the Palatinate, were offered to France at nominal prices.  And the cost of vegetables here at home is painfully notorious.  Well, the deal was accepted by the competent Commission in Paris.  Everything was ready for despatching the consignment.  The necessary trains were secured.  All that was wanting was the approval of the French authorities, who were notified.  Their answer has not yet been given and already the vegetables are rotting in the magazines.”

The authorities pleaded the insufficiency of rolling stock, but the press revealed the hollowness of the excuse and the responsibility of those who put it forward, and showed that thousands of wagons, lorries, and motor-vans were idle, deteriorating in the open air.  For instance, between Cognac and Jarnac the state railways had left about one thousand wagons unused, which were fast becoming unusable.[25] And this was but one of many similar instances.

It would be hard to find a parallel in history for the rapacity combined with unscrupulousness and ingenuity displayed during that fateful period by dishonest individuals, and left unpunished by the state.  Doubtless France was not the only country in which greed was insatiable and its manifestations disastrous.  From other parts of the Continent there also came bitter complaints of the ruthlessness of profiteers, and in Italy their heartless vampirism contributed materially to the revolutionary outbreaks throughout that country in July.  Even Britain was not exempt from the scourge.  But the presence of whole armies of well-paid, easy-going foreign troops and officials on French soil stimulated greed by feeding it, and also their complaints occasionally bared it to the world.  The impression it left on certain units of the American forces was deplorable.  When United States soldiers who had long been stationed in a French town were transferred to Germany, where charges were low, the revulsion of feeling among the straightforward, honest Yankees was complete and embarrassing.  And by way of keeping it within the bounds of political orthodoxy, they were informed that the Germans had conspired to hoodwink them by selling at undercost prices, in order to turn them against the French.  It was an insidious form of German propaganda!

On the other hand, the experience of British and American warriors in France sometimes happened to be so unfortunate that many of them gave credence to the absurd and mischievous legend that their governments were made to pay rent for the trenches in which their troops fought and died, and even for the graves in which the slain were buried.

An acquaintance of mine, an American delegate, wanted an abode to himself during the Conference, and, having found one suitable for which fifteen to twenty-five thousand francs a year were deemed a fair rent, he inquired the price, and the proprietor, knowing that he had to do with a really wealthy American, answered, “A quarter of a million francs.”  Subsequently the landlord sent to ask whether the distinguished visitor would take the place; but the answer he received ran, “No, I have too much self-respect.”