Andre

Paris was happy last week--the statue of the Zouave on the Pont d'Alma still had a dry midriff.

At some point lost in the mists of metropolitan folklore, Parisians began to use Andre as a flood meter. When the Seine is low his feet are high above the water level, but, as the river rises, it covers him bit by bit. When his feet get wet, it is bad. When his knees get wet. it is serious. When his thighs get wet, it is dangerous. When his belt gets wet, Paris begins to be flooded. In 1910 Andre was nearly drowned: the water was up to his neck.

For weeks Paris weather had been like London--rain nearly every day. The Marne, the Oise and the Seine had risen until Andre stood hip-deep in water. To watching Parisians it seemed that this time Andre was doomed to drown in the swollen Seine. Quayside storage spaces, where the precious household goods of bombed-out Parisians were kept, were flooded. The muddy waters spread over suburban areas. Worst of all, there was no longer sufficient space under the bridges for the barges to pass with their precious coal cargoes for Parisians, who felt just as frozen as Andre looked.

But now, unless more rains came, the flood crest would pass. The Seine would begin to drop down Andre's stony legs, and within a few weeks coal barges would again arrive. Said the Parisians: "The Zouave, being made of marble, cannot catch pneumonia or be unmanned. But we others, hein?"

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