hedness and weakness. Yet on the whole they have shown amazing
courage, and, after their tears, have laughed at their own breakdown,
and, always children of France, have been superb, so that again and
again I have wondered at the gallantry with which they endured this
horror. Young boys have revealed the heroic strain in them and have
played the part of men in helping their mothers. And yet, when I came at
last into Paris against all this tide of retreat, it seemed a needless
fear that had driven these people away.

Then I passed long lines of beautiful little villas on the Seine side,
utterly abandoned among their trees and flowers. A solitary fisherman
held his line above the water as though all the world were at peace, and
in a field close to the fortifications which I expected to see bursting
with shells, an old peasant bent above the furrows and planted cabbages.
Then, at last, I walked through the streets of Paris and found them
strangely quiet and tranquil.

The people I met looked perfectly calm. There were a few children
playing in the gardens of Champs Elysees and under the Arc de Triomph
symbolical of the glory of France.

I looked back upon the beauty of Paris all golden in the light of the
setting sun, with its glinting spires and white gleaming palaces and
rays of light flashing in front of the golden trophies of its monuments.
Paris was still unbroken. No shell had come shattering into this city of
splendor, and I thanked Heaven that for a little while the peril had
passed.

*A Zouave's Story*

*By Philip Gibbs of The London Daily Chronicle.*

[Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

CREIL, Sept. 10.--I could write this narrative as a historian, with
details gathered from many different witnesses at various parts of the
lines, in a cold and aloof way, but I prefer to tell it in the words of
a young officer of the Zouaves who was in the thickest of fighting until
when I met him and gave him wine and biscuits. He was put out of action
by a piece of shell which smashed his left arm. He told me the story of
the battle as he sat back, hiding his pain by a little careless smile of
contempt, and splashed with blood which made a mess of his uniform.

"For four days previous to Monday, Sept. 7," he said, "we were engaged
in clearing out the German bosches from all the villages on the left
bank of the Ourcq, which they had occupied in order to protect the flank
of their right wing. Unfortunately