On the night of
August 2, just when the troops were beginning to move east, an attempt
was made to blow up the railroad bridge at lie de Villenoy, between here
and Meaux. The three Germans were caught with the dynamite on them--so
the story goes--and are now in the barracks at Meaux. But the most
absolute secrecy is preserved about all such things. Not only is all
France under martial law: the censorship of the press is absolute.
Every one has to carry his papers, and be provided with a passport for
which he is liable to be asked in simply crossing a road.
Meaux is full of Germans. The biggest department shop there is a German
enterprise. Even Couilly has a German or two, and we had one in our
little hamlet. But they've got to get out. Our case is rather
pathetic. He was a nice chap, employed in a big fur house in Paris. He
came to France when he was fifteen, has never been back, consequently
has never done his military service there. Oddly enough, for some
reason, he never took out his naturalization papers, so never did his
service here. He has no relatives in Germany--that is to say, none with
whom he has kept up any correspondence, he says.
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