University of Virginia Library

Victims Of Accidents

So tell me about the police
charge on the Lawn; just remember
I've been there. The lawn, however,
was that of the American Embassy
at Place de la Concorde. The
situation was even worse because
none of us knew what the hell we
were doing. Vaguely, we were
supposed to present petitions to the
Ambassador, but Sargent Shriver
locked us out. So we stood around
the bottom of the Champs-Elysees
for lack of something better to do
and the CRS started picking us off
one by one; they yanked people at
random and threw them into Black
Marias for "verification of papers."
Because we were Americans, and
only a few at that (about 200,)
they only kicked and hit. They
reserved their tear gas and machine
guns for the French students.
(People who die in French
demonstrations are usually hauled
off to provincial hospitals where
they become "victims of traffic
accidents" of so say some of the
students I met.)

It was sort of funny in a way.
They chased us half way up the
Champs-Elysees ( a strange event
for the Elysian Fields) and divided
us onto opposite sides of the street.
They had to act like school Safety
Patrols in order to stop traffic and
let us cross. They even had to
bother with an accident before they
could get back to the more
enjoyable work of scaring us to the
point of youthful cardiac arrest.

It might be noted here that the
Sweet Briar group had more people
taken in for "verification of
papers" than any other American
group in Paris. This was a fact that
started Dr. Arnold Joseph, professor
in-charge-and-basically-good guy,
well on his way to his first ulcer
and gave the rest of us something to
talk about and to embellish for a
long time to come. A sort of
baptism by night-stick, a palpitator
of not-so-fragile hearts.

So it starts again. We'll march
down the Lawn and up into
Washington. We'll fight the good
fight and we'll soothe our
consciences.

And the War will end. Like it
did last year.