the way to the Embassy, and we were
received with tremendous greetings by the people. Their welcome was
cordial in the extreme. The day is particularly memorable to me,
because my previous acquaintance with Lord Bertie ripened from that
time into an intimate friendship to which I attach the greatest value.
I trust that, when the real history of this war is written, the
splendid part played by this great Ambassador may be thoroughly
understood and appreciated by his countrymen. Throughout the year and
a half that I commanded in France, his help and counsel were
invaluable to me.

We drove to the Embassy and lunched there. In the afternoon,
accompanied by the Ambassador, I visited M. Poincare. The President
was attended by M. Viviani, Prime Minister, and M. Messimy, Minister
for War. The situation was fully discussed, and I was much impressed
by the optimistic spirit of the President. I am sure he had formed
great hopes of a victorious advance by the Allies from the line they
had taken up, and he discoursed playfully with me on the possibility
of another battle being fought by the British on the old field of
Waterloo. He said the attitude of the French nation was admirable,
that they were very calm and determined.

After leaving the President I went to the War Office. Maps
were produced; the whole situation was again discussed, and
arrangements were made for me to meet General Joffre at his
Headquarters the next day.

In the evening I dined quietly with Brinsley FitzGerald at the Ritz,
and here it was curious to observe how Paris, like Dover, had put on a
sombre garb of war. The buoyant, optimistic nature of the French
people was apparent in the few we met; but there was no bombastic,
over-confident tone in the conversation around us; only a quiet, but
grim, determination which fully appreciated the tremendous
difficulties and gigantic issues at stake. The false optimism of "A
Berlin" associated with 1870 was conspicuously absent. In its place, a
silent determination to fight to the last franc and to the last man.

We left Paris by motor early on the 16th, and arrived at Joffre's
Headquarters at Vitry-le-Francois at noon. A few minutes before our
arrival a captured German flag (the first visible trophy of war I had
seen) had been brought in, and the impression of General Joffre which
was left on my mind was that he possessed a fund of human
understanding and sympathy.

I had heard of the French Commander-in-Chief