Meanwhile the official _communiques_ given out at three P.M. and at
eleven P.M., at the Military Government of Paris, are, to say the least,
hopeful. Every attempt to break through the French lines on the Ourcq
has failed. No change noted on the center and on the allied right.

At two this afternoon I saw a small, low, dusty motor-car come spinning
along the Boulevard des Invalides, containing four soldiers, who had
with them two German flags, captured this morning during the fighting
near the Ourcq. They were bringing their trophies to General Gallieni,
who conferred the Military Medal--the highest French distinction for
valor in action--on the reserve infantry soldier Guillemard, who
captured one of these flags in a hand-to-hand encounter. The flag
belonged to the Thirty-sixth Prussian Infantry Regiment, the Magdeburg
Fusiliers, and had been decorated with the Iron Cross in 1870.

One of the French biplanes that scour the sky daily in search of German
_taubes_ met with sad disaster yesterday while flying over the Bois
de Vincennes. The aeroplane contained a lieutenant and a corporal of the
aviation corps. A violent gust of wind capsized it, and it fell to the
ground, burying the occupants in a heap of debris. When extricated, both
were dead. A few moments after the biplane struck the earth, either its
motor, or the bombs that it had on board, exploded, and four passers-by
were killed by flying fragments. Two of them were ten-year-old lads. A
little girl and several other persons were more or less bruised. It so
happened that I had watched this biplane from the Boulevard de
Courcelles as it soared over Paris at a height of fifteen hundred
meters. It was very steady in its movements and was going in an easterly
direction. This must have been some ten minutes before the catastrophe.