The park is the most extensive and beautiful within the fortifications of Paris, and contains the largest grove of chestnuts in the city. The water in the springs on the place was famous in the seventeenth century as the “eaux de Passy.”
In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, located on the banks of the Seine, the place breathes an atmosphere of rest and beauty and solidity, springing from the traditions of age. The men of the American Field Service, we who have had this place as the home to which we would return en permission, can never fully express our sincere gratitude to the Comtesse de la Villestreux and the other members of the Hottinguer family, who so graciously extended to us, Americans, the hospitality of their beautiful estate.
A DREAM of a town, hot but not oppressive under the sun of the Midi, with quaint streets meandering through it, little blue tables set in the sunlight and a park filled with gay-colored soldiers and drab women, was my first impression of Bordeaux. Dilapidated fiacres in tow of hungry horses transport one from place to place, and give the newcomer his first taste of the haggling, without which a Latin would be disconsolate.
For all its quaintness and simplicity it is as much a “pay as you enter” city as the rest, and even in the park should one sit upon an iron seat instead of a wooden one there is an indemnity of two sous extracted and a further sou should the seat possess arms. A damsel in black then presents a ticket which entitles the possessor to hold down the seat as long as he comfortably can. The military may sit free, however, if they know it; but the new arrivals do not, and the park fund increases.
Bordeaux on my return I found to be quite Americanized. The quiet uniforms of our soldiers were neutralizing the bright reds and blues of our ally. The little blue tables were often covered by a khaki arm, and many new signs proclaimed “American Bar,” those houses which had specialized in German beers before the war having painted “American” over the name of the Rhine country.
There is a large American hospital here completely equipped and ready to receive and take good care of the flood that will soon be pouring in. An American private telephone line has been built to Paris by Americans, and with our gradual assimilation of the railway system of France we are “carrying on” well from here.
THE American Ambulance, the American Field Service as it was in the old days, is dead. The spirit of bonne camaraderie and intimacy which each member felt for the others; the time when, members of no army, we served with the French, on equal terms with the poilus in the trenches and the officers on the staff; when, responsible to no one, we served the cause and the god Adventure, content with the past and with no thought for the morrow,—has passed. With the coming of army discipline and system, with governmental organization and routine, the old days are gone. We are sorry, selfishly, to see them go; but we cannot and would not have it otherwise. The Ambulance Service is now proudly enrolled under Old Glory, and is broader and greater than it ever could have been as a volunteer organization. We rejoice that it is so, and are proud that we have been a part of it. So, hail to the new United States Army Ambulance Corps! The men of the Old Ambulance salute you!