley, where the original huts were, the church at Harfleur, built by the English during the English occupation. The French every autumn have a celebration to commemorate the departure of the English, who were driven out when the garrison was low, by the French. They still have the celebration, and always invite the English officers, who attend. "They do it so nicely, the French," said Nicholson, "so politely. We could never do it---we couldn't carry it off; we would be awkward and ashamed and self-conscious."

June 30, 1917.---Worked all afternoon on my speech, a dreadful task. I can't get it right, can't get it to suit me. I wish I could tear it up and chuck the whole business! The trouble is that I am trying to meet the expectations of others, and in these days of patriotic hatreds, everybody wants a lot of blood and bluster. I have moments of hating the Germans as much as anybody---they are, of course, a lot of savages, but I don't care to make records of the fact ....

While at Schobert's this morning, I met the Mayor of Havre, a rather pleasing and serious little man with a pointed beard and shrewd eyes. He expressed regret that I could not be here for the Franco-American celebration of the 4th of July. Really I am glad I shall not be here. The celebration was not arranged by Havre at all, but by Paris. The people of Havre are of course glad that the Americans are coming, but only because they hope to get their hands in the American pockets and rob them; and they stand about now with itching fingers, hoping that the American base will be here. It will not, by the way, but they don't know it, and in the meantime, so Garrett says, even the English can't rent so much as a furnished room, the Havrois holding everything for the grand spoliation of the Americans.

Sunday, July 1, 1917.---Reading Tolstoy's journals. Like many great finds it is not so great as I thought it would be. Much of it is unintelligible, vague thoughts that came to him from time to time and were not therein developed. He himself is always saying "Not clear!" or "I contradict myself." Now and then there is some flash, some note of the old fire, the mordant touch characteristic of him, but much of it only bored me.

Began reading the address of Alfred Capus on the occasion of his reception at the Académie, but didn't finish it. It is in clear, beautiful French, but he is like the orator to whom the Negro listened for two hours and greatly admired, and when asked what the orator was talking about, scratched his head and said: "Dat he didn't exactly mention."

Nell and I went to the house in the rue Jacques Louer to see Mme. Chauminot, the holder. She wished a clause permitting her to re-enter when she wished, but I refused, and she agreed to a lease for six months. We hope to begin the troubles of housekeeping on our return from Paris the end of the week.

The American troops are here at last. They landed the 26th at-------a port on the Atlantic, probably Brest or St. Nazaire. The papers are full of it. It is an historic event, so big in its implications, its possibilities, that one can't grasp it at all. We hope to see them at Paris on the 4th.

Have been busy most of the day writing declinations for various events here at Havre on the 4th-the Belgians' salute of our flag at 9 A.M., a luncheon here at noon, a meeting in the evening. Wrote Didelot, and Morgand, Mayor of Havre, and others.

Call this morning from Paul Otlet, who as usual has a grand transcendent scheme for remodeling the world, this time a "Study Congress for the Realization of a Society of Nations." He stayed an hour, but I insisted this time on doing most of the talking myself, and so enjoyed his visit more than I should otherwise have done.

The newspapers say that President Wilson has asked Congress to permit me to accept the Order of Léopold the King gave me. I was surprised to read it.

Decided tonight to change my speech to suit me, and not try to please every one else.

July 4, 1917.---I write this at Ste.-Adresse;(18) there was no time at Paris, in the midst of all that hurly-burly and confusion. And it will be a task to catch up, a task to remember and set down all. Strangely enough, I had none of the emotions or thrills I expected, though seen in retrospect it is apparent that I assisted at historic, memorable scenes. What a day! For me, of hard-work, a splitting headache, mad confusion, evidences of human weakness, vanity, pettiness---and of disappointments. The ceremonies began with some sort of reception, a presentation of colours and I know not what, at the Invalides at eight o'clock or half past. I wasn't there; the Embassy sent my ticket to me at 10:20, two hours after the show was over; no matter, I shouldn't have gone anyway. I arose at that hour-with a severe headache. Topping's copies of my speech were illegible and I had to hunt up a stenographer, a pretty French girl, to make new French copies. A letter from a Mr. Howland received the night before had told me that he would call at ten that morning, ten sharp the letter said, with his motor to take me to Picpus.(19) Was ready at ten; no Howland; 10:05 -- 10:10 -- 10:15 -- 10:20 -- Howland. At 10:25 Nell and I went downstairs, got a taxi, and away we dashed.

But I anticipate. At 9:30 Nell, hearing a brass band play, rushed out. The hotel was in confusion; the King of Montenegro was there, with a balcony to review the parade. But I was struggling with that detestable speech; and yet I heard the band, it was playing "Marching Through Georgia!" I could not withstand that! And so downstairs, and out into the rue de Rivoli bareheaded. There was the crowd sweeping along the street below the great iron fence of the Tuileries, from curb to curb, with no order, men, women, children trotting along, hot, excited, trying to keep up with the slender column of our khaki-clad regulars, who marched briskly along. French soldiers in their light blue trotted beside them, as closely as they could get, looking at them with almost childish interest and wonder, as boys trot hurrying beside a circus parade. Our soldiers were covered with flowers---and always the steady roar of the crowd and now and then cries of Vive l'Amérique! Then there was the flag! Our beautiful flag! My throat closed! One moment of that emotion, of the blur and mist of tears---then I went back. After all, the confusion detracted; it would have been more impressive if it had been more orderly, though there was tremendous enthusiasm.

Back then upstairs to wait for Howland and his motor, at ten sharp. And, as I said, 10:20 came, and no sign of him. Then downstairs and into a taxi and off through those crowded streets toward the place de la Bastille. I had no idea where Picpus Cemetery was and I began to think the taxi-driver had as little; it is not well known. I remember that we went bouncing past the place before the Hôtel de Ville, and some sort of ceremony was going on there; the streets were filled with the Paris crowd, which is not different from our American crowd on any day of fête or circus. The whole city, of course, was hung with flags; we had observed them the night before as we drove from the station to our hotel. The charming city was en fête. There was not that senseless, ugly mass of tossing bunting, so common and so commonplace with us when we "decorate" our cities, but only the trophies of flags on the fine façades, the flags of all the Allies, but for the most part the flags of France, England, and America---which was as it should have been. But the flags of the two republics predominated---and that too was as it should be.

We bounced along and I was in a stew, what with my aching head and the heat and heavy atmosphere; it was getting grey and lowering. But at length my cabby turned into la rue Picpus---the name was reassuring, and then I knew we were drawing near our destination, because the numerous squads of policemen began to stop us. I had nothing to show them, unless it were the copy of my speech in my pocket, not even a card of admission. But they were Frenchmen and all I had to say, when they demanded my credentials, "Monsieur has his card, his ticket?" was "No, Monsieur, unfortunately, but if you will permit me to explain---" Then, salutes, and "Certainly, monsieur"---and we went through the line. Three or four times I explained thus, and at last, there was a wall and an open gate, and that was the Picpus Cemetery. We got in, even if we had no cards, and there we were---a paved courtyard, old walls, a cloister, and somewhere, in the confusion, a nun, fat and rosy and all in white. And I saw Frazer, of the Embassy, and one of the secretaries and felt safer. We strolled on, through a quiet garden, old, redolent of the past. They say that is the convent Victor Hugo describes in Les Miserables; it is as serene as that one was, at any rate, and as inviting. Only its memories are disturbing, for there somewhere is the ditch in which they threw the bodies of the victims of the guillotine after they were removed from the place de la Revolution, now become instead the place de la Concorde. Lafayette's mother-in-law was among them. I should like to visit the spot another time, but I never shall.

We stood and gossiped a long time. Some one introduced Admiral Greaves to me; he brought over the troops... my head splitting .... Then, noise, confusion, rushing under the low branches of the trees, and there was Ambassador Sharp, in a long frock coat and public smile, and Mrs. Sharp, and Pershing, and Joffre! I did have a thrill then! Presentations---Painlevé, minister of war, Viviani, who made the voyage to America. Pershing, a splendid, upstanding, solid man, and then---Joffre! They were forming a little procession to go on into the cemetery proper---we were then in a sort of a garden of the convent. Cox, the little man who had arranged the affair, was hopping about, with his comic face drawn, his long frock coat swaying, his starched white waistcoat much in evidence, with an order of some sort hung about his neck---a yellow ribbon, I don't know what---hopping about like a clown, getting us into line, but that was difficult, for every one was looking out for himself and keeping an eager eye on the cameras. I seem, however, not to have done so badly myself, for I was walking beside Joffre, talking with him. He is a heavy, compact man, well set-up, with a goodly paunch, and a sanguine, calm, steady disposition, evidently amiable and well poised. Too fat, with white hair and white moustache that once was reddish, probably, soft, whitish flesh, not particularly distinguished, though to be marked and pointed out, in his boots, his kepi with much gold, a star on his breast, and on his sleeve the six stars of a Maréchal de France. The crowd was enthusiastic, frenzied, rushed at him, their eyes glowing, people put out hands to touch him, and all the while there were cries of "Vive Joffre! Vive Joffre! How much they love you!" I remarked. And he replied, simply, "Yes, indeed," as though it were only natural. How an Englishman or an American would have beamed and bowed had one made such a remark to him!

We were in the cemetery now, a little plot of ancient stones, almost hidden by the crowd. Near the wall, beside a crypt, with a grating before a flat stone railed about, on which was the word "Lafayette," a red tribune had been erected. Cox told me to speak in English. I had prepared in French but brought my English manuscript with me. Painlevé wished me to translate the other speeches into French .... All was confusion, terrible confusion; a restless crowd, interested principally in Joffre, no cohesion, no atmosphere, no expectancy, no interest in the speeches. Cox introduced Sharp, who spoke, evidently having had no preparation. (Coming along Mrs. Sharp had remarked to Nell that this event didn't really amount to anything.) Then Cox introduced me. I read my English version to an inattentive, uninterested crowd. Clouds were lowering, the weather had a chip on its shoulder. I was boring them fearfully and so hurried through a speech that I had worked over for a month, and that never should have been delivered. Draw a veil over that mistaken performance, and over the horrid memory of the agonies of that twenty minutes, draw it for evermore! It was to me the most painful experience of twenty-five years of public speaking, showing the utter folly and sad waste of time involved in any preparation. I wish I could forget it! I wish I could forget it! Draw the veil; draw the veil!

Colonel Stanton, a typical American army officer of the rough variety, made a speech, or harangue, waving his arms, beating the tribune---annihilated the whole German race, Kaiser and all, in his fury, had a tremendous success, was wildly applauded.(20) Painlevé made a charming speech. Such beautiful diction, such lovely pellucid French. I was charmed, utterly, and saddened by my own wretched, mistaken performance. I shall not forget either speech, his or mine---I fear. I shall not, I know, forget that moment when he turned his dark, typically French face towards me, and said, his eyes flashing as with fire: "But the United States also knows that for three years the French Army has been like an army of security for civilization and that its blood, etc. Et ils ne veulent pas, suivant le mot d'un de leurs penseurs, que la France soit comme un bûcher splendide qui illuminerait le monde en se consummant."

Pershing, though not expecting to speak, could not resist---he said he found the occasion overwhelming---and he said a few words, very simply, very quietly, very dignifiedly; precisely the right thing, in perfect taste.

It was over. But no, a poor man, in shabby garments, with the flowing black cravat of the artist, mounted the tribune---we were turning away---and stood there. I can see his pale face, his white hair, his frayed collar, his poor, poor clothes (what tragedy there!), and holding a few bits of soiled paper in hands that trembled, he read some verses---ah me!

Then the mob rushed out. More confusion. A man was to drive me back to my hotel. I could not find him. I could not find Nell anywhere. Dr. Jones, consul at Lyons, offered me his seat in Mrs. Sharp's automobile, but I refused. A Belgian officer came up and thanked me for what I had done for Belgium, and Howland came to apologize for not having come for me as agreed in his motor in the morning.

I was to speak then at the luncheon of the Chamber of Commerce, at the Hôtel Palais d'Orsay. I had been assured by Cox that a motor would be awaiting me. There was none. No cab, no taxi, nothing. After refusing a seat in Mrs. Sharp's motor, I set out on foot---hot, angry, with a fearful headache, in that sultry Paris noon. No taxis, the city being in the throes of a strike of chauffeurs ... on and on. Finally, near the place de la Bastille, I found an old fiacre. The driver was reluctant; we had a long discussion. Finally he agreed to take me, and we rattled on along streets that could not lose their charm, even for an angry public speaker hastening from one failure to another. It was nearly half past when I arrived at the Palais d'Orsay, the luncheon well under way. Four hundred there, and a long, high table of honour with the whole French Government present---Joffre, Pershing and others. I sat next to Thomas, just back from his Russian mission. A bright, typical labor leader and agitator, one of those who mount on the shoulders of the poor they would aid. Very interesting and capable. Ribot, hands trembling, a fine old figure, read an excellent address. Sharp spoke; wholly inadequate to the occasion, but no more so than I, my speech was miserable. A day begun in disaster and not to be repaired. At the end Pershing arose and proposed the health of the French army, which we drank standing. There were cries for Viviani, but no response.

A nice young English officer drove me to my hotel in his motor. Then I went to Hill's, then on to the American Embassy for the reception. Came away at 10:30, the Hapgoods walking along with us under the arcades of the rue de Rivoli, Norman in his bare head. At the rue des Pyramides a crowd filled the street, mysterious there in the shadows, for Paris streets of course are all dark at night now. The crowd was singing, cheering, and we went forward and joined it to learn why. On a balcony overhead a half dozen young American army officers were gathered and they were singing popular American songs, but with order, with method. The Americans would sing a song, some ribald, popular song-and the French would listen respectfully. Then, the song finished, the French would politely applaud and at once return the compliment by singing a French song, usually "La Marseillaise," for they were evidently under the impression that the songs the Americans were singing were patriotic hymns. There were, perhaps, so far as the Americans could recall, patriotic hymns; they did sing "John Brown's Body," but they were for the most part such things as "My Wife's Gone to the Country." It was strange, large in its implications and charming, that dim crowd in the darkness, indistinct, impressionistic, the clear piping voices of children rising shrill above the voices of the older folk: "Allons enfants de la patrie!"

And the soldiers on the balcony, growing hoarse-waving their arms, shouting down their snatches of song.

Then some one cried Vive Monsieur l'Ambassadeur! and I realized that it was my tall hat, so conspicuous above the darkling mass, that had given me this unhappy distinction. "I beg of you!" I replied. They laughed, and were kind---the Paris crowd in its amiable mood, far other than what those precincts have witnessed, may witness? But women beside me wished to know what the boys were singing and I translated some of the songs. The soldiers were tired and out of songs; they had got back to "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean!" and now, with a flagging energy and a hoarseness that was even beyond the power of whistling, their leader, in shirt sleeves, was leaning over the balcony waving his arms and singing:

"Farewell, farewell, my own true love."

"What are they singing now?" asked the woman.

"They are singing a song of farewell," I said. "Farewell, farewell, my good friend!"

"But it is not yet time for that," she replied; "it is too early."

But it wasn't too early for me. I was dead tired and we went to the hotel and to bed. But not to sleep. A party of American officers, in a room of the Meurice across the courtyard from us, were still celebrating the Glorious Fourth, with loud, coarse, drunken shouts and the silly talk of drunken men, in the vulgarest of vulgar American voices far, far into the night, and towards the morning.

July 5, 1917.---One thing that should have been in yesterday's record; in the newspapers for the Fourth there was announcement of awards of the Legion of Honour. Among others, and at the head of the list, Hoover has it, and deserves it fully; then Whitney Warren, who has made an ass of himself about Paris ever since the war began, criticizing anything American, especially President Wilson; and then---oh, ye gods!---of all the ironies!---Poland! "For having vigorously protested against the deportations!"... I read it with an amazement I still retain; protested! Somewhere in this journal, if I did not consider it too insignificant to set down, there is a record of how Poland went to the Grand Headquarters of the Germans last summer when Gerard was there, and made a break, mentioning at table the depredations at Lille---and we had to work a month to overcome the effects of his caprice and save the revictualing. And Poland has the Legion of Honour for that; while Kellogg, whom Hoover sent for to replace Poland, because of Poland's unnecessary gaffe---Kellogg, whose exquisite tact and patient, careful, intelligent, devoted work for more than a year kept going the relief that Poland nearly ruined---Kellogg's name isn't even mentioned. Sunt lachrymœ rerum!...(21)

Nell and I lunched with Edith Wharton at her apartment, 5, rue de Varenne. Walter Berry, Joseph Reinach, the "Polybe" of le Figaro, there, an immensely clever little Jew, very entertaining and alive; very intelligent too. Said: "Roosevelt should be very grateful to President Wilson for keeping him from becoming a Garibaldi, and giving him a chance to remain closer to Washington."...

The Chinese Minister came to tea with us, he and his wife, to thank me for getting his Legation out of Brussels. Will Irwin and his wife came, then Colby---all to tea. Will Irwin told a charming story about Paderewski playing for Joffre at the Metropolitan. Paderewski was playing when Joffe arrived; the audience rose to acclaim Joffre, forgetting Paderewski. Elsie de Wolfe, who feared Paderewski might be offended, spoke to him next day; he had been oblivious! "When I thought that I was playing for Joffre," said he, "playing for that great man, I played as I never have played before in my life!" And that playing lost in uproar! Irwin also told of Sharp's speech in Poincaré's presence. "I am glad to be here, in the presence of such people as President Poincaré and the lady who is now his wife." To those who know!

Cox came at six, or half past, and stayed an hour. Poor little man, I quite forgave him when I heard of all his troubles. He was in despair, half-distracted, before that performance at Picpus, because there is a mortal enmity between the two branches of the Lafayette family, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Chambruns. They are both anxious to be identified with Lafayette nowadays ---a recrudescence of interest in a man and a hero of whom there is not a life in French literature---and both factions were there yesterday morning, ready to spring at each other's throats! Cox feared a duel; and Chambrun had nearly stopped the whole proceedings through governmental interference---because he feared the Marquis would be called on to respond!

It is typical of Paris these summer days. Such littleness, such petty spite and jealousy everywhere! The best of France seems dead ---save the noble army, of course. There is always the memory of that glorious past, inseparable from the present, of course. But there is so much meanness. Walter Berry told me that he had asked Pershing to toast the French army, and Joffre to toast the American army; Pershing did so, Joffre was willing, but the Government would not permit him to do so; so jealous are they all of Joffre's popularity! Joseph Reinach said that at the déjeuner he had great pleasure in studying the faces of the Ministers, the various shades of envy and jealousy. Those calls for Viviani, for instance---to which he did not dare respond! France has been, of course, terribly discouraged, though the coming of the Americans has buoyed them up. Still, these summer days of 1917, after three years of war, Paris is much the same---lovely, ah lovely! Nell and I had a charming stroll this evening down the rue de Rivoli and in the place de la Concorde in a silver twilight. The trees winding over the Champs Elysées---the façade of the Crillon---the memories---Louis XVI---ah me! How time, and art, and taste had worked well together to produce this city; the loveliest of the works of man, and there, a hundred kilometres away, the barbarous Germans who had scientific plans for destroying it!

July 6, 1917.---A beautiful day of bright sunshine, summer in Paris! Shopping most of the morning.

Yesterday while standing before Hanan's waiting for Nell, three American soldiers came up to me. "Can you talk English?" asked one of them. "A little," I replied. "Do you know a store, Fuller's, I think, where one can get ice cream?" I found out from the clerks where "Fuller's "---Fullères, as the clerks all pronounced it---is, and sent the boys off happy. Met Scranton too, excessively smart in an English officer's uniform---some ambulance service, I judge---scrupulously natty---but the English uniform is so smart, so swanking, more so than ours or anybody's. At first I didn't like it; but I was mistaken, it is far and away the smartest of any. The French is abominable---that pale blue! And on the heels of Scranton, came Sperry, huge and husky in the fuzzy Belgian uniform---not smart at all. Glad to see Sperry; he is with Curtis;(22) both in the Belgian army and at the front.

Nell and I had another charming walk. Tuileries, Louvre, across the Seine and along the quai d'Orsay---in the sun, forgetting the war for a minute or two---realizing Paris again! Then to the Café de Paris for déjeuner, and finally at five off for Havre. I am always leaving, leaving Paris, London and Brussels, the cities I love---never, never arriving. Back to dirty, filthy Havre and the vilest of all imaginably vile places on this earth---Ste.-Adresse.