"A bas les Americains!"

Let a man who possesses only five dollars fancy he has caught you in the act of stealing one of them and you have started a fight. Last week the franc plunged suddenly from 40 to the dollar to nearly 50. Frenchmen, clutching crisp or crinkly banknotes, felt their wealth oozing from them as insidiously as though they grasped a handful of slime. What to do? "Naturally"--with blind instinctive no-logic--they hit out. At whom? At Herriot, whose ambitious folly had overturned the Briand Cabinet (TIME, July 26)? Yes. M. Herriot was mobbed, though he escaped. (See "Presidents, Premiers.") But there was only one M. Herriot. At whom else to strike? Obviously at Les Americains--purse-proud Shylocks, champagne-swizzling hypocrites, gumchewers, rubbernecks, boors....

At the Place de Tertre a U. S.- tourist-jammed, see-Montmarte-by-night charabanc was mobbed. Many a Knox hat was stove in. Many a pair of Hickok suspenders gave way. Havoc. . . . But no serious injuries.

At the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue du Helder, six more U. S.-freighted charabancs were held up by a crowd of well-dressed Frenchmen--seemingly by no means roughs. Several policemen appeared, attempted to interfere, were restrained by the inceasing ugliness of the mob, advised "Les Amer- icains" (about half of these being English and German and less than one-quarter U. S. citizens) to climb from their busses and scuttle off. The advice was taken. No injuries.

It was notable that busses starting from British or German tourist agencies were not molested. Trench hostility, however mistaken, was directed at "Les Americains."

Late in the week, Parisian merchants, terrified lest "Les Amer- icains" and their gold be frightened from Paris, began an anti-anti- American campaign through the press. The situation eased perceptibly with the return of the franc to 40 on the advent of M. Poincare's Ministry.