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without any possible equivocation, to sign the treaty within the fixed period of time.” In Weimar there was fearful confusion. Many deputies and cabinet ministers had left for home, confident that their work was done. The German government asked Paris for an extension of the deadline and then met all night without, however, reaching a decision. Word came from Paris on the morning of June 23 that the deadline would not be extended. At the eleventh hour, after the German army had let it be known that it was in favor of signing, the government managed to get a resolution through the National Assembly. Many of the right-wing nationalists, vociferous opponents of signing, were privately relieved at the decision. In another resolution they voted that they did not doubt the patriotism of those who had supported the government. The session closed as the assembly’s chairman said, “We commend our unhappy country to the care of a merciful God.” 38

The peacemakers waited tensely for the final German word. At about 4:30 in the afternoon a secretary rushed into the Council of Four to say that the German reply was on the way. “I am counting the minutes,” said Clemenceau. At 5:40 the note arrived. The statesmen crowded around as a French officer translated the German. Lloyd George broke into smiles, Wilson grinned and Clemenceau dashed off orders to Foch to stay his advance and to the military in Paris to fire their guns. No more work was done at the Peace Conference that day.39

The signing ceremony was set for June 28, the anniversary of the assassination of the archduke and his wife at Sarajevo; the place was the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, where the German empire had been proclaimed in 1871. Clemenceau took personal charge of the arrangements. In great good humor he marched a party through the immense formal rooms of the palace, amusing them with ancient scandals about French kings. Look at those two, he whispered, pointing to Wilson and Balfour: “I bet they are speaking filth; see the look of an old satyr that Balfour has.” He ordered magnificent furniture and tapestries to be brought in to add grandeur and an offending inkwell to be taken away. (Eminent French officials scoured the museums and antique stores of Paris for one that met with his approval.40)

Many of the plenipotentiaries were also in the antique shops, looking for seals in metal, stone, whatever they could find. (It was a diplomatic tradition that signatures have a personal stamp.) Hughes of Australia had to be talked out of one showing Hercules slaying a dragon; he finally used a button from an Australian army uniform. (He had his way, however, with a four-foot-high marble replica of the Venus de Milo, which he bought for his long-suffering assistant.) Lloyd George thought he might use a gold pound. “Then leave it for me,” said Clemenceau. “I don’t have any more,” Lloyd George replied. “They’ve all gone to America.” On June 27, as a secretary carefully dripped red wax through a funnel, the plenipotentiaries duly wielded their seals on the treaty in preparation for the next day’s signing.41

There was also a hunt for tickets. Each of the Big Five had sixty places in the Hall of Mirrors. “A very awkward number,” said Wilson. “If it were restricted to say ten it would be easy to make a selection, but if one has to select sixty there are certain to be many heart-burnings.” One enterprising American businessman managed to get into the grounds outside the palace by claiming his cigarette case stamped with the manufacturer’s coat of arms was a pass. The glamorous red-haired writer Elinor Glyn charmed Lloyd George into letting her attend as a reporter. There were stories of places going for exorbitant prices.42

Other, more alarming, rumors circulated. In Berlin, a party of German soldiers had seized flags from the Franco-Prussian War due to be returned to France and burnt them in front of the monument to Frederick the Great while a crowd sang patriotic anthems. Could the Germans refuse to sign, even at this late date? On June 25, the French reported that