Thursday, September 3d. Now that part of the Embassy corps has departed for Bordeaux, the following remain at the Chancellerie to face the exciting events of an impending German invasion. Besides Mr. Herrick and the secretaries, Messrs. Bliss and Frazier, there are Majors Cosby, Hedekind, and Henry; Captains Parker, Brinton, and Barker; Lieutenants Donait, Hunnicutt, Boyd, and Greble, all of the United States Army; Major Roosevelt of the Marine Corps; Commander Bricker and Lieutenants Smith and Wilkinson of the Navy. Herbert Hazeltine, William Iselin, and myself are civil Attachés, and Harry Dodge and Lawrence Norton private secretaries to the Ambassador. The Treasurer, Mr. Beazle, was at the Embassy as long ago as the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune, and has already lived through one siege and capture of Paris. There are, of course, innumerable stenographers, bookkeepers, and the like.
The other embassies and most of the consulates have fled. Their members have left Paris more precipitately and with less dignity than has been shown even by the civil population. They all seemed to lose their wits when the Germans drew near Paris; they made their preparations to depart in the most frantic haste; they were white of face and perspiring with nervousness. It is not a pleasant sight to see strong men palsied with fright, but we have seen many such these days. Not a soul remains in the British Embassy or consulate to take care of England’s manifold interests. It seems strange that when thousands of British heroes of the army are dying brave deaths on the fields of battle, not a single British hero was to be found in the diplomatic corps with nerve enough to risk the inconveniences of a siege. The Ambassador of another country, who fled with the crowd, left in spite of orders from his king absolutely directing him to remain. Apparently he has sacrificed his career to his fright, for this king was so determined that his embassy at least should remain in Paris that he has replaced this ambassador by another who has more courage,—the new one is a soldier.
These fleeing diplomats insult France by assuming that she is already conquered, and insult the Germans by assuming that the lives of the accredited plenipotentiaries of foreign nations would not be safe in the hands of German soldiers. They also leave their own subjects in Paris without a soul to represent them at a moment when they really need a representative for the first time in decades. When these magnates have recomposed their minds in Bordeaux and have time to formulate excuses, they will probably say that they left Paris because it was their solemn duty to accompany the French Government; but yesterday, when they were asked why they were departing so swiftly, they could only cry: “The Germans are coming.”
Mr. Herrick looks on with calm amazement. Three days ago he telegraphed Washington to ask for authorization to stay in Paris. The reply left the matter to his own discretion. Thirty minutes later he was in the cabinet of M. Delcassé to say that he would stay in Paris no matter what might come. It must have been a wonderful tableau when those two men faced each other across M. Delcassé’s big desk. As Mr. Herrick stated that the American Embassy was positively to remain in Paris, M. Delcassé’s expression of calm dignity vanished in a flash. He stepped around his desk and shook Mr. Herrick eagerly by the hand. He said there were many precious memorials and many rare objects which might have their habitation in one spot like Paris, but which nevertheless belonged to all civilized humanity, and that no diplomat could perform a greater service to France and to mankind than to stay in Paris and do what could be done to protect these precious memorials and objects from destruction—a destruction which might be avoided if an authorized spokesman of that humanity were present to protest.
The stampede out of Paris grows hour by hour. It is a contagion and seizes all classes. A week ago it was a short street indeed which did not boast at least one Red Cross Hospital; now most of them are deserted, for the fashionable women who followed the fashion in joining hospitals have now again followed the fashion and fled, pell-mell.
The newspaper men and the “war correspondents” have been particularly concerned for their own safety. By supreme efforts, I today managed to obtain conveyances to transport several of them out of the city—men with sweat on their brows and hands that trembled. There is an element of humor in it all, despite the sadness. One of the staff remarked, “Do you notice how all the newspaper men, who for weeks have been pestering us with requests to be sent to the front, now demand as insistently to be sent away, when the front is at last coming to them?” In time of peace diplomats and war correspondents are easily the most pugnacious people in the world. If one has taken them at their own estimation the resulting contrast is painful.
Today we took over the interests of Great Britain, Japan, and Guatemala. We have represented Germany, Austria, and Hungary since the beginning of August, so that, including the United States, we are now seven embassies in one.
Friday, September 4th. Last evening all Paris awaited the “six o’clock Taube” which has become for the French a regular and almost welcome feature of each day’s happenings. At four o’clock a French aviator in a monoplane took the air and mounted up, up, up, in slow wide circles whose center was the Tour Eiffel, until he finally reached an altitude of some 10,000 feet. Then, a mere speck in the cold, thin air, he circled slowly around and around, waiting for the German—who never came. Even without this climax the situation was thrilling enough. The Frenchman descended sadly from his lofty beat just as night fell, while waiting Paris was distinctly disappointed. That night in the restaurants one heard Frenchmen express the extraordinary hope that nothing too terrible had happened to brave Lieutenant von Heidssen.