Thanks, DaveRo, for that link and all the telling eye-witness accounts.

translated from the French:
"Even the swans and the ducks have deserted the Marne at this moment."

As to the statue of the Zouave,
I see that the highwater-mark from 1910 is up to the statue's CHEST,
for goodness sake.
Right now the watermark is at the Zouave's thighs.

Back to the notion of Parisian Gondolas on the Seine. Not so farfetched.

The French can be notoriously racist towards the migrations of persons who come to France for jobs.
Roughly one hundred years ago, it was a worker migration of Italians.
"Le Ritals," was one of the printable nicknames the French gave them.
Now THEY could have steered gondolas up and down the Seine.

With the turn into the present century, though,
it would be "Les Arabes" or "Les Beurs."
Imagine that: the swollen Seine with a gondola steered
by a Algerian gondolier, singing Rai . . .