_Saturday, October 3d._ This is the first war in modern times in which whole nations have gone to battle; in this conflict every man in a nation is a soldier. In Napoleon's day France had about the same population--forty millions--that she now has, but Napoleon's professional armies numbered, at most, only two hundred thousand men, while today France has put fifteen or twenty times as many in the field. In the present war, when an army sustains a 10 per cent. loss it is not merely 10 per cent. of the army, but actually of the able-bodied men of the nation. * * * * * _Wednesday, October 7th._ A German aëroplane again threw bombs on Paris today. * * * * * _Thursday, October 8th._ Another Taube came today and threw bombs in the neighborhood of the Gare du Nord. These machines in flight look very much like sparrow-hawks and have a singularly sinister appearance. * * * * * _Sunday, October 11th._ We had a record-breaking flock of Taubes today when a number came together and dropped about twenty bombs. Their combined score was twenty-two people killed and wounded; as usual, all women, children, and old men. CHAPTER VI THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE _Paris, Monday, October 12th._ In writing about the German, Austrian, and Hungarian subjects of whom we have had charge, I have spoken of them _en masse_. In reality there have been many cases in whom I have been personally interested and to whose safety I have given much time. Their history alone would fill a book. One of these is the case of the Countess X., member of an old and powerful Hungarian family. The Count, her husband, was desperately ill in Paris when the war broke out and he was kept alive only through the devoted care of his wife. We arranged with the French authorities that the Countess might remain in Paris with her husband, although all other Hungarian people were, without exception, being shipped off to detention camps. Later the Countess twice received notice from the Prefecture that she was to be immediately imprisoned, and each time by enlisting the personal assistance of Ambassador Herrick I managed to have the decree delayed.