were cabs at the station, and a tram. Having shown my carnet rouge, I was permitted to leave the dépôt, and the officials stationed there to examine papers directed me to a hotel with a resounding name: “Haute-Mère-Dieu.” This was situated in a large square in which there was nothing to be seen but a line of gray military automobiles and three or four cabs. The upper windows about the square were all closed. The shops looked very quiet. It was a gray scene, and the stillness was oppressive, sinister.

     However, the hotel was not unattractive. As I entered the vaulted passageway I saw that it was built about a court, and caught a glimpse of a pleasant tearoom. Entering a door on the left, I found myself in the office of the concièrge, and its chair was occupied by a girl of about twenty-two who was reading a novel. If she had been an American she would have been chewing gum. I asked her if I could have a room for the night and she asked me if I had been to the Bureau de Place and received permission to remain in the town. I could not have a room until my carnet rouge had been stamped by this dignitary. Could I have a cup of tea (it was 2:30 and I had missed lunch) and then leave my bag in the office while I ascertained if I should graciously be permitted to remain overnight, or be sent back to Paris? She yawned, nodded, touched a bell, gave an order for tea, and returned to her novel.

     I had a very good cup of tea and then went out and hired a cab by the hour, as I had a letter to the Préfet from M. Joseph Reinach and also wanted to see something of the town. At the Bureau de Place an imposing official read my carnet rouge, looked at my picture and record on the first page, and then turned to me with narrowed eyelids. I drew a short breath and shifted from one foot to the other. Frenchmen have very keen eyes and when they half close them you feel as if blinking aside a knife-blade. If I had had a guilty secret during that trip into the war zone I should have given it up. Indeed, so often did I encounter this glance that I began to wonder uneasily if there were not something wrong with me, if there were not depths of treachery in me that I so far had not suspected, if I really had not in some moment of aberration committed a wrong against France. Such is the power of suggestion, of moving constantly in an atmosphere of suspicion. But I reminded myself that I had heard a few days since that there was a price on my head in Germany, and took courage.

     “What had I come to the war zone for?” “To visit the base hospitals.” “Ah?” “No, I was not a nurse. I was inspecting in behalf of my oeuvre, Le Bienêtre du Blessé. I was also writing a book about the women of France in war time.” “Ah!” Again that steel blade between narrowed lids. I bethought me of the letter from the Minister of War. The atmosphere cleared as by magic. My carnet rouge was stamped, and I was bowed out not only with the politeness to which I was accustomed, but with frank pleasant eyes, wide open, and some practical information regarding the formalities of departure.

     After I had called on the Préfet and driven about the gray, silent, shuttered town, and seen practically no evidences of life but hundreds of army wagons (there are trenches just outside of the town, but no permit would take me there), I wondered what I was to do with myself until the morrow. My object in stopping at Châlons was to make it a headquarters from which I could visit the other towns, but this, I had found, was impossible; I could go nowhere that day and return for the night. It was only 3:30. I had no intention of visiting the hospitals at Châlons, as there were two at Bar-le-Duc to which I had personal letters. I told the coachman to drive to the shopping street, if there was such a thing. He drove to a street in which there were a few shops. In one I found a Dumas novel and bought it—“Le Collier de la Reine!” Then I went back to the hotel and once more interviewed the young lady at the desk. She was still reading the novel, but condescended to inspect my carnet rouge and to give me her own permission to pass the night in the hotel. I could not have a front room, however; they were all taken by officers. She rang her bell, and a servant escorted me across the court, which contained a stable under one side of the hotel, and up a rickety staircase to a sombre room on the first floor. I immediately inspected the bed—I had brought a bottle of turpentine—but the maid announced with pride that the sheets were washed after every guest and that the hotel was famous for its neatness. I asked her if the natural color of the blanket was gray, and she nodded with a reassuring smile. The linen certainly was clean, and, as a matter of fact, the turpentine was supererogatory. However, I still harbor doubts about the blankets.

     What was I to do in this war town seventeen kilometers from the soundless front (I had been told that when Verdun was thundering people rocked in their beds)? It was too hot to walk and there was nothing more to see. There was, indeed, no resource but the necklace of Marie Antoinette.

     The room was dark, with a window in one corner. I carried the least uncomfortable chair to this window, and there, amid the silences of the tomb and the aromas of the stable, I read a story of 1784. This was the war zone which it took weeks of plotting and the most powerful influences to reach.

     However, there was still the morrow and Bar-le-Duc.

HORRORS OF THE HOTEL LIFE IN THE WAR ZONE

PARIS, August 8.

ooking from the windows of the train between Paris and Châlons, I had seen little evidence of war beyond the rigid sentries with their upright guns standing beside the track at intervals of two or three hundred yards—two beside the bridges which have been rebuilt and are once more of stone. But on the following day, after passing Vitry, the crosses among the wheat became abundant, and between Révigny and Bar-le-Duc there had evidently been no attempt to till the fields, which had a curious burned look. This, I was afterward told, was due to the poisonous gases and frequent bombardments. More than half of Révigny is in ruins, and wrecks strew the way to the far more important town, which is intact.

     Once more the train, which had started at Paris and was bound for Nancy, was crowded with officers and soldiers, but a great many descended at Bar-le-Duc, no doubt to go by automobile to Verdun or by branch lines to other points near the front. At all events, I left the train with such a mass of blue uniforms that it was a long time before I could reach the exit gate, and then, as I was the only stranger, I was held up until a more important official could be found to inspect my carnet rouge. As he was very amiable and passed me on promptly, I asked him to tell me the name of the best hotel in Bar-le-Duc. He threw his hands up. Mon Dieu! The best! There was a place called Hotel du Commerce. But! Well, I had been told at Châlons that it was the “least bad,” and started off with resignation. After all, one is not trained to expect luxuries in the war zone, and the hotel at Châlons had been endurable.

     I emerged into the large open space behind the station. It was filled with that curious surging mass of soldiers who in time come to seem almost like “properties.” There were also two or three gray army automobiles, but not a cab, not a tram, not a porter. I inquired if it were possible to find a boy to carry my bag. No. Visitors were unusual. Boys did not come down to the station in the hope of picking up a franc. Where was the Hotel du