Under Two Flags

No flowers, no music, no women--such was the Spartan order of the day in the U. S. Embassy at Paris last week, when three most solemn funeral orations were pronounced over the flag-draped coffin of Myron Timothy Herrick of Cleveland, beloved and glamor-crowned Ambassador. Greatly impressed by the fact that the late Marshal Ferdinand Foch ordered "No flowers!" (TIME, April 1), Mr. Herrick said when his own death drew nigh, "I also want no flowers."

Of course some well-meaning person smuggled a single bunch of violets onto the bier, last week, and they were not disturbed. But there was no music in the Embassy. And there were only, two women--Mme. Salambier, long the Ambassador's social secretary, and his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Parmely Herrick. The other 400 persons who jammed to suffocation the largest room in the Embassy were all men, clad in formal mourning.

"Greed." As doyen of the Corps Diplomatique, the Spanish Ambassador Count Jose Maria Quinones de Leon delivered himself of an ornate bouquet of phrases into one of which he startlingly introduced the wasp word "greed."

"Mr. Herrick," purred Count Quinones, "like other great statesmen who refused to subscribe to that deep-rooted greed which makes duplicity and deceit the best weapons of diplomacy, never employed any other resources than those which translated his most intimate sentiments, namely, sincere affability, loyal frankness and perfect cordiality."

"Star-Spangled Banner." In taking leave of Ambassador Herrick in the name of all Frenchmen, Prime Minister Raymond Poincare saluted, "that fine and good man . . . who leaves in our memory an image which nothing can destroy!" Movingly the grizzled "Lion of Lorraine" described again how Mr. Herrick came to him in 1914, when the Germans were all but at the gates of Paris. "

In a conversation he had with me at the Elysee Palace," declared M. Poincare, "the American Ambassador said, 'If Paris is taken, I will display our star-spangled banner over your monuments and museums! I will go to the utmost limits of my power to protect the inhabitants against pillage and oppression.'

"The tears rose in his eyes while he spoke.

"I assured him that France would not lay down her arms before the day of victory. . . . He looked at me silently, unwilling to lessen my hopes, held my hands in his for a time and then went away."

In conclusion the Prime Minister gratefully recalled that Mr. Herrick always "sought with gentle obstinacy solutions compatible with French interests," adding, "Ambassador Herrick regarded the achievement of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh as crowning the work to which he himself was wholly devoted."

"He was my friend!" Tears did not begin to take their silent course until General John Joseph Pershing rose, visibly shaken with grief, and managed to speak thus in a gruff voice which often grew husky:

"Tens of thousands of men and women* have been saying in these last sad days 'Mr. Herrick was my friend.' I can but repeat their thought with heartfelt gratitude. He was my friend [very huskily] just as he was theirs.

"The silent form that lies here today is not the man we knew. The soul--the thing that gave him being, personality and force--is what we knew. It is beautiful that it should have chosen that limpid Easter Sunday to leave the tired body from which it has arisen to shine resplendent in the glorious achievements of a memorable life.

"He died as he would have preferred to die, in France and at his post of duty, and he goes back to America as he would have liked to go, with the flags of both countries floating over him."

Even before this speech, Frenchmen were giving voice to the idea, soon echoed in Washington, that no more welcome a successor to Ambassador Herrick could be found than General Pershing (see p. 12).

Aux Champs! The coffin was carried from the Embassy to an open hearse, while a French infantry band played Aux Champs! (To the Fields!)--the sad yet stirring air which moved so many at the funeral of Marshal Foch.

Never before had the Ambassador of a foreign power received in France this military homage. With a nice discrimination, however, President Gaston Doumergue was present only by proxy. A nearly inflexible protocol decrees that the President personally attend only the funerals of highest dignitaries of state--and thus far the rule has been broken only for Ferdinand Foch.

Pallbearers for Ambassador Herrick were six, including besides the three Orateurs Funebres, Owen D. Young, Chairman of the Second Dawes Committee (see International); Aristide Briand, the cello-voiced, bushy-eyebrowed Foreign Minister of France; and Mr. John Ridgely Carter, Paris Morgan Partner, representing J. Pierpont Morgan. Although suffering from a heavy cold, Mr. Morgan at the last moment disregarded the advice of physicians and sped by motor to attend the simple service held for Mr. Herrick at the Paris Pro-Cathedral. That edifice is capable of holding less than 1,000, and an appalling crush ensued.

With Mr. Morgan arrived Mr. Root-- famed U. S. Elder Statesman Elihu Root, who had just reached Paris by easy motor stages from Geneva with his watchful nurse, Miss Emily Stewart.

Another personage for whom the crush gave way was Marshal Joseph Joffre-- "Papa" Joffre, just robbed of 50,000 francs and with water on the knee (see col. 3).

Surprisingly from the Cathedral dashed -- after the service -- Mrs. Parmely Herrick and Charge d'Affaires Norman Armour of the Embassy. Mrs. Herrick had been distraught earlier in the day, had fainted, inhaled smelling salts, revived. She now ordered her chauffeur to speed up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, guarded only by a single poilu. Acting from pure impulse, without notifying the authorities, Mrs. Parmely Herrick had resolved to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as a last tribute from Ambassador Herrick, and she did so.

A Dieu Herrick! In a special railway baggage car -- redecorated with potted plants and burning candles to resemble a chapelle ardente -- the remains of Myron Timothy Herrick left Paris for Brest by special train.

Because the coffin was going to be conveyed from Brest to Manhattan on the French cruiser Tourville, and because women are positively not allowed on French warships, Mrs. Parmely Herrick sped by a different route to Cherbourg, caught the Aquitania.

As escorting destroyers and seaplanes accompanied the Tourville out of Brest harbor, a heavy mist concealed the land which Mr. Herrick loved so well. Sturdy Breton fishermen pricked and strained their ears long after the ships had faded like ghosts. Twelve miles out they fired the last salute and faint, but distinctly audible on shore, came the crash of mighty guns. A Dieu! A Dieu Herrick!

Lazily at her half-speed of 18 knots, the fastest war boat in the world dawdled across the Atlantic "Because," explained gallant Captain Abrial, "otherwise we should arrive before Madame Parmely Herrick!"

*Many being among the U.S. citizens who, stranded in Paris from time to time, borrowed collectively from Friend-in-Need Herrick over $100,000, nearly all of which they paid back, though without interest in most cases.