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 recently witnessed in Berlin the arrival of Emperor William and the Crown Prince, which he compared to the departure of Napoleon III for Sedan in 1870. We were talking at the Ministry of War, where I also met the Marquis Robert de Flers, the well-known dramatist and editor of the Figaro, and M. Lazare Weiler, deputy. M. Hedeman told me that two days after the declaration of war a skirmish took place near the village of Genaville in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, between French custom-house officials and a squadron of German cavalry. The commander of the German detachment was shot in the stomach, fell to the ground, and was captured. He was Lieutenant Baron Marshall von Bieberstein, son of the former German Ambassador at Constantinople. A French lieutenant of gendarmes helped the prisoner to his feet. Lieutenant von Bieberstein, who was mortally wounded, said: "Thank you, gentlemen! I have done my duty in serving my country, just as you are serving your own!" He then died. M. Charles Humbert, senator of the Meuse, gave the helmet and sabre that had been worn by Lieutenant Marshall von Bieberstein to the editor of the Matin.
[Illustration: The Statue of Strasbourg, after the capture of Altkirch in Alsace by French troops.]
Tuesday, August 11.
Tenth day of mobilization. Warm, sunny weather, with light northerly breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 27 degrees centigrade.
Expectation of the great battle believed to be forthcoming to the north of Liége dominates the situation here.
I breakfasted to-day at the restaurant Paillard with M. Max-Lyon and M. Arthur Meyer, manager of the Gaulois. Mlle. Zinia Brozia, of the Opéra Comique, who remains in Paris, was also of our party. All sorts of war rumors were current, but as M. Messimy, the minister of war, has given to M. Arthur Meyer the assurance that while the news given out "might not be all the news, it would nevertheless be invariably true news," confidence in the official communications to the press, which are the only authentic source of war news, is unshaken. The French Ministry of War, in its official communiqué of the military situation, issued at 11.30 this evening, states that the French troops are in contact with the enemy along almost the entire front. The only fighting that has taken place, however, has been engagements between the outposts, in which the French soldiers everywhere showed irresistible courage and ardor.
A Uhlan who was captured near Liége on Saturday was found to be the bearer of a map marked with the proposed marches of the German army. According to this map, the Germans were to be in Brussels on August 3 and at Lille on August 5.
Wednesday, August 12.