New-York tribune., 1919-03-22

nARIS, March 21.-Not many weeks ago
the best architecture, sculpture and
paintings of Paris were under sand
bags or far away in the south of France.
The visiting soldier needed guide TO
point out to him what was good and what
was bad The bad was visible to the eye,
the good was covered up. But to day he
is getting more of chance to use his own
judgment. For gradually pictures and
statues are finding their way back to the
museums which are opening up their gal
leries one by one. The great doors of
Notre Dame have emerged from their war
time sand and cement, the Vendome Column
longer looks like citadel, the Winged
Victory has ascended from her dark corner
in the Louvre cellar, and the high relefs of
the Arc de Triomphc ready for the vic
tory parade.
In pre-war days the professional guide
gathered in the tourists and the francs.
There we're two-hour trips, half day trips
and excursions of a weeks duration for
school teachers and other serious minded
voyagers from America who insisted on
getting their moneys worth out of the
trip across the Atlantic But the tradi
tona guide Of Paris has been supplanted
for the most part, or lost his independence
in the service of the Y. NJ c. A. or the Red
Cross Under the auspices of these organ
izat ions sightseeing trips have been organ
ized and groups of American soldiers
leave led about Paris foot
ricd about in rubberncck busscs, and the
clarion throated American professor of
m Grir uafn
who has made France her special study
have come into their own.
There arc walking trips through old Paris
around and in and out Of Notre Dame
through the Tuilerics and the Louvre and
along the Seine. There are auto rides to
Malmaison and the love grotto of Josephine
and Napoleon before the Emperor took
other fancies. There arc train trips to
Fontancbleau, st. Germain- en-L Laye and the
red chateau Of Henry ". There are morn
ings to be spent at the Pantheon and the
Invaides. And if one wishes to be mean-
choly the Y. M. C. A. will take him for
an afternoon to the tomb Of Napoleon and
let him muse while on human ambition
and fallen empires. Versailles, the splen-
did, is open to visiting parties and begin
ming to blossom out in the first warm days
of spring.
There is some question as to how much
the American doughboy on his three-d day
leave gets out of his personally conducted
tour and how far he follows his guide dut-
fully a soldier should but with one
eye regretfuly over his shoulder in the
direction of the boulcvards, where the
architecture is modern and the art mostly
feminine. A few days ago a group of
twenty American soldiers stood in the rain
at the Place de la Concorde, while little
her best to make their blood curdle with
the tale of the rhythmic fall of the guillo-
tine knife and the bloody heads in the
basket
"Now men, she said, 1--WE will just have
time to go to the Gambetta statue in the
Tuieries."
ooh, hell" came a subducd voice from
the rear, "aint there any place where we
can go and quench our thirst?"
But the little lady fortunately didn't
hear, and the procession moved on from
the study of the French Revolution to the
days Of the Commune.
After all, it takes background and
good deal of Imagination to get the proper
thrill in the presence of some of Frances
monuments visit to the place where
once stood the Bastile hundred and fifty
years ago is interesting but not convinc
ing. The carts roll over the historic ground
where once the horrid prison towers reared
their pentagonal shape, and one has to