What I have seen! I have seen Paris under the Teutonic shadow cast from the north. Three days, on opening my windows at dawn, I anxiously listened for the expected rumble of the cannonading. Nothing.... It will be soon, this evening, to-morrow, I said. Everything in my threatened city became sacred to me. For me to die, that was nothing. But for Paris to be destroyed; my Paris! the city that cannot be described; cannot be explained! I couldn't stand that. I burst out weeping in the deserted streets, leaning perchance against a humble and old house. This mere relic had feelings, regrets, like the most sublime monuments. The gravest day dawned. Those who only stayed in Paris for the pleasure they receive from it, and those who have children to take care of, were hastening toward the stations or crowding into automobiles. I stayed there. My heart wrung with agony, I drifted through my ordinary occupations. Then the unbelievable happened. As I was crossing the Place de la Madeleine, in a semi-dazed condition, a little boy, about five or six years old, ran up to me and gave me a slip of paper. I saw distractedly that he was decently dressed and had large blue eyes. I automatically opened the paper. The following unheard of phrase was typewritten on it: "_France is invincible_." I turned toward the child: "Who gave you that?" "Madame," said the little one, raising his head with a look that was grand, immense, "We wrote them ourselves, all night." Tears filled my eyes; I had a presentiment they were tears of deliverance. So, while we knew the Uhlans were in Chantilly, while in the hearts of the grown-up people horror placed its claws on faith, on hope, there was a little child with immense blue eyes, who knew nothing, like the good shepherds, St. Genevieve and Joan of Arc, but who knew that "France was invincible" and who passed the night writing it. Yes, the miracle that saved Paris was revealed to us. But there was another miracle, something imponderable, which was the soul of the little boy with his eyes of light--which is the soul of Paris. Paris ... even during those hours did not lose its sweet disposition of smiling independence. And it was among the children that we found the most touching proofs. One day--at the hour when the German aviators were storming Paris with bombs--we called it our _five o'clock taube_--I went out with a friend near the Park Monceau. All the passers-by were walking with their noses in the air, as they already had got the habit of the visits of "the bad pigeons." One little boy had his bicycle to follow the flight, another a pair of opera glasses. But look around in the sky as I might, I could see nothing. Then a little boy, this one about six or seven years old, pulled my coat. "Straight up, madame; straight up, over my head!" That's how they frightened our little kiddies!