The recent history of Metz was plainly visible in her architecture—ambitious, extravagant, often tasteless buildings shouldering aside the humble remnants of a French town of the Middle Ages. In spite of the floods of horizon blue in her streets the atmosphere of the city was still Teutonic—heavy, a trifle sour, in no way _chic_. The skaters down on a lake before the promenade not only spoke German; they had not even the Latin grace of movement. Yet there were signs to remind one that the capital of Lorraine had changed hands. It came first in petty little alterations, hastily and crudely made—a paper “Entrée” pasted over an “Eingang” cut in stone; a signboard pointing “A Trèves” above an older one reading “Nach Trier.” A strip of white cloth along the front of a great brownstone building that had always been the “Kaiserliches Postamt” announced “République Française; Postes, Télégraphes, Téléphones.” Street names had not been changed; they had merely been translated—“Rheinstrasse” had become also “Rue du Rhin.” The French were making no secret of their conviction that Metz had returned to them for all time. They had already begun to make permanent changes. Yet many mementoes of the paternal government that had so hastily fled to the eastward were still doing duty as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The dark-blue post-boxes still announced themselves as “Briefkasten,” and bore the fatherly reminder, “Briefmarken und Adresse nicht vergessen” (“Do not forget stamps and address”). At least the simple public could be trusted to write the letter without its attention being called to that necessity. Where crowds were wont to collect, detailed directions stared them in the face, instead of leaving them to guess and scramble, as is too often the case among our lovable but temperamental allies. A large number of shops were “Consigné à la Troupe,” which would have meant “Out of Bounds” to the British or “Off Limits” to our own soldiers. Others were merely branded “Maison Allemande,” leaving Allied men in uniform permission to trade there, if they chose. It might have paid, too, for nearly all of them had voluntarily added the confession “Liquidation Totale.” One such proprietor announced his “Maison Principale à Strasbourg.” _He_ certainly was “S. O. L.”—which is armyese for something like “Sadly out of luck.” In fact, the German residents were being politely but firmly crowded eastward. As their clearance sales left an empty shop a French merchant quickly moved in, and the Boche went home to set his alarm-clock. The departing Hun was forbidden to carry with him more than two thousand marks as an adult, or five hundred for each child—and _der Deutsche Gott_ knows a mark is not much money nowadays!—and he was obliged to take a train leaving at 5 A.M.