"GAY PAREE" IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2293, 29 October 1914, Page 6

"GAY PAREE" IN WAR TIME

A NEW SPIRIT DULL DAYS AT MAXIMS AND MONTMARTRE The following pon picture of the "New Paris," by Alplionse Couriander, tile Paris correspondent of the "Daily Express," is interesting. "Paris by niglit—three worde that sum up to the English mind all that is gay nnd musical, Paris by night— .iip yoll«w a-yi '?r witli and Montmsirtre keeping up its revels into tho dawn that waits behind \lie drawn curtains of tho night-places cold and implacable. "Paris by night—theatres emptying and cafes filling, and tho boulevards ae active as an ant heap. Was all this a dream, then ? Was there over a time when Paris by nigiit was anything but the desert of stern silence that it is now ? ■ "Come with me to the new Paris by night," he writes, "Paris by night in war time! "Night life with us begins early and ends at 9.30. Betwen those hours tho boulevards take on an aspect of activity, but it is only the pale ghost of tho former brilliance and movement of other days. There is room enough to. spare in'all tho cafes at the hour of aperitif, where only a few of the old customers sit round and study the 'Temps' or read the latest one-sheet editions containing a few black lines of the official communiques. The chairs and amsic-stoois of the orchestras arc huddled together in a cornor. Al the faces of tho waiters are new and unfamiliar. "Here is Maxim's with three peopls sitting at the high bar, and the bar tender, in his milk-white gloves, standing idle beneath tho list of American drinks that are never mixed to the merry jingle of crushed ico in thfse days. At"7 Maxim's is full with diners, so'full that one may almost sut one's eye , ; and persuade oneself that it is past midnight and air is well with the'world, jjuv there is no laughing, no musk', and everybody, seems to be dining in a furtive, ashnmed sort of way. I have not stii 'a, white shirt front sinco the war broke oiit, and I begin to wonder whether such a thing as an opera hat ever existed. . Pale and Deserted. "Stand at the corner of the Place do I'Opera at 9 o'clock and look, left and right, and before and behind you. The boulevards stretch away from you in a vistu of emptiness.■ A few weeks ogo there was more, lifo at three o'clock in the morning than there is to-day at nine in tho evening. Tho yellow lamplights, are strung like amber beads in tho night, and a stray cab prowls about like a hungry jackal Montmartre is almost tearful in its 6ilence, with the Boulevard do Clichy no longer alight with cabarets and its silly show places for foreigners. It is a new Montmartre,' a'i peaceful suburb of Paris, purged of its' male parasites, many of thorn Germans of tlie lowest types of humanity, purged also of Us hordes of foreign 'women that swarmed in a festering wound over tho beauty of Paris. "Yet hero in Montmartre are tragedies that are apparent to all—starvation and no more of tho champagne of life. High heels are here, and chic dresses, ,and even a hat with an osprey; but bread is hard to get. Go where you will it is the same. There is no Latin quarter, for all tho foreign students bavn gone to their countries to fight, and the ateliers aro barred and ahuUorod. A month ago they • wero dancing and lotting off fireworks at Bai Bullier. Yet out of this silenco and wide, empty streets a stronger Paris' has arisen, ' A Paris that is schooling itself to, accept the order of things wjthout complaint, a Paris that is sacrificing itself and all its inherited gaiety, and learning to be a stem and solid .city. Away with absinfho and music and reckless laughter that mocks at the morrow 1 ' Paris has become more

thoughtful of to-morrow, Paris lives only for to-morrow now that to-night lini'shes at 9 o'clock. Tho Now Paris. "Walk homewards. The sky is swept with the searchlight from tho roof of the Automobile Club, facing the Place do la Concorde, where a vast and powerful eye keeps its' watch on the Eiffel Tower, the brain of Franco, pulsing with wireless messages to' fleet and aimies, speaking even to the Admiralty and Whitehall. There are lights m tho Foreign Office and lights in the Ministry of War, and the head telegraph oflico'is as busy as in the daytime v.-ith messages of war. This is the real Pans b n j,r u t—the Paris of motor-cars, with tholr rush to some unknown destination, officers sitting by. the chauffeur who wears the tri-colour armband ot the stall; heavy lorries lumbering through fJio liuo de llivoli bound for the eastern frontier, slow wagons laden with carrots ana turnips in layers of orango and red and white, embroidered with green leaves, crawling towards the Hallos. "And suddenly out of tho darkness of a side street a body of men appear mcviiiß with phantom silence on biLcvcles. They are tho wonderful cy-

clisr. policemen, tho most mobile body of police in the world. Thoy jump oft' their bicycles. If you are wise you will stop. You will even raise your hat. " 'Vos papiers, m'sier.' "Bring out your pocket-book witn ite precious papers, the permission to live and tho foreigner's, declartion of residence, tho crisp British passport, and anythng else you may have, and smilo (it'the police and talk frankly. lou will find that there is nothing fearful in them for those who have complied with the rules of war. You will find that- they are polite in the midst of their nightly hunt for the snako in tho grass. ' , , "Show your papers and go home, an-A don't forget to call your name to &l« concierge as you go upstairs.