I am frank to say that I could not eat the veal and spinach, and confined myself to the potatoes and bread.  But no doubt real hunger is a radical cure for fastidiousness.

Later in the day Madame Verone took me to the once famous Abbaye, now a workroom for the dressers of dolls, a revived industry which has given employment to hundreds of women.  Some of the wildest revels of Paris had taken place in the restaurant now incongruously lined with rows of dolls dressed in every national costume of Allied Europe.  They sat sedately against the walls, Montenegrins, Serbians, Russians, Italians, Sicilians, Roumanians, Poilus, Alsatians, Tommies,[C] a strange medley, correctly but cheaply dressed.  At little tables, mute records of disreputable nights, sat women stitching, and outside the streets of Montmartre were as silent as the grave.

  [C] No doubt there are now little Uncle Sams.

II

A few days later I was introduced to a case of panurgy that would have been almost extreme in any but a Frenchwoman.

Madame Camille Lyon took me to call on Madame Pertat, one of the most successful doctors in Paris.  I found both her history and her personality highly interesting, and her experience no doubt will be a severe shock to many Americans who flatter themselves that we alone of all women possess the priceless gift of driving initiative.

Madame Pertat was born in a provincial town, of a good family, and received the usual education with all the little accomplishments that were thought necessary for a young girl of the comfortable bourgeoisie.  She confessed to me naively that she had coquetted a good deal.  As her brother was a doctor and brought his friends to the house it was natural that she should marry into the same profession; and as she continued to meet many doctors and was a young woman of much mental curiosity and a keen intelligence it was also natural that she should grow more and more deeply interested in the science of medicine and take part in the learned discussions at her table.

One day her husband, after a warm argument with her on the new treatment of an old disease, asked her why she did not study medicine.  She had ample leisure, no children, and, he added gallantly, a mind to do it justice.

The suggestion horrified her, as it would have horrified her large family connection and circle of friends in that provincial town where standards are as slowly undermined as the cliffs of France by the action of the sea.

Shortly afterward they moved to Paris, where her husband, being a man of first-rate ability and many friends, soon built up a lucrative practice.

Being childless, full of life, and fond of variety, they spent far more money than was common to their class, saving practically nothing.  They had a handsome apartment with the usual number of servants; Madame Pertat’s life was made up of a round of dressmakers, bridge, calls during the daytime, and companioning her husband at night to any one of the more brilliant restaurants where there was dancing.  Sometimes they dined early and went to the opera or the play.