..." He means the
Chapon fin. It was famous in '70 when the government came here before,
and to-day when the young King of Spain motors over from Biarritz he
dines there. Coming down on the train, I read in the Revue des Deux
Mondes the recollections of a gentleman who was here in '70-'71 and is
here again now. He was inclined to be sarcastic about the present
Chapon fin. In his day one had good food and did not pay exorbitantly;
now "one needs a quasi-official introduction to penetrate, and the
stylish servants, guarding the door like impassable dragons, ask with a
discreet air if monsieur has taken care to warn the management of his
intention of taking lunch."

We penetrated without apparent difficulty--possibly owing to the exalted
position of the two amiable young attaches who entertained me--and the
food was very good. There were diplomats of all sorts to be seen, a
meridional head waiter, and an interesting restaurant cat. One end of
the room is an artificial grotto, and into and out of the canvas rocks
this enormous cat kept creeping, thrusting his round face and blazing
eyes out of unexpected holes in the manner of the true carnivora, as if
he had been trained by the management as an entertainer. The head
waiter would have lured an anchorite into temporary abandon. Toward the
end of the evening we discussed the probable character of a certain
dessert, suggesting some doubt of taking it. You might as well have
doubted his honor. "Mais, monsieur!" He waved his arms. "C'est
delicieux! ... C'est merveilleux! ... C'est quelque chose"--slowly,
with thumb and first finger pressed together--"de r-r-raf-fi-we!"...

It is to this genial provincial city that the President and his
ministers have come. They distributed themselves about town in various
public and private buildings; the Senate chose one theatre for its
future meeting-place and the Chamber of Deputies another. And from
these places, sometimes the most incongruous--one hears, for instance,
of M. Delcasse maintaining his dignity in a bedroom now used as the
office for the minister of foreign affairs--the red tape is unwound
which eventually sends the life-blood of the remotest province flowing
up to its appointed place at the front.

There must be plenty of real work, for an army like that of France,
stretching clear across the country from Switzerland to the Channel,
could not live unless it had a smoothly running civil machine in the
quiet cou