Steamship offices were being stormed by crowds of frantic American tourists.

Martial law was declared.

The streets were alive with soldiers and weeping women.

Shops were closed, the clerks having been drafted into the army.

The city hummed with militarism.
Underneath the excitement was the stern, stoic attitude of the French in preparing to meet their old enemy, combined with their calmness in refraining from outbreaks against German residents of Paris.