Invited by President McMahon to a review of thirty thousand cavalry, I was informed that a French captain would have a mount for me in the Bois de Boulogne. There were eight American officers in Paris, most of them in official capacity, and when I arrived they were all there. As the senior, they insisted I approach the French officer. Speaking little French, I was somewhat embarrassed. But with the assurance of an American, I called out to the dapper young French artillery officer, "Good morning, captain; do you speak English?" "No, I do not," he replied, "but I speak American, which is much better. I spent four years as military attaché in Washington, the most beautiful city in the world." It is needless to say that his diplomacy made us all his friends. As Nannie had anticipated, this year's service at the Paris Exposition was the greatest practical and instructive education of my life. A practical skilled mechanic, I understood the intricacies of mechanics, and here in one building was assembled all the latest and most novel machinery of the world. The sewing machine was then in the height of its progressive construction. England, hitherto the foremost nation in machinery construction, was fast losing its place to America and France. The English machine was distinguished by its clumsy, angular and heavy parts and the difficulty of keeping it in order. The French machines were better, but the American machine stood first in all that made it handy, graceful, symmetrical and useful. And so it was with all the other machinery. Electric light and power was in its infancy, but here, as in all else, the best appliances for its use were American. I started out in the hope of learning a great deal from the foreign nations in my conceived invention and construction of a woven cartridge belt and other web equipment, which I felt sure could be made as strong and of as firm consistency as leather, and much better than leather because it was lighter, more flexible, did not require oiling, and was less likely to break in the process of wetting and drying when exposed to the weather. However, after visiting factories in France, England and Germany, I found that they knew less about weaving such fabrics than we did in America. Nannie and I traveled much during our stay abroad. France had been humiliated by Germany's conquest and exaction of the then unheard of indemnity, but she was not despondent. In the dining room of our boarding house, 44 Rue de Clichy, were two female figures on pedestals representing Alsace and Lorraine, tears streaming down their cheeks; and when the proprietress, Madame Thierry, would speak of them the tears would roll down her cheeks, too. The sympathy of Americans was generally with France.