Putnam patriot., 1921-04-15

An American lady went to dinner with us a night or two after we ar rived in France She had been in Paris for several weeks and was full of her observations of the French and of Paris two years after the war. We, | just arrived, were equally full of im- pressions. Two years before we had left Paris month after the signing of the Treaty. Paris still teeming with the uniforms of the Allies, still somewhat intoxicated with peace and victory, still dancing and gay and crowded We had come back to diff ferent Paris. It was not the "Gay | Paree" of pre-war days, not the Paris of war days, or after-the-Armistice days It was Paris two years after the war,-tired, weary, worried, quiet. and spiritless. It was someone else who had remarked that 1t was q city where the funeral of some great per son seemed to have just taken place.
 Wait" said the lady, wait until you have seen the grave of The Un- known"
 And that's how 1t was that we went first at midnight to see the grave of The Unknown Soldier beneath the Are de Triomphe
 Now, dear reader, if you are one of those precious people who can and do seal your feelings in glass jars and call the majority of human emotions by the names of Tish and Tosh, please do not read any more, for this im- pression is an emotional impression, one of the symbolism of the death and the honor done to a simple hero on whom is being outpoured daily the emotions of a great and splendid na- tion.
 You have read undoubtedly, about The Unknown Soldier chosen from the trenches along the French Front and brought to Paris for interment on the anniversary of the Armlstice last November. And as the same eere- mony was being performed on the heights of the Champs Elysees in Par l is, to an unknown British Warrior England, led by the King, was ac- cording the same honors in London. From all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of levelled ranks of those who were the youth of the dec ade seven years ago, these two un- known, mysterious heroes were the selected symbol of the sacrifice in the worlds most ghastly war.
 If you have ever been in Paris you will recall vividly the Arc de Fri omphe at midnight, that great bulky crown of the Etoile with its encircling lights from which stretch away the twelve great avenues of Paris. It was moonlight on this particular night moonlight in February, an unpreee- dented thing since February in France has long been sacredly consecrated to fog and rain and the deep dank chill of the French winter. But this was a moon that contended tenaciously with the long white lights of the avenues and blazing rose lights of the Boule- wards
 And as we walked from the Champs Elysees beneath the Arch moonlight and rose light fell upon the bank of floral offerings renewed each day by those whose sons, husbands and broth CTS lie somewhere in France among the unknown and whose son, husband or brother may be The Unknown who lies beneath Napoleon's Arch. There are the wreaths of ambassadors, the simple mimosa and anemones of the poor, the great floral banks of offer ings from brothers in arms and palm leaves of foreign rulers and kings, and all of these rest at the head of sim pie grave, yet a grave whose impress siveness and whose symbolism throws into vast shadow the ornate tomb of the great Emperor himself beneath the dome of Invalides a bare mile or so away in the moonlight
 Then one looks within the protect ing rail and there under the great swing of the Arch one reads carved in the plain granite slah the simple words;