One of the most astounding institutions in Paris before the war was a free German school, open to children of all nationalities, where instruction was given entirely in German, and French was treated as a foreign tongue. Naturally history and geography were taught from the German standpoint, and a love of Germany and the Kaiser was dinned into the pupils. Stranger still, none of the professors held a French certificate, a _sine qua non_ for a French teacher, or were even naturalized. Yet in 1908 one of them was even decorated with the Legion of Honour. Side by side with this instance of "peaceful penetration" may be placed that of a commercial agency, the Agence Schimmelpfeng, which existed in Paris for years, and, under the guise of a society for giving confidential information to commercial houses and their customers, covered a most elaborate and minute spy system, with central offices in Berlin. To give but one example of the work of this agency, it knew the name of every baker in the East of France, how many men he employed, and the exact number of sacks of flour he used per week. Thus the German military authorities knew almost to a loaf how much bread could be counted on for an invading army. German spies were always particularly active in Eastern France. Another precaution they took was to secure all the contracts for coal for the frontier forts, in order to be able to withhold supplies at a critical moment and thus render them useless. On a par with this was the establishment of a German chemical works adjoining an airship factory, which they were ready to supply with hydrogen just as long as it suited them. The arrangement had this additional advantage: when any little hitch occurred with a machine, German workmen were always ready with their help. A French dirigible had thus no secrets for them. Supplies and the methods by which as complete a control of them as possible could be obtained must have been made the study of a special section of the Secret Service department in Berlin. It is not curious that in 1912 a German firm should have succeeded in obtaining the contract for the exclusive furnishing of lubricating oil for the French army motor-cars? But this is nothing in comparison with the plans laid for getting possession of the iron-fields of Normandy and a certain part of the French Channel coast. VI--STORY OF A "GERMAN GIBRALTAR" IN NORMANDY