It is no uncommon thing for boats crossing the Channel to sight floating mines, and the wonder is that disasters therefrom have been so few.
The third reason is that France has very large investments and credit resources outside, and can still summon money from abroad.
You see more English than French soldiers in the life of Paris.

Their khaki uniforms are as conspicuous there as in London.
The character of the early enlistments for the front in London is illustrated by the following story.

An officer entered a restaurant where a group of English soldiers in khaki uniforms were enjoying their cigarettes and pipes.

The officer threw some shillings on the table and called, "Waiter, give these men some beer." And a khaki uniform snapped forth a sovereign on the same table, and cried, "Waiter, give this officer some champagne." Bank statements are queer contraptions nowadays.

While the United States, with less gold in the country and less reserve in the banks than formerly, is showing the most enormous surplus--and a legitimate and better-protected surplus by reason of the new bank act--and the Bank of England is counting $100,000,000 of gold in Canada as a London bank reserve, and Russia has counted, as gold in her reserve, money on deposit which has been loaned out on time; while Belgium is doing a banking business from an English base, and Germany is inviting gold from the jewelry of her inhabitants and boasting her gold strength, the Bank of France refuses to publish any statement, makes no boast, but holds more gold than ever before in her history.
Only a few weeks before the war was her metal base put above $800,000,000.