Paris, July 17Honey dear :-
Things happen so fast there is no time to write about them.
I forget were I stopped! But on last Thursday, July 13, we spent a good deal of the forenoon at Amiens cathedral. We went around down on the floor level, seeing the beauty of the vaulting, &c. There are some lovely monuments, especially some reliefs around the outer side of the choir enclosure. One series showing the history of St. Firmin is especially fine in the simplicity and truth of the figures. There are the most wonderful carved choir stalls - so many figures, so many Bible stories told - such expressive little figures. Then we went up. First up a front tower, then out into the inside at the level of the narrow gallery and all around the cathedral, getting such charming views. The war protections are all down except where wooden slats replace some of the old glass which Paris firemen took out for safe-keeping and which has not all been replaced yet. Much of it is back, and the rose windows of the transepts are especially lovely - so much of the old clear blue! Then we went up in one corner of the transept and outside along under the top arch of the flying buttresses - such huge things! Then up some more and along the outside gallery at the top of the nave buttresses to the front again. We went into the attic above the vaulting under the roof, and looked down a trap door to the nave floor, 140 feet below. Then out for a view from the front of the facade, and then down, stopping in the gallery of kings to pat them on the back. The statues are just plain stone posts behind, and huge - you'd never suspect what they were! Then down below - not forgetting Charlotte's umbrella! The view from the top over the city was lovely - but we certainly know so much more about the cathedral by going up! We had a nice guide - no English!
Then we took the train to Paris and fell in with a friendly guard who told Charlotte many things, very helpful. He got us a porter - no small service in the crowded station. Charlotte does very well with her French I think. She is so ready to try it. And she has a respectable vocabulary, though a shocking Yankee pronunciation - no "r's".
(I now have thin paper)
That evening we walked in the Luxembourg until put out at 9 o'clock - we're very near. We've not gotten there since. We registered in the p.m. at the Fed. of Univ. Women and it is embarassing [sic] to have no proper credentials. I shall find out in the fall who is to blame for this. Miss Starr has hers as delegate for Mass. from a Boston group, but neither Miss Woolley nor Miss Purington appear to have done the proper correspondence with the central organization in America - so Miss Comstock, D. Foster & I are without status altogether. However, the English group is very helpful and we get on!
Friday July 14
We did not rise at 4 a.m. to go out to Longchamp for the Revue, though all Paris did, apparently. Along 8 o'clock we made small progress in that direction, but after reaching the Place de l'Etoile we stopped for the crowd seemed to be expecting something. We walked on down to the Bd du Bois du Boulogne and at length met some carriages escorted by several troops of cavalry, notably Moroccans (?) in extraordinary saddles with high back in scarlet below & long white capes & also turbans - very stunning. No bands however. We walked about the Bois du Boulogne, surprisingly full of trees, and in the zoolog. gardens, very poor. Then we sat on a park bench and ate our lunch. Next we tried the charged lemonade at a restaurant - only the maid brought us salmon by mistaking Charlotte's French! Very amusing. A young American near us gave us some help, and told us of the terrific storm in the channel which had torn away part of the French liner he was on so it had to put back to Havre. His sailing was transferred a week. And that night was only two before our placid crossing!
July 18
I don't know when I'll ever find time to write. This life is hectic, albeit very interesting. I've got to be chronological or all will be lost.
On July 14 we had expected to hear the national anthem in the air all day, and it never even peeped! Scarce a band note - no decent music though troups of soldiers marched along at intervals almost anywhere. Of course we missed the grand revue - not being ready to rise at 4 a.m. and wait until 8 (or later) for the show only a relatively few thousands could see. We weren't even near where the fanatic shot at President Millerand! In the afternoon we came along down from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre, and I may say it is at least three sizes bigger than I thought. Nothing was open, not even Notre Dame, but we looked at the outsides. Furthermore, nothing much opened until Monday noon, since the 14th was Friday. But we've found enough to do!
Sunday I had a thrilling time. The French government took a party of about 25 of us out to Rheims and the battlefields nearby. By registering early I got in - though Charlotte didn't. The party was, in part, Miss Comstock, Miss Pendleton, Miss Maltby, Miss Rhinehardt (conspicuous), her sister (useful as interpreter), Miss Tomlinson (San Diego), the-large-white-hat-with-blue-tulle from Toronto, Mrs MacWilliams, vice president of the whole show (Canada), Dr. Cullis (London physiologist), representatives from Australia, Denmark, Finland, Dweden and India. Oh, yes, Mrs. Horace Brookings, who is important I feel sure though don't know how - Wellesley & Washington - a Miss Virginia Sherwood, & some more. We had to meet at 7:30 which was some of a strain after the late night (oh! I've left out a big reception!) and had 3 compartments reserved. The conversation was fun. Miss Maltby flew from Paris to London - so did Peg Comstock - so would I if I had money! Miss Maltby told about it splendidly, best I've ever heard. (Dorothy Foster & Dean Gildersleeve have bobbed their hair - I'm afraid I'll forget these choice bits).
At Rheims we met three machines, 2 closed, one charabane and were taken around the town. 12,000 houses, 10,000 ruined. Of the 2,000 left only 22 (or 40, one person said) entirely unimpaired! It is extraordinary - like a magnified Pompeii, very much. Streets & streets of the ruins with only an occasional house rebuilding. People eating in one room with all the rest in ruins - yawning cellars, neat piles of bricks and stone everywhere. We went to the Cathedral - such a glory shattered. It can be restored, enough is left for that, but scarce a statue is whole, yet something, often much is left of nearly all. The front was more injured because when the Germans fired it on leaving the city there was a staging, built to repair earlier damage. The burning wood cracked the stone worse. I shall send some cards home soon. Do look at them. I'm sending in my name, in case they get delayed or you leave early or anything. The inside of the cathedral is wonderfully still - the glorious vaulting mostly in place, though there are huge holes where the bombs crashed through. The roof above it burned off one small section, three bays of the north transept has [sic] been made into a church already, and a crowded service was going on.
July 20
I'll go on from where I was. We had time to buy a few post-cards &c. I have one shell pencil holder - unadorned. The adornments seemed to me to detract, but finding plain ones was difficult. Then we went to a restored hotel for lunch. It was curious to see a panel with mouldings below and in plain plaster above! The houses are being utilized that way - walls being saved as far as they will go, &c. The lunch (at gov't expense in a special room) was very good and after it we had speeches from the conductor, who was an official from the dep't of state (?) for such purposes and who was a very nice gentleman though he looked queer in red mahogany colored cotton globes. We drank a toast to soemthing - I don't get all the French! and the president of the Canadian Asso. replied very skillfully.
Then we were taken to a fort near Rheims, de la Pompelle, a drive through the desolated city and out along a canal where the line had changed hands repeatedly. Yet the trees were not as much hurt as in some places. We found the fort just a huge mass of chalk heaps and ditches, with more or less of a big depression in front partly banked by rude blocks. The soil is all chalk, white as can be. There were dug outs, partly fallen in, below, not in any state to see, though they had been very extensive. And so much barbed wire - not plain, but double & twisted barbed, with spiked supports, and some, very stiff, made into things that suggested models of atoms &c. The supports used most for the wire were like this [drawing in the margin], of rods about 1/4 - 1/2 inch diameter. The top was a sharp point, to hurt. The loops were to hold the wire, the screw at the bottom was to screw the thing into the earth, quietly, without pounding, in no-man's land. We saw thousands and thousands of them both near Amiens & on Sunday. There are huge dumps where the wire from the cleaned up areas has been taken, but much near Rheims has not been cleared up since the top soil was thin any how and the stirring up has made its use impossible.
We rode for miles in no-man's land, with French trenches clearly visible on one side & the German on the other - a few rods apart or perhaps 1/8 mile, very irregular, and no-man's land all uneven from shell-holes. We came along to the "Champagne Mountains" 2 hills perhaps 200 metres high which had been a scrubby pine forest, poor land. For miles, all over both hills, the place is white, a maze of trenches and shell-upturned soil. The hills are literally white as sea-sand on a white beach. We walked over a long way, seeing so many kinds of flowers. Their colors are wonderful - and the botany of this new growth would be most interesting. Some of the families I could recognize and the things were so pretty. I wanted a botany. They're there, but yet the whole effect is white, as the cards will show. (2 packages cards mailed from Rouen, 2 packages guide-books &c, also 1 package photos from Braun, and one Pasteur picture, this last sent to library, others to me.)
We drove into Rheims & took train back. In the compartment were the Finnish & Swedish delegates. The Finn got to talking and told of the history of Finland and of this last war. The Russians had tried to "Russify" Finland, and as a result the young men had shipped to Sweden & Germany. As the White Army in the north of Finland was organized it had no equipment whatever. This was the movement which ultimately freed the country. The young men left in Helsingfors & in the south where the Reds, backed by Russians, were in power, sneaked away as they could to join the army. Miss Rosenius heard that one party had been betrayed by servants (most of whom in the south were Red) so she went out after 9 p.m.in the ev'g to warn these men not to start that night. People were not allowed out. She met a group of Reds and stepped up on a porch, where she was followed by one of the men, and only after some racy conversation did she bluff him into letting her pass. In her home street another party saw her, and when she started to run, being near home & rattled, they fired on her, bullets all around, but none hit. She used to cut out ammunition belts at night, working from 10 until 5 with blankets and [sic] the windows, with light and work on the floor. Then she and many other women in their own homes, cleared away all signs of work, went to bed just before the servants got up, and stood the servants' criticisms of their lazy mornings. She had to carry her belts by day under her clothes to others to make, &c. She fed 6 policemen for months - "white" men kept in hiding in readiness for service, kept in houses where the servants were "red", always moving to avoid detection. 'Twas a thrilling tale. There was a great lack of food for a time, during the Blockade, and her tales of that were awful. She's a teacher of English - and interesting in that respect also. The Swedish woman was one of the nicest - we talked a long time. Those were the best chances I had at folks and I did appreciate them.
Monday we did some errands and went to meetings in the forenoon and cut the afternoon oen. The house is lovely - the one given by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid for American women. The auditorium was full, - about 300 or more I guess. Lots of Americans, more than any other - and a number of Mt. H- people. Those of us not regular delegates were "visiting delegates" and most courteously treated though not really "in it." I think it may be better planned again. We didn't know what was doing until afterward - but a letter from either Miss Woolley or Miss Purington to the U.S. central office would have been of the greatest service. It ought to have been clearer to the powers that we really came, not just drifted in, as some did. The voting delegates were only 5 from the U.S. carefully selected. But Miss Woolley's name was mentioned repeatedly, twice publicly, so I think Mt. H- is not any longer ignored. Miss Woolley ought to be there two years from now. Place not yet decided.
There was a reception at a Men's Univ. Club (or equivalent) - quite pleasant, but the big reception was Saturday night at the Sorbonne - by the Directeur and his wife & the French society. 'Twas very grand & elegant, reception, speeches, eats.
There were many trips, several each day, to different places & things, observatory, Institut de Radium - most remarkable - I went - a man condensed radium emanation to therapeutic doses before our eyes. French lecture suggestive to me - I got some of it! Miss Maltby & Miss Riemer were the leading persons in that bunch - though M. Graham was also there. But we all ought to talk French, though 'tis not so bad for us not to as for the Fr. not to speak Eng. considering geography. There were teas &c. all the time.
Tuesday was the great day - a speech by Dr. Cullis, Eng. physiologist at Univ. of London, by some more folks, but not so ably. She spoke on the value of working in another country as she has in U.S. & Canada. Fine speech. In the afternoon came the end - Miss Thomas in a fine prophetic speech - really splendid - and Mrs. McWilliams, Canadian Pres, who beat her out - the benediction. She's great! I hope we can get her to come to Mt. H. She's fine and brave and charming. The whole thing was really wonderful, even though the Germans weren't admitted. Their organization is said not to be parallel at all as yet.
For other nights - we squeezed in several Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle. Pasteur's Tomb & the Institute, (two trips needed), something, though little of Sorbonne & Med. Sch., a bit of the Lourvre, which is quite too big to do in any small series of visits, Madeleine, Pantheon, top of Arc du Triumphe, oh, some more. Shopping omitted, save guide-book, umbrella & medals, over which we went clean distracted! I have several but want them all! I have a Rembrandt like but bigger than the two heads I have now, one for me, one for A. Yates' wedding present. 18 francs, which means about $1.75. I was wild to buy more, but had neither time nor money. Have an Amiens, long view inside - to give away or keep. I wanted to get a glove, but had no time - and while London is more it may be better! Charlotte saw more sights than I because she had Sunday while I went to Rheims. We got able to manage transportation quite well - no danger of getting run over at all.
We stayed until this a.m. - July 20, and then came to Rouen where we've had a wonderful day - scarce lost a trick! I never saw so many things architecturally in my life. And no we're trying to cross by Dieppe, but they wont let us have the grand smash for cutsoms &c until 12:15, and hence this letter! We came at 7 P.M. because the boat train doesn't stop at Rouen. But we had a lovely sunset on the Promenade, which is much more peaceful than Folkestone, and we liked it better.
Now we stay a week in London and hope to connect with
1. our S.S. room-mates
2. Prof. Macdougall & Robert
3. Dr. Cullis & other physiologists
4. But alas, that Hist of Med congress costs 2 pounds and I couldn't manage both Paris & it, so it gets left out. So probably does the Brit. Asso, for there'd be only Sherrington's lecture for $5. The rest of the physiology comes after we sail, alas!! I did want both those things! The Eng. are not cordial as we are - but the Internat. Fed. Univ. Women was lovely in that.There's much more I could tell you, but it's nearing time to wake up Charlotte who is asleep in a big chair, and to prepare our minds for the fray! I could write much about our little street episodes, &c., for they have been cheerful. I'm afraid I should shock real travellers.
Lots of love to you honey - I'm so glad you have a good time - your Vancouver letter came to Paris.
Abby.
not read over -