humour.


6


After all the soul of Paris did not die, even in those dark days when so
many of its inhabitants had gone, and when, for a little while, it
seemed a deserted city. Many thousands of citizens remained,
enough to make a great population, and although for a day or two
they kept for the most part indoors, under the shadow of a fear that at
any moment they might hear the first shells come shrieking overhead,
or even the clatter of German cavalry, they quickly resumed the daily
routine of their lives, as far as it was possible at such a time. The fruit
and vegetable-stalls along the Rue St. Honoré were thronged as
usual by frugal housewives who do their shopping early, and down by
Les Halles, to which I wended my way through the older streets of
Paris, to note any change in the price of food, there were the usual
scenes of bustling activity among the baskets and the litter of the
markets. Only a man who knew Paris well could detect a difference in
the early morning crowds--the absence of many young porters who
used to carry great loads on their heads before quenching their thirst
at the Chien Qui Fume, and the presence of many young girls of the
midinette class, who in normal times lie later in bed before taking the
metro to their shops.

The shops were closed now. Great establishments like the Galeries
Lafayette had disbanded their armies of girls and even many of the
factories in the outer suburbs, like Charenton and La Villette, had
suspended work, because their mechanics and electricians and male