Arizona republican., 1915-08-14
PARIS STREETS
 ARE GAY AGAIN
Soldiers Now Given Four Days Leave of Absence from Front - Movement to Check Campaign of DiScOurage1nent
ASSOCIATED PRESS DIsPArcH1

PARIS, Aug 13.-The boulevards 1 of Paris have come into their own.
 Thousands of soldiers now mingle
 with the usual wartime Sunday
 crowds soldiers of all arms and in
 uniforms of all the regulation colors,
 bringing back some of the joy and
 animation that disappeared last sum-
 mer. They are grouped with famil- i ies and friends the terraces of
 all the cafes, they whiz along all
 the streets in taxi-autos or in supmp- i tuous limousines, they crowd the en-
 frances to all the moving picture shows and promenade with the arms
 of women resting on their faded
 stained sleeves while little tots hang 1 to their bronzed necks or cling to i their calloused hands.
 They are the popular 'poilus' (the hirsute) home from the front. It
 seemed last Sunday that all the 50.000 | that left the trenches Saturday on | four days leave were there.
 | It is believed these soldiers were returned from the front to check one phase of a systematic propaganda of Encouragement that started at the | beginning of the war and is still go- ing on. The latest manifestation of 1 it was a flood of anonymous letters
 to soldiers at the front informing 1 them that while they were shedding their blood their wives were leading | loose lives at home. This is SUD- posed to be the reason for the deci- sion of .he war department to give four days leave to the men at the front in contingents of 5O,OOO at l time, so that they may look into the Si 1f hoi count.
 The anonymous character of much of the news that circulates gave the fabricators of false news a clear field, the ignorance in which the public is kept concerning the details of the military operations making it impos- sible for anyone to deny stories that are circulated; it also makes it diff flcult for the police to reach the cul- prits, though the secret service did succeed in tracing some of the work to an eccentric millionaire named
 ProuvOst. living at Saint Raphael who has been convicted by a court martial and sentenced to prison
 After making a fortune out of in surance, Prouvost espoused the anar- | chist cause, published subversive pamphlets and journals and finally | fell into the clutches of the Bonnot | band whose sensational crimes ex- cited Paris two years ago. False | news began to circulate behind the l lines early in the fall of last year: | soldiers in hospitals and at the front 1 received anonymous letters and cir l culars with significant headlines such | as They are deceiving us," Ger | many has made peace overtures that | we repulsed," Our generals have had entire regiments of our soldiers | executedr
 All these documents glorified great | Germany" Names and addresses of | soldiers in hospitals, names of re- | fugees advertising for lost relatives. | names of women advertising for em- | ployment-all those whose state of | mind seemed to make them accessi- | ble to depressing news and sugges- | tions received anonymous letters and | circulars. suspicious circumstance | was that those sent to soldiers were | postpaid, while most of the corre- | spondence sent to them is postfree. | Thousands were distributed by un- | known means through the big depart | ment stores, slipped by mysterious | hands under street doors and into l private letter boxes; they were even | oNehtttitu ONti tilt IlpOTS or DOStOltlCeS l and the cars of the subway
 It was finally discovered that the l subjects treated and the language | used were the same as in some pro- | clamations dropped by German avia- tors upon positiovs held by troops of l the second line of Basseux in Novem- | Der. Finally a woman was detected | dropping large packets of letters into | letter boxes, and was shadowed She l received letters from St. Raphael in the department of the Var in the | name of Herman, her real name be- | ing Donnadieu, wife of a well known l anarchist, living with another anar- | chist named Hureau. All three were 1 arrested and their correspOudence was traced to the millionaire Prou- | vost Prouvost admitted paving the | postage on the letters and circulars | but declared that he had no intention of engaging in a guilty opaganda. | Behind Prouvost. Hureau and Ma l dame Donnadieu, the police think | there was a well directed system of | German espionage
 The Eclair declares that it has | traced some of the false news cir culated in Paris to naturalized Ger mans and gives the names of some | of them.