On a bright Saturday afternoon we steamed into the wide mouth of the Gironde, a name stirring vague memories of romance and terror.  The French passengers gazed wistfully at the low-lying strip of sand and forest, but our uniformed pilgrims crowded the rail and hailed it as the promised land of self-realization.  A richly coloured watering-place slid into view, as in a moving-picture show.  There was, indeed, all the reality and unreality of the cinematograph about our arrival; presently the reel would end abruptly, and we should find ourselves pushing our way out of the emptying theatre into a rainy street.  The impression of unreality in the face of visual evidence persisted into the night when, after an afternoon at anchor, we glided up the river, our decks and ports ablaze across the land.  Silhouettes of tall poplars loomed against the blackness; occasionally a lamp revealed the milky blue facade of a house.  This was France!  War-torn France—­at last vividly brought home to us when a glare appeared on the sky, growing brighter and brighter until, at a turn of the river, abruptly we came abreast of vomiting furnaces, thousands of electric lights strung like beads over the crest of a hill, and, below these, dim rows of houses, all of a sameness, stretching along monotonous streets.  A munitions town in the night.

One could have tossed a biscuit on the stone wharfs where the workmen, crouching over their tasks, straightened up at sight of us and cheered.  And one cried out hoarsely, “Vous venez nous sauver, vous Americains” —­“You come to save us”—­an exclamation I was to hear again in the days that followed.

III

All day long, as the ‘rapide’ hurried us through the smiling wine country and past the well-remembered chateaux of the Loire, we wondered how we should find Paris—­beautiful Paris, saved from violation as by a miracle!  Our first discovery, after we had pushed our way out of the dim station into the obscurity of the street, was that of the absence of taxicabs.  The horse-drawn buses ranged along the curb were reserved for the foresighted and privileged few.  Men and women were rushing desperately about in search of conveyances, and in the midst of this confusion, undismayed, debonnair, I spied a rugged, slouch-hatted figure standing under a lamp—­the unmistakable American soldier.

“Aren’t there any cabs in Paris?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, they tell me they’re here,” he said.  “I’ve given a man a dollar to chase one.”

Evidently one of our millionaire privates who have aroused such burnings in the heart of the French poilu, with his five sous a day!  We left him there, and staggered across the Seine with our bags.  A French officer approached us.  “You come from America,” he said.  “Let me help you.”  There was just enough light in the streets to prevent us from getting utterly lost, and we recognized the dark mass of the Tuileries as we crossed the gardens.  The hotel we sought was still there, and its menu, save for the war-bread and the tiny portion of sugar, as irreproachable as ever.