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On Bastille Day, month ago, down the Champs-Elysées rolled one of the most blazingly colorful military parades ever seen. There were white-plumed Republican Guards in scarlet and blue; bear-skinned, red-coated, white-cross-belted British Guardsmen; rakish, bereted Chasseurs à pied (Blue Devils); smart ski-shouldering Chasseurs Alpins; bearded Foreign Legionnaires; burnoosed Spahis with shoulder-slung rifles on Arabian ponies or brandishing lances on racing dromedaries; turbaned brown Madagascar riflemen; sun-helmeted white Colonial scouts; fezzed black Senegalese sharpshooters; earthshaking, ear-shattering tanks—all ablaze with the armed might of Imperial France. In the reviewing stand, half-hidden behind politicians and visiting dignitaries, stood a little man with grey hair, a small grey mustache, in a small blue-grey uniform—Commander-in-Chief Gamelin. He could hardly be seen. But the troops knew he was there, and so did the people.