besides a railroad ticket if you are on a train that runs past
the fortress of Toul and your destination is Nancy. You must have a
military pass, which was never given to foreigners if they were
travelling alone in the zone of military operations. The pulse of the
Frenchman beats high, his imagination bounds, when he looks
eastward. To the east are the lost provinces and the frontier drawn by
the war of '70 between French Lorraine and German Lorraine. This
gave our journey interest.

Nancy, capital of French Lorraine, is so near Metz, the great German
fortress town of German Lorraine, that excursion trains used to run to
Nancy in the opera season. "They are not running this winter," say
the wits of Nancy. "For one reason, we have no opera--and there are
other reasons."

An aeroplane from the German lines has only to toss a bomb in the
course of an average reconnaissance on Nancy if it chooses; for
Zeppelins are within easy reach of Nancy. But here was Nancy as
brilliantly lighted at nine in the evening as any city of its size at home.
Our train, too, had run with the windows unshaded. After the
darkness of London, and after English trains with every window-
shade closely drawn, this was a surprise.

It was a threat, an anticipation, that darkened London, while Nancy
knew fulfilment. Bombardment and bomb-dropping were nothing new
to Nancy. The spice of danger gives a fillip to business to the town
whose population heard the din of the most thunderously spectacular
action of the war echoing among the surrounding hills. Nancy saw the
enemy beaten back. Now she was so close to the front that she felt
the throb of the army's life.

"Don't you ever worry about aerial raids?" I asked madame behind
the counter at the hotel.

"Do the men in the trenches worry about them?" she answered. "We
have a much easier time than they. Why shouldn't we share some of
their dangers? And when a Zeppelin appears and our guns begin
firing, we all feel like soldiers under fire."

"Are all the population here as usual?"

"Certainly, monsieur!" she said. "The Germans can never take
Nancy. The French are going to take Metz!"

The meal which that hotel restaurant served was as good as in peace
times. Who deserves a good meal if not the officer who comes in
from the front? And madame sees that he gets it. She is as proud of
her poulet en casserole as any commander of a soixante-quinze
battery of its practice. There was steam heat, too, in