The other Sunday morning at the hour of mass, when two German aeroplanes were engaged in their genial occupation of throwing bombs over the residential and business quarters of the city, I assisted at several sidewalk conversations in the district lying between the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli.  Nowhere did I find the least sign of excitement.  Indeed, there was curiously little interest shown as to the results of the explosions in that neighborhood; only a grim acceptance of this daily visitation as something to be added to the score in the final day of reckoning and some expression of surprise that the French aeroplanes (supposed to be constantly on the alert for these visitors) should not have found some means of putting an end to the nuisance.  At the same time I heard several spectators express their admiration of the German aviators’ courage and appreciation of the ease and grace with which they handled their beautiful machines.  In the cafes that evening, when the full list of the casualties and damage had been published, one heard a good deal of criticism, seasoned with Attic salt, on the subject of the belated appearance of the French aeroplanes on the scene, and hopes that the boulevards might soon be rewarded by the spectacle of a duel in the air.  They seem to think they have earned it.

But in the afternoon all Paris was out—­in the Jarden des Tuileries, in the Bois, at Vincennes, basking in the sunshine of a glorious Autumn day, Madame et Bebe bravely making the best of it in the absence of Monsieur. (Not that Monsieur is always absent; the proportion of men in the crowd, and men of serviceable age, was considerably larger than one might have expected.) If the object of the German aviators is to instill terror into the hearts of the Parisians they are wasting their time and their bombs.

Those people in London who complain about not being able to get supper after the theatre, and other minor disturbances of their even tenor of existence, should spend a few days in Paris.  They would observe how easily a community may learn to do without many things, and how the lesson itself becomes a moral tonic, unmistakably stimulating in its effects.

Paris is reminded every morning of duty and discipline when it begins by doing without its beloved petits pains and croissants for breakfast, the order having gone forth that bakers, being short-handed, are to make only pain de menage.  Similarly, because the majority of journalists and popular writers are under arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press, its literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques.  It does without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty self-denial has become the duty of every good citizen.  If the telephone breaks down, (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the subscriber goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on regular schedules the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.