Former Ambassador to France and Italy and one of the United States delegates to the Peace Conference.] The treaty was deposited on the table at 2:10 p.m. by William Martin of the French Foreign Office; it was inclosed in a stamped leather case, and bulked large. Because of the size of the volume and the fragile seals it bore, the plan to present it for signing to Premier Clemenceau, President Wilson, and Premier Lloyd George had been given up. A box of old-fashioned goose quills, sharpened by the expert pen pointer of the French Foreign Office, was placed on each of the three tables for the use of plenipotentiaries who desired to observe the conventional formalities. Secretary Lansing, meanwhile, had been the first of the American delegation to arrive in the palace--at 1:45 p.m. Premier Clemenceau entered at 2:20. Three detachments each consisting of fifteen private soldiers--from the American, British, and French forces--just before 3 o'clock and took their places in the embrasures of the windows overlooking the château park, a few feet from Marshal Foch, who was seated with the French delegation at the peace table. Marshal Foch was present only as a spectator, and did not participate in the signing. These forty-five soldiers of the three main belligerent nations were present as the real "artisans of peace" and stood within the inclosure reserved for plenipotentiaries and high officials of the conference as a visible sign of their rôle in bringing into being a new Europe. These men had been selected from those who bore honorable wounds. Premier Clemenceau stepped up to the poilus of the French detachment and shook the hand of each, expressing his pleasure at seeing them, and his regrets for the suffering they had endured for France. PRESIDENT WILSON ENTERS Delegates of the minor powers made their way with difficulty through the crowd to their places at the table. Officers and civilians lined the walls and filled the aisles. President Wilson entered the Hall of Mirrors at 2:50. All the Allied delegates were then seated, except the Chinese representatives, who were conspicuous by their absence. The difficulty of seeing well militated against demonstrations on the arrival of prominent statesmen. The crowd refused to be seated and thronged toward the center of the hall, which is so long that a good view was impossible from any distance, even with the aid of opera glasses. German correspondents were ushered into the hall just before 3 o'clock and took standing room in a window at the rear of the correspondents' section.