began on Friday. General Cherfils, the military critic of the
_Gaulois_, taking a very optimistic view of the situation, thinks
the movement may be to assure a retreat by some route other than by a
return through Belgium. General Cherfils says: "This rush of the German
right wing upon Paris is the last bluff of terrorism of the last German
Emperor! The Kaiser thought that he could frighten us and induce France
to make peace. After which he would be free to return with his armies
against Russia."

Mr. d'Arcy Morel, the financial correspondent of the _London Daily
Telegraph_, came to see me to-day. He lives at Reuil, in the military
zone northwest of Fort Mount-Valerian. He had been up all night, getting
his belongings to Paris, and had just sent his little daughter to Dieppe
on her way to England. Mr. Morel said that the night trains out of Paris
at the Gare Saint-Lazare were filled to overflowing. No lights were
permitted in the cars, and a dozen soldiers with loaded rifles were
placed in a car just behind the locomotive, and a dozen more soldiers at
the rear end of the train. These trains stop at every station and take
about ten hours to reach Dieppe, instead of four hours as usual.
Precautions of guarding the trains are made because several German
armored motor-cars had been signalled dashing about near Marly and
Pontoise. The gardener of my little place at Vernon, which is on the
western line of the Seine, at a point where it is intersected by a
strategic line between Chartres in the south and Gisors and Beauvais in
the north, seems to be confident that Vernon will not be occupied by the
Germans, for he managed to send me today a big basket full of peaches,
pears, string beans, and green corn.

To-day the first oysters make their appearance! This event, trivial in
itself, is significant as showing that the Paris central markets are