A neutral Minister told over the dinner-
table, when the danger was past, what misery
he endured during the days when ' anything
might have happened.' He used to walk about
the city and watch the people with miserable
eyes, and try to laugh with them when they
jested about the ' coming of the Germans.'
" And then," he added, " when my concierge
taunted me afterward and said, ' What did
I tell Monsieur le ministre ? I knew the
Germans would not get to Paris ? ' I could
only smile and confess that hers had been
Well-founded optimism and mine the pessimism
of the poltroon." And yet facts were there
to make him fear, facts which even now the
world can hardly believe. He had seen copies
of the German orders to burn and sack the
town, quarter after quarter, until it ceased to
resist. Monument after monument was to
be sacrificed, and with each one how many
lives ?

There were women, too, who knew of these
a6o



The Women of Paris
things, women of the upper classes, and they
stood as steady as the men who knew and the
women of the people who did not. They worked
among the refugees, the unemployed, and in
the preparation of hospitals. They worked, and
they prayed as they worked. Indeed, all Paris
prayed in those days, some in the churches,
and all in the common ways. Every thought
was a prayer when Paris was in danger,
and the peace which comes with the uplift-
ing of the mind descended on the threatened
city.
