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Rolling through Saint Germain, Chalon Pavey, and Nanterre, the magnificent Arc de Triomphe looms up in the distance ahead, and at about two o'clock, Wednesday, May 13th, I wheel into the gay capital through the Porte Maillott. Asphalt pavement now takes the place of macadam, and but a short distance inside the city limits I notice the 'cycle depot of Renard Ferres.

That spacious thoroughfare literally swarmed with vehicles of every kind, and on the sidewalks the pedestrians were so numerous that they looked like two indeterminate black ribbons unfurling their length from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.

Argensola recognized him as he passed near the street lamp, "Friend Tchernoff." Upon returning their greeting, the Russian betrayed a slight odor of wine. Uninvited, he had adjusted his steps to theirs, accompanying them toward the Arc de Triomphe.

For whatever reason, symbols of the Grass blossomed on the Arc de Triomphe, on the Brandenburger Tor, on the pavement of the Ringstrasse and on the bridges spanning the Danube between Buda and Pesth. I find myself, in retrospect, involuntarily telescoping the time of events. Looking backward, years become days, and months minutes.

For down its ample way there marched in 1814 and 1815 two hostile and conquering armies to occupy Paris, and in 1871 the immense vault of the Arc de Triomphe, an arch of greater magnitude than any raised to Roman Cæsars, echoed to the shouts of another exultant foreign host, mocking as they strode beneath it at the names of German defeats inscribed on its stones.

What a succession of wonders to him was Paris its streets, its boulevards, its Tuileries, its Louvre, its Arc de Triomphe reminding him of the Revolution and the wars of the first Napoleon. Accompanied by his son Edouard, he spent about a week in visiting the most striking memorials of the capital.

Love and fidelity have embalmed her deed and lent her immortality. In the very center of the world's civilization stands her monument. For her Arc de Triomphe has been built in the human heart. Her monument does not appeal to the eye; it is not carved in stone; yet it is more permanent than gold, and her fame outshines all flashing jewels.

At the Arc de Triomphe was a crowd trying to discover what was going on upon the heights above Argenteuil. Some declared they saw Prussians, while others with opera glasses declared that the supposed Prussians were only trees. In the Avenue de l'Impératrice was a large crowd gazing upon the Fort of Mont Valérien.

It was the smaller remaining portion of the splendid mansion and grounds built for the famous financier, Beaujon, by the architect Girardin in the eighteenth century. The original property, situated near the Arc de Triomphe, was nicknamed by contemporaries Beaujon's Folly.

The broad avenue, with its two rows of gaslamps, that extended as far as the Arc de Triomphe, was deserted and silent, but there was the distant roar of Paris, which seemed to have a reddish vapor hanging over it. It was a kind of continual rumbling, which was at times answered by the whistle of a train at full speed, in the distance, traveling to the ocean, through the provinces.