The condition of the front along which we must pass for eighty miles is as follows: the battle of the Aisne has now turned into a race for the coast; each army is trying to outflank the other, the Germans, according to present indications, getting much the better of the contest. Everyone's attention seems to be concentrated for the moment on Calais, and the Allies evidently feel that the chief danger point is there. I notice with special concern, however, that farther south the German army is at Bethune thrusting out a wedge toward Abbeville, on the coast, only thirty-eight miles away. If they can advance these thirty-eight miles they will win not only all the triangle containing Nieuport, Calais, and Boulogne, but will cut off such of the Allied armies as are now concentrated in this area, and also radically shorten their own lines. Their front, as it now extends from Compiègne to Holland, measures nearly two hundred miles. If reorganized from Compiègne to the coast at Abbeville, it would be less than sixty-five miles. Of course the Allies fully appreciate this danger and are guarding against it as best they can, but I agree with Countess X. that the sooner we snatch her children out of the threatened area the better. * * * * * _At the Front, Tuesday, October 13th._ We left Paris last evening at half-past six and at first made only slow progress owing to heavy traffic, worn-out roads, and destroyed bridges. We stopped for supper in poor, wrecked Senlis. This town is no farther from the gates of Paris than Van Cortlandt Park in New York is from the Battery, and yet the German armies were in Senlis in September, battles raged in its streets, shells burst in its houses and destroyed whole blocks. Indeed, one of the fiercest fights of the war took place at night in its streets when, during the attack made by the garrison of Paris upon von Kluck's army, troops were hurriedly rushed out of Paris in trams, wagons, and taxicabs to fall pell-mell upon the Germans who occupied Senlis. French colonial infantry played a large part in this conflict. A weird and awful sight it must have been: taxicabs and automobiles from Paris charging up the streets vomiting bullets in all directions, houses catching fire from the bursting shells, and by the light of their flames the men of both armies fighting hand to hand, chasing one another through the doors and windows of burning and collapsing houses, or making desperate stands behind dead horses, street-barricades, or wrecked taxicabs. It is said that in every such mêlée Turcos were to be seen exulting in their favorite sport, close-range fighting. * * * * *