The Monticellonian., 1917-11-30

wore a veil of sad tears and
 brave laughter? That is Paris just now, after three years of war sor- row and war triumph, writes James Milne in the Graphic. She has let sore tears fall, but, like the tears which make pearls, they begin to shine in the sun of assured victory. Paris puts her trials behind her, resolute that they are over and must be forgotten. She lets the smiles of a naturally merry heart light the road before her, know ing how to play the heroine in these great days, as she played them in the great days of old. Paris vaut bien une messel p said Henri Quatre. If he came back to her from the royal shades, he would think her worth many masses.
 Perhaps one knows a French lady who, in her elegant self, seems to in- carnate War-Paris. She will wear black for somebody heroically dead, or in tribute to the nations Host le- gion," who are not really lost. only gone before to prepare the way of q lOutH NIile SoIltWueIc u ISAltl the black, as the sun breaks through clouds into a clear sky. Maybe she has been nursing, this French lady, ever since the war began. But there is no weariness in her bright eyes, no forgetfulness of the art, simple, subtle, instinetive, with which the French woman wears her clothes. You sym pathetically ask for tales of tragedy begotten in her circle by the hard ex- cursions of Armageddon. She bends her head reverently, flash in her face, and tells you the latest good story of inimitable Monsieur Poilu.
 Women Capable and Serious.
 That, if you please, is Madame Paris, as you meet her in Boulevard and Bois, woman who mourns for the departed, but in the cause of their de- parture finds a new moral inspiration. You understand her and salute her, in maid, wife and widow. How capable they are, how serious, how detached, to all appearance, from the frills and furbelows of the woman's life as we used to regard it. But they remain complete women, with a coquettish response for compliment, If 1t be del- icate enough.
 Even Charles Edward Stuart, an- cient bachelor as he Is, Philistine as he fondly thinks himself to be, takes of his hat to the Parisienne In this war time He Is dear friend of ours, he lives in Old Paris, just as the young pretender might have done up wind- ing oak staircase so dark that the concierge gives you candle to light it, and that is why we add word to his rightful name and call him Charles Edward Stuart. "Yes," says he, ''the Parisienne is at least as fine as the Parisian under the war ordeal, some might say finer, better mettle of the French pasture. She Is consoling force, at high surge like this, of the fascinating and repulsive, mysterious and commonplace, awful and trivial life in which, God knows why, per haps, we have been pitched for few moments"
 In Old Paris.
 When a new book appears. read an old one when you want to understand the spirit of today's Paris, go down in to Old Paris; so we went to St. Etienne du Mont, near the Pantheon. I've are lucky" whispered Charles Edward Stuart, as we stood within the sacred walls. ..in being here under the best conditions. Look that gleam of sun falling on the little red-robed acolyte And the clouds of incense from his swinging censor-it Is great.' Mar. guerite de Valois would think so her self, and the founding of St. Etienne du Mont goes back to her. That was the old church, and a window shows the removal of the shrine of the "Sainte" to the new church.
 It is, you see, the Paris that the Ger mans wanted to loot. and they would not, like ourselves, have stayed out side the door of St. Etienne du Mon