ccepted fact. If we had real prohibition in America and
Woman Suffrage, I hardly think that we should vote to have "whiskey"
brought back or ever disfranchise our women.

* * * * *

_Friday, August 28th._ Public vehicles are now almost unobtainable.
Taxicabs are to be secured only after much delay and at exorbitant
prices. It has become more and more a waste of time for me to cross
Paris on foot each morning and evening and to do much of my Embassy
work at the same disadvantage. I have attempted to solve the
difficulty by engaging by the week one of those archaic old horse
chaises called fiacres. London has placed a hansom in the British
Museum with the other obsolete and historic styles of equipages, but
frugal Paris has kept her out-of-date vehicles on exhibition in active
use on the boulevards. These conveyances, so recently looked down upon
for their slow pace as compared with the speed of taxis, are now
restored to something of their former prestige.

The fiacre I have acquired is navigated by Paul, who has been a Paris
_cocher_ for thirty-five years, and its one-horse power is furnished
by his faithful old horse Grisette. True to type, Paul is stout and
jovial. He considers it a great honor to drive for a member of an
Embassy and always sits up very straight on his box, for to come and
go on missions concerning "les affaires des Etats-Unis" has imbued him
with a great sense of dignity and importance. When waiting in front of
the Embassy among the limousines he maintains a rigid and dignified
position and insists that Grisette, for her part, shall hold up her
head and stand on all four feet.

Each noon Paul drives Hazeltine and myself down the nearly deserted
Champs-Elysees for lunch at the Cafe Royal. We must make an absurd
spectacle with so much dignity on the box and a total lack of it
behind, for Hazeltine and I, relaxing from the strenuous work of the
morning, lounge in the seat with our feet far out in front, as we
discuss with great vehemence affairs connected with our Embassy work.
The pleasure and pride which Paul experiences in his present
"position" he shares with Grisette, with whom and of whom he speaks as
if she were human. He perorates upon her manifold good qualities,
usually ending with the statement that she is "bonne comme du bon
pain," while Grisette modestly pretends that she does not hear herself
thus praised.

CHAPTER II

THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS