What was done at Bordeaux--and also at St. Nazaire and Nantes and Brest and Tours and Toul and many, many other points--by our Red Cross in the provision of canteen facilities was repeated in Paris, only on a far larger scale than at any other point. The A. R. C. L. O. C. canteens in Paris--there seems to be no holding in check that army passion for initialization--soon after the signing of the armistice had reached fourteen in number, of which about half were located in or close to the great railroad passenger terminals of the city. The others were hotels, large or small, devoted in particular to the housing of the doughboy and his officers on the occasions of their leaves to the capital--for no other point in France, not even the attractions of Biarritz or the sunny Riviera, can ever quite fill the place in the heart of the man in khaki that Paris, with all her refinements and her infinite variety of amusements, long since attained. These last canteens we shall consider in greater detail when we come to find our doughboy on leave. For the present we are seeing him still bound for the front, the war still in action, the great adventure still ahead. A single glance at the records of the organization of the Army and Navy Department under which the canteen work along the lines of communication is grouped at the Paris headquarters of the American Red Cross, shows that it was not until February, 1918, that the inrush of the American Army in France had assumed proportions ample enough to demand a segregation of canteen accommodations for it from those offered to the _poilus_. As I have said, the canteens for the _poilus_ were in the general nature of training or experimental stations for our really big canteen job over there, and as such more than justified the trouble or the cost; which does not take into the reckoning the valuable service which they rendered the blue-clad soldiers of our great and loyal friend--the French Republic. Take Châlons, for instance: Châlons set an American Red Cross standard for canteens, particularly for such canteens as would have to take care of the physical needs and comforts of soldiers, perhaps in great numbers. This early Red Cross station was set in a large barracks some fifty yards distant from the chief railroad terminal of that busy town. And, as it often happened that the leave permits of the _poilus_ did not permit them to go into the town, a fenced passage, with a sentinel, was builded from the train platforms to the canteen entrance. At that entrance, a coat room where the soldier could check his bulky kit was established.