efore all the gates and the portcullis is raised. Paris is
closed. The Parisians return home for dinner. The greater number of them
go to bed early. Some of them go in the evening to take a little
promenade, whilst others, who have not lost their cafe habits, commence,
by the light of gas, games of dominoes which they finish by
candle-light. In the streets, there are no cries, no drunkards, almost
no more _petites dames_, nor others who lodge in houses and accost the
passer-by too much preoccupied to reply to them. After eleven o'clock,
silence prevails in the streets and the darkness deepens, because it is
necessary to save gas."

Finally, the Germans entered the capital, and the population became more
patriotic than ever. "The vanquishers, enclosed in their restricted
zone, looked with astonishment at the grand city indomitable, whose
superb monuments were seen in profile against the horizon. Those who
showed themselves at the windows were hooted.... Women accused of having
smiled on the enemy were whipped. Those unfortunate honest women who
were wrong enough to inhabit the quarters occupied, or, perhaps, to be
curious, were subjected to the same fate as the street-walkers. The
ferocity of the populace began to manifest itself."

"It was much remarked that the German officers had all new uniforms, and
that they all held in their hands plans of Paris. Their soldiers,
frightfully dirty, prepared their meals in the open air, whilst the
noisy fanfares of their military music were greeted by the hootings and
hissings of the spectators. The stone statues of the Place de la
Concorde, veiled in black by unknown hands, did not see the soiling of
Paris. The Arch of Triumph of the Place de l'Etoile had been barricaded
and obstructed in such a manner that the Germans could not pass under
it. The triumphal monument remained virgin of this defilement. In the
evening, Paris assumed the aspect, strange and prodigious, of a city
asleep. Nowhere were there any lights, rare pedestrians, no omnibuses,
no carriages. The footsteps of a patrol which resounded rhythmical and
sonorous in the distance, and the _qui vive?_ of the sentinels, alone
came to break the mournful silence which hung over the capital. The long
line of boulevards, black and sombre, displayed the mourning of the
city. Paris was superb in her suffering."

[Illustration: A "LOGE" AT THE PALAIS-ROYAL THEATRE.

From a drawing, in colors, by L. Sabattier.]

[Illustration: