The British Embassy
had become a hospital, and all the houses which had not been burned
looked as though they had stood a bombardment. There were bullet
splashes on all the walls, and I remember that Voisin's looked even
more battered and hopeless than did most of its neighbours.
The diplomats have always had an affection for Voisin's, perhaps because
of its nearness to the street of the Embassies; and in the "eighties"
the attaches of the British Embassy used to breakfast there every day.
Nowadays, the _clientele_ seems to me to be a mixture of the best type
of the English and Americans passing through Paris, and the more elderly
amongst the statesmen, who were no doubt the dashing young blades of
twenty-five years ago. The two comfortable ladies who sit near the door
at the desk, and the little show-table of the finest fruit seem to me
never to have changed, and there is still the same quiet-footed,
unhurrying service which impressed me when first I made the acquaintance
of the restaurant. It is one of the dining-places where one feels that
to dine well and unhurriedly is the first great business of life, and
that everything else must wait at the dinner-hour. The proprietor,
grey-headed and distinguished-looking, goes from table to table saying a
word or two to the _habitues_, and there is a sense of peace in the
place--a reflection of the sunshine and calm of Provence, whence the
founder of the restaurant came.
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