FRENCH WOMEN IN BLACK ON EASTER
Mourning and Khaki Worn on Parisian Promenades in Rain Storm
PALL HOVERS OVER CAPITAL
BY MARGARET MASON,
Written for the United Press.
Paris, April 5. France’s sublime patriotism—the noble self-sacrifice of her women—was weirdly and wonderfully demonstrated by the strangest Easter recorded since Paris became the world’s fashion center.
The heavens, moved to pity, wept throughout the day. The clouds cooperated with the colorless feminine attire and the absentee of flowers to produce a Black Easter sharply in contrast to the gaiety and the colorful scenes of normal years.
There was no fashion parade in the boulevards. Bois Boulogne was deserted. The scene of the fashionable Madeleine and of the poorer quarters of Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame were virtually duplicated. The usual contrast between the wealthy and the poorer dressers was lost in the black pall.
The only relieving colors were occasional splotches of blue gray coats, red trousers and the white bandages of wounded soldiers. The only young men in sight were those in uniforms, the other males were old men and little children.
Ninety-five per cent of the women were gowned in black. The only new women’s attire shown as in mourning bonnets and dresses. Hundreds self- sacrificing were wearing last year’s creations, even the fashionable Madeleine failing to show a single new chic creation. The only relief from black, which has become intentionally the women’s khaki, was an occasional white wing or flower hat or less frequently, a purple.
In the taper-lighted Notre Dame the vast audience seemed composed entirely of swaying shadows. Sex was undeterminable because of the absence of colors until a wave of sobs from the feminine worshippers mingling with the soprano carols revealed the actual sufferers of the war’s cruelties.
At the dismissal of the services the women were dry-eyed again. Their buoyancy not only offset the black pall but also revealed the inspiration for the noble deeds of France’s sons.
Courier-Post [Camden NJ] 7 April 1915: p. 6
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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