The reporter went to the City of Light in the summer of 1925. He found himself in the capital of a nation at the height of its military, economic, and cultural power. The continental empires that had been threats to Franceâ??Germany, the Hapsburgs, Russiaâ??were smoldering wrecks. Franceâ??s economy seemed to have recovered from the destruction of the First World War. Modern culture flourished in the city. A visit to the Left Bank brought encounters with writers, artists, and philosophers; with the giants of the French avant-garde; with bankers, newspapermen, and politicians fluent in literary debate.
The reporter was struck by the equanimity of his surroundings. â??The country was prosperous,â? he wrote, â??the people relaxed, the Continent at last at peace.â? What the young William L. Shirer did not understand at the time, though, was that the apparent wealth and order rested on weak foundations. Part of the problem was demographic: The French population was shrinking. Birthrates had been falling before the war and continued to plunge after it ended. More than a million Frenchmen were permanently disabled from injuries in battle. Average family size had withered. Mass immigration alone â??enabled the country to function.â?
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