pale, monotonous voice, feeble as a breath, broke the dolorous silence with a name: 'Antoinette Poisson!'

Overcome with emotion the professor of history asked:

fessor's guests left him alone, lost in profound meditation.

In an enormous lecture hall, a crowded audience composed of serious-look

'Yes,' replied the medium's voice. 'My childhood was not happy, and it was only when I became the favorite of . . .

At this moment the phantom of the marquise seemed to mark time. Either she was suffering pain, or a kind of modesty restrained her. At any rate, the tone had a bizarre note of hesitation. Unconsciously they divined the violent effort which Madame de Pompadour was making.

For all that, she came to a decision at length:

many women of every age, all of them cackling like chickens in a back yard, awaited the entrance of M. Lejoyeux. Amidst rapturous applause he appeared and took his seat.

In the twinkling of an eye a quiet fell upon the room, and M. Hector Lejoyeux, the master, the believer, the fervent and convinced apostle of history and of spiritualism, opened his lecture with the following words:

'Mesdames, messieurs: However sincere and impartial a scholar may seek to show himself, he remains none the less subject to error in the examination

There was an instant of amazement among the guests. As for M. Lejoyeux, he stood aghast, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed.

After a few seconds, he went on:
'Louis XIV?' he asked.

'Louis XIV,' replied the voice.
'But in that case

'Chut!' remarked Madame de Pompadour. Then, as if she regretted having let this great secret escape her, she murmured, 'Chut!' in an imploring

accent.

M. Lejoyeux desired to interrogate still further, to pierce the stupefying mystery. But the medium began to shake again and to cry out until the phantom of Antoinette Poisson had gradually disappeared, after which the electricity was turned on and the pro

therefore be a ridiculous presumption to put faith in them. We are surrounded with legends, over which the truth often can triumph only by a lucky chance.

"Thus it is that by spiritualistic agency the truth has recently been placed in my hands. The famous Marquise de Pompadour was not, as misguided historians have hitherto supposed, the mistress of Louis XV, but the mistress of Louis XIV.'

That very evening, M. Lejoyeux received a note from the rector of the university, suggesting that it would be advisable for him to abandon his professorship, for which, no doubt, he could quickly console himself by giving all his energies to new experiences in spiritualism, with the assistance of the medium whose education had unfortunately been so sadly neglected.

THE army allowed Germany by the Treaty of Versailles should include two Army Corps Headquarters Staffs, three cavalry divisions, and seven divisions of infantry. It should be of a total strength of 100,000 men all told; and the maximum stocks of arms allowed for it are 102,000 rifles and carbines, 1,926 heavy and light machine-guns, and 288 guns.

Such is, or ought to be, the Reichswehr of to-day, which again should be the only military organization in Germany. All other organizations for the command of troops or for preparation for war are forbidden. So are all armaments in excess of the above. So are all measures of mobilization. Germany wanted much more. Whether she has, in the treaty Reichswehr, enough or not enough troops for frontier and internal protection, I do not propose to discuss. Her complaints were heard and the Treaty was upheld. After contesting the Allied claims for long, she has conformed with them, to all open appearances. It is true that some units are in excess of their proper establishments, and that bridge-trains enough for an army corps have occasionally come to light, but, on the whole, these things are not of much account, and our inclination was to give Germany credit for having at last reduced her standing army to the proportions allowed.

But Germany has played so many tricks in the past that nobody trusts her, and so inquisitive French observers have looked closely into this organization and have made a few somewhat un

pleasant discoveries. They have found, in many instances, that regiments possess three complete sets of arms, clothing, and equipment, which the Germans explain by saying that one set is for current use, one for replacing losses, and a third for mobilization. But could the additional numbers of men be found, it would seemingly be simple to triplicate the existing organization, and place in the field, not 100,000 men but 300,000. The Reichswehr, then, we find to our vexation, is not quite what we thought it to be.

Can the men be found? As there are some 7,000,000 war-trained veterans in Germany, no one can doubt it; and besides, when the Reichswehr set out to suppress the Ruhr rising, they were very quickly made up by volunteers. The pension office in Germany does duty as the old Bezirk, and as close a touch as possible is kept with men who have served. Even the small-books of the men in civil life exist; and although compulsory service has been, happily for the time abolished, we certainly cannot count on the additional men not coming forward to serve.

The pertinacity with which Germany has attempted to re-create her military organization of 1914 is certainly remarkable. If we exclude the occupied territories, the neutral zone on the right bank of the Rhine, and the plébiscite area in Upper Silesia, Germany now includes the territories occupied by twenty-one of the old twenty-five prewar army corps. Her constant endeavor

has been by hook or crook to re-create the nucleus at least, and as large a nucleus as possible, for those twenty-one army corps; and if she can triplicate her seven divisions of infantry, she gets at least a division for every old army corps, and that is a pretty good beginning. The cavalry may be similarly increased, and it is known that the squadrons in a regiment bear each the name of one of the old regiments and wear its distinctive badge on the sleeve of their right arm. The purpose of eventually restoring the old regiments must at least be suspected with some cause.

Now, leaving the Reichswehr for a moment, let us see what there is behind. First, the 'Schupo,' or the Schutzpolizei. These gentry are the Sicherheitspolizei in a new guise. The latter were nominally abolished on Allied demand; but they soon reappeared as the Schupo, under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. They are a very fine type of regular troops, and are nothing else. When General Gaucher discovered them at Düsseldorf during my visit there, he found them so fine and so cantankerous, that he promptly abolished half of them, and for all I know may since have disbanded the rest. There are at present about 150,000 of the Schupo in Germany, including 80,000 in Prussia, and better cadres for a national army one could not want. Nearly all non-commissioned officers and veterans of the war, they are just the type for assimilating men from civil life trained to arms. There has recently been introduced a system of passing recruits through a so-called experimental course in the Schupo-a system too reminiscent of post-Jena Prussia to be pleasant.

Next comes the Einwohnerwehr, of whom there are admittedly 320,000 in Bavaria alone, and large numbers in many other parts of Germany. How Dr. von Kahr, the Minister-President

of Bavaria, can have had the effrontery to admit that he had 240,000 rifles for these men, in face of the provisions of the Treaty, to which I have referred, passes the wit of man to understand. I believe it is claimed that these people and the Orgesch, or Organization Escherich, are all private bodies, which do not come under the terms of the Treaty. This is really a little too thin, and I must observe that the frontier of Bavaria at Aschaffenburg is within a very short distance of the French garrison, whose drums and clarions I hear as I write, and that the sooner Bavaria makes up her mind that this cock will not fight, the better for her private organizations.

There are at least 3,500,000 rifles and 10,000 machine-guns in Germany which should have been surrendered, and have not so been. How many guns are there left? No one knows for certain. We were extraordinarily ignorant of the number of German guns when the armistice terms were drawn up. We asked for the surrender of 5,000 guns, believing that this figure represented ‘about one-third of the artillery material of the German army.' Since then General Nollet's Commission has secured the delivery and destruction of 35,000 guns, and there is no saying how many more there may be. If all the Big Berthas are still concealed, how easy it must be to hide field-guns. No prudent man should count upon the Germans being without guns for field armies. The fortresses on the coasts and in the East are also full of heavy guns. Königsberg, to which the Allies allot twenty-two guns, has, I believe, between 700 and 800. Germany was a perfect nest of armaments of all kinds, and it is pretty clear that the nest is not yet cleaned out of the vipers within it.

On what lines is it proposed to use these forces and these armaments in case of war? Apparently the idea is to use

the triplicated Reichswehr as a covering force, to form behind it a national army of 1,500,000 men with the help of the Schupo, and to use the Einwohnerwehr and the Orgesch for all the secondary purposes for which troops are required for duties in the interior in war-time. That is the general plan, the covering force falling back on the National Army, which will be found in a prepared position, while other troops wage a guerilla war and raid the communications of the enemy. A certain literature, with a German general at its head, is already beginning to stereotype this plan.

'Great Heavens!' one may impatiently ask; 'Do you really believe that a people who have suffered so much from war want war again?' 'No,' one is told, 'the people do not want war; but all the people who rule Germany, and who temporarily side-slipped to avoid the reproach of accepting the ultimatum, want to reestablish a strong Germany and to wage a war of revenge. The disastrous docility of the mass of the people permits anything, and always pushing them on there is this vast body of out-of-work officers longing for the reestablishment of their prerogatives, and unable to wait.'

I am not prepared to say whether it is all a nightmare or a mare's nest; but if the French are over-suspicious, they are almost justified in being so after all the prevarication, evasion, and camou

flage to which the Germans have resorted. The French have now the Allied warrant to liquidate this matter, and they mean to do so in strict accord with the treaty and subsequent German engagements.

My own instinct is that Germany does not want war, and is still incapable of waging war on a modern scale. But she has uneasy neighbors on several fronts, and wishes to be strong. She will build up a formidable army directly she is allowed, and will take advantage of every opportunity to do so. There is not the slightest hope of any serious reduction of armaments in Europe, or of any real pacification, so long as this is the bent of her mind, and so long as she can point to the illegal seizure of Upper Silesia by the Poles as a justification of her attitude. It is the business of the Allies to settle the latter question, since they made themselves responsible for order in the plebiscite area.

But in the grave matter of unauthorized German armaments, presuming that the fact is indubitably proved, the conclusion is borne in upon us that if we want to avoid a fresh war we must exercise a certain control over Germany for a considerable period of time. For how long? Until the old German corps of officers becomes absorbed in other pursuits, until the war veterans are too old to serve, and until the Prussian spirit of militarism becomes supplanted by the spirit of civic duty.

SONG OF THE DAY'S END

BY FRANCIS WILLIAMS
[Westminster Gazette]

THE wise man and the foolish,
They met at Heaven's gate;
The fool he danced a caper,
But the wise man came in state.

'God help you and God keep you,'
Said the foolish to the wise.
But the wise man only eyed him
With dignified surprise.

Then God came through the wicket
And the wise man bowed him low;
But the fool he danced still higher
To see God standing so.

They went them in together,
God walking in between,

Along the flower garden,

And through the meadow green.

And the wise man went as honored

guest

To the fairest room of all.

But the fool he went as friend of God And lover of them all.

A SERMON

BY MARGARET SACKVILLE

[The Observer]

THERE's room for most things: Tropic

seas,

Poll-parrots, beer, the Vicar's teas,
June nights, transparent Winter dawns,
Tulips ablaze on Summer lawns,
Queer jungle fruits of mammoth size,
And gay Brazilian butterflies;
Chalk cliffs built up of tiny shells,
Delicate mist and faint bluebells,
The sparrow's brown, the peacock's
tail;
Cathedrals; Florence Nightingale;
Gaby Deslys; Paris; the small

Village tucked snugly round the Hall.
Yes, room for all, if only each
Will live content, nor strive to preach

Its own perfection as the end
Toward which the Universe should tend.
As long as daisies don't complain.
The whole world's not a daisy-chain,
Or flaunting tropic birds condemn
To ridicule the sober hen;

As long as each with its own shape
Is satisfied nor tries to ape
Another's. When the crow puts on
The peacock's plumes, his charm is
gone!

Will-o'-the-Wisp, though shining bright,
Wont keep your kitchen fires alight;
Tamed wolves are not domestic cats,
Nor Fauns less Fauns for bowler hats.
Let neither Faun nor Saint reprove
Others for different ways of love,
Life and delight. There's room for
wings

And feet for wine and water-springs; For things that walk and things that dance,

For Iceland and the South of France, For lake and village-pump and sea, For You · but also room for Me.

CROOKED CORNER

[Punch]

WHEN I pass Crooked Corner,
I hardly make a sound,
Because I know the fairies

Have there a dancing-ground;
And I've been shown the pixy throne
On which their queen is crowned.

And once by Crooked Corner
I saw a russet cloak
Just slipping through the hedgerow
Beside the haunted oak;
Nurse told me then it was a wren
I'm sure it was 'the folk.'

Someday by Crooked Corner,
If I am very good,
Maybe I'll see the goblins

Come trooping from the wood;
I may myself become an elf -
I wonder if I could?