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Looking through the list of subjects dealt with in these chapters, it will be seen that the criticism of French life carried through by John F. Macdonald (if by “criticism” we understand what Matthew Arnold defined as “an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is”) covered, from 1907 to 1913, nearly all events in every domain of Parisian life during this critical period.

In other words, the present volume supplies the evidence which not only confirms the impressions that he sought to convey to his fellow-countrymen in Paris of the Parisians, but it lends the authority that belongs to a judgment founded upon a right criticism to the sentence which I may, in conclusion, quote from his article on the “Paris of To-day,” originally published in The Fortnightly Review, July, 1915, and reprinted (by the editor’s kind permission) in his posthumous book, Two Towns—One City.

“It has been repeatedly and persistently asserted, in hastily written articles and books, that the war has created an entirely ‘new’ Paris. Journalists and novelists have proclaimed themselves astonished at the ‘calm’ and the ‘seriousness’ of the Parisians, and at the ‘composed’ and ‘solemn’ aspect of every street, corner and stone in the city; and how elaborately, how melodramatically have they expatiated upon the abolition of absinthe, the closing of night-restaurants, the disappearance of elegant dresses, the silence of the Apaches, the hush in the demi-monde, and the increased congregations in the churches!