Paris War Days: Diary of an American

by Charles Inman Barnard

Since acts of war were committed by German troops two days ago, the delay in the recall of the German Ambassador had appeared inexplicable to the great majority of French people, to whom Baron von Schoen appeared to be decidedly outstopping his welcome.

The Ambassador himself seemed conscious of this feeling, for not only did he take care to proceed to the Quai d'Orsay in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, but he also applied to the authorities to detail a policeman to accompany him in his automobile.

Baron von Schoen's departure from Paris was a solemn affair. He left the Embassy last, after a vast collection of luggage had gone off in motor-wagons and other vehicles. A few minutes before ten o'clock, wearing a soft felt hat and black frock coat adorned with the rosette of the Legion of Honor and carrying a rainproof coat over his arm, he left in a powerful automobile, which, by way of the Invalides, the Trocadero, and the Boulevard Flandrin, conveyed him to the station.

The station employés and the police on duty at the station formed a silent cordon, through which the departing Ambassador passed with downcast eyes.

Not a word was spoken as the baron stood for a few minutes on the platform.

Then the stationmaster said quietly: "En voiture," there was a shrill whistle, and the train, composed of five coaches and three goods trucks, glided slowly out of the station.

Tuesday, August 4.

We are now in the third day of mobilization. Weather slightly cooler, 17 degrees centigrade, with moderate southwest wind.

At seven this morning I went with Sophie to the registration office for Germans, Alsatians, and Austro-Hungarians, Number 213 Place Boulevard Periere. A crowd of some five hundred persons—men, women, and children—were waiting at the doors of the public schoolroom now used as the Siège du District for the seventeenth arrondissement. Although a German by birth, Sophie is French at heart. She came to Paris when only eight years old and has remained here ever since—she is now sixty-one—and has been thirty-two years with me as housekeeper and cook. All her German relatives are dead. Hers is a hard case, for if expelled from France, she would have to become practically a stranger in a strange land. Fortunately she has all her papers in order, and can show that she has nine nephews actually in the French army. I made a statement in writing for her to this effect, which she took to the registration office, but she had to wait, standing without shelter from eight in the morning to six o'clock at night. After carefully scrutinizing her papers, the officials told her that her papers must go for inspection to the Prefecture of Police, and that she must come back for them to-morrow. She had with her photographs of three of her nephews in military uniforms. One of these nephews had received a decoration during the Morocco campaign for saving his captain's life during an engagement.

I managed to see the Commissary of Police of the quarter and spoke to him about Sophie, explaining her case and saying that as she was such a splendid cook it would be a great pity if Paris should lose her services. The commissary smiled and said: "It will be all right. Sophie will be allowed to remain in Paris!" I profited by the occasion to obtain a permis de séjour, or residence permit, for myself. The commissary, after noting on paper my personal description and measuring my height, handed me the precious document authorizing me to reside in the "entrenched camp of Paris." These papers must be kept on one's person, ready to be shown whenever called for. Outside of the office about three hundred foreigners, including Emile Wauters, the Belgian painter, and several well-known Americans and English, were waiting their turn to get into the office. I congratulated myself on having a journalist's coupe-file card that had enabled me to get in before the others, some of whom stood waiting for six hours before their turn came. This is an instance of stupid French bureaucracy or red-tapism. It would have been very easy to have distributed numbers to those waiting, and the applicants would then have been able, by calculating the time, to go about their business and return when necessary. Another instance of this fatal red-tapism of French officialdom came in the shape of a summons from the fiscal office of Vernon, where I have a little country place on the Seine, to pay the sum of two francs, which is the annual tax for a float I had there for boating purposes. This trivial paper, coming in amidst the whirlpool of mobilization, displays the mentality of the provincial officials.