border from Liege to Colmar.

The French capital is, at the present moment, a city of strange
contrasts. Mothers, wives, sisters, and brides were last week red-eyed
from the sorrow of parting. Now these same women have decorated their
windows with bunting and have no thought other than of working as best
they may to help the national cause.

In the streets, the shrill voices of children pipe the latest news from
the front; small girls cry grim details of the war.

All prisoners charged with light offenses who are mobilizable have been
allowed to go to the front to rehabilitate themselves. The central
prison of Fresnes, which ten days ago contained nine hundred criminals,
has now only two hundred and fifty left.

And all the time Paris lives an every-day, humdrum life, makes the best
of everything, and never complains.

Day by day the aspect of the streets becomes more normal, for the reason
that more and more vehicles are freed from military service and can now
resume their ordinary duties of transporting the public. Pending the
return of the motor-omnibuses, a service of _char-a-bancs_ has been
started on the boulevards, which reminds Parisians of the days of the
popular "Madeleine-Bastille" omnibus.

Diplomatic relations between France and Austria-Hungary were broken off
to-day. War however has not been declared between France and Austria.

I met to-day M. Hedeman, the correspondent of the _Matin_, who