“Listen then to this, _mon vieux_,” reads a highly diverted Frenchman to his neighbor at the next table. “It is not only from fear of the Germans that the entire population is in flight, but it is from fear of the French themselves. The capital is filled with deserting soldiers and other disaffected persons who wait only a favorable opportunity to overthrow the government. Do you hear? The _Berliner Tageblatt_ says so.” Funniest of all to the Parisians were the tales of how the whole of Paris not fleeing to the south was living day and night underground, and how not only people but all public monuments were being sent to the caves. A cartoon in _Le Matin_, I think it was, represented a Frenchman remarking to a friend that the fog was so thick yesterday that he couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower. “Oh, haven’t you heard?” exclaims the other, “Clemenceau has hidden it in the Metro.” I write this also to give the American people an idea of the fantastic “news” with which the Germans feed their people and keep alive in them the hope that they can ultimately win this war. Some of these German dispatches appear in our own newspapers, exaggerated accounts of victories, absurd estimates of damage inflicted by bombardments. We should laugh at them as the French do. The Germans tell their hungry populations that terror is winning the war, that the French civil population is in flight and that the government is tottering. It is ridiculously untrue. Many people have left Paris, just as our people would seek refuge from a like situation. All the people who have summer homes have gone to them earlier than usual. There is a systematic movement to take as many children as possible outside the danger zone. Delicate women and invalids have generally gone. That is all. CHAPTER XX BLED WHITE Mr. Hoover tells us that we must save more food. Especially more wheat. With all the sacrifices we have voluntarily made, with all the ingenuity women have used to save food and still keep their families well nourished, the women are called upon to do more. As far as wheat and a few other staples are concerned, Mr. Hoover tells us that our shipments abroad are only now beginning to approach the “minimum requirements” of our soldiers and of our allies. I know that many housewives the country over will read this announcement with dismay, and will wonder how much more will be required of them, and how much more they can contrive to give. I want to say to the housekeepers who read this, that they can not possibly know or dream the vast importance of their part in this war. They can not know what their food conservation efforts have meant to the French people, as well as the English, the Italians, and what is left of the stricken Belgians.