AMONG THE GERMANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1919, Page 11

AMONG THE GERMANS.

NEW ZEALAND GIRL'S | EXPERIENCES. "This week has been an eventful one hero and the Peace Treaty is now in the hands of the Germans," wrote a New Zealand giil from Paris on May 9. "On Wednesday, the day it was presented to them, I drove out to Versailles with my chief- It's a beautiful drive at any time, right through the spring-clad Bois de Boulogne, and through the village of St. Cloud, where one gets a wonderful panoramic view of Paris, but that day it was doubly interesting. You can imagine how the French people regarded this ceremony at Versailles, with the position so completely reversed since the Germans dictated their peace terms there. There were excited groups of people all along our route, waving frantically when they saw a car with a silk hat in it. "In Versailles itself the street leading to the Trianon Palace was crowded with sightseers. I drove right up to the door with —~, and took to myself part of the salute he got from the guard of honor. As only people with passes were permitted to remain inside the Palace gates, I had to drive out again, but I got a splendid stand just inside the park, adjoining both the Trianon and the Hotel des Eeservoirs, where the Germans are housed. The only other civilians standing about there were a queer-looking crowd of men and women, to whom at first I paid little attention. After a few minutes, however, one of the detectives came up and told me I was standing in the middle of the German delegates' staff! He suggested finding me another place, but I wasn't at all anxious to move. I turned my nose up another inch and glared at thenr all. Really, they were the most extraordinary crowd I The women were remarkable chiefly for their shocking taste in dress—l've never seen anything worse—but, thougn the men too were very badly tailored, it was their faces that repelled me. They were all horrid; when they were not weakchinned and bleary-eyed they were bloated and evil. "After all our plenipotentiaries had arrived and gone into the Palace the guard of honor withdrew, and the Germans, in five grey military ears, drove through the park, right past me, and up to the main entrance to the building, where they were received in silence. That was all we. outsiders knew about the business for a whole hour, but you will have read before this cabled accounts of the ceremony and of the German Count's rudeness. After nurds I saw them all drive back again, still in silence, and then the whole place broke into bustle and life as the motors drove lip for their respective loads. It was a great sight altogther, and I am glad I didn't' miss it."