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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75744 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+MY LORRAINE JOURNAL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+BOOKS BY EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY
+
+    A DIPLOMAT’S WIFE IN MEXICO. Illustrated.
+    DIPLOMATIC DAYS. Illustrated.
+
+                       HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+                            [ESTABLISHED 1817]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: DUCAL PALACE, NANCY]
+
+
+
+
+                               MY LORRAINE
+                                 JOURNAL
+
+                                   _by_
+                           EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY
+                       [MRS. NELSON O’SHAUGHNESSY]
+                                AUTHOR OF
+                      _“A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico”
+                          and “Diplomatic Days”_
+
+                               ILLUSTRATED
+
+                              [Illustration]
+
+                       HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+                           NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+                           MY LORRAINE JOURNAL
+
+                  Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers
+                 Printed in the United States of America
+                        Published September, 1918
+
+
+
+
+                                   _To
+                         Mrs. William H. Crocker_
+
+                       _In memory of a lost battle
+                          and in appreciation of
+                          her work in Lorraine_
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  DUCAL PALACE, NANCY                                        _Frontispiece_
+
+  VERDUN AND VICINITY                                        _Facing p._ 4
+
+  PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY                                         ”      12
+
+  AUTHOR AT VITRIMONT                                            ”      30
+
+  CEMETERY, VITRIMONT                                            ”      30
+
+  THE BRIDGE AT LUNÉVILLE                                        ”      30
+
+  FOUNTAIN OF AMPHITRITE BY JEAN LAMOUR, PLACE STANISLAS,
+    NANCY                                                        ”      38
+
+  SOUVENIR MENU OF LUNCHEON AT VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917             ”      46
+
+  OUR PARTY ON THE BATTLE-FIELD AT VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917         ”      50
+
+  IN THE BOYAUX, VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917                           ”      50
+
+  SISTER JULIE                                                   ”     124
+
+  BAS-RELIEF OF THE REFUGEES                                     ”     124
+
+  MISS POLK’S WEDDING                                            ”     162
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+
+        FOREWORD                                                        xi
+
+                                 PART I
+
+  CHAP.
+
+     I. HOW ONE MAY HAPPEN TO GO TO THE FRONT                            3
+
+    II. NANCY                                                           12
+
+   III. LUNÉVILLE                                                       18
+
+    IV. VITRIMONT                                                       22
+
+     V. LUNÉVILLE AGAIN                                                 28
+
+    VI. GERBÉVILLER AND LA SŒUR JULIE                                   33
+
+   VII. BAR-LE-DUC                                                      37
+
+  VIII. VERDUN                                                          42
+
+    IX. CHÂLONS.—CHÂTEAU DE JEAN D’HEURS.—REVIGNY, THE “LINING” OF
+          THE FRONT                                                     60
+
+     X. MONT FRENET.—LA CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE.—THE RETURN                64
+
+                                 PART II
+
+     I. BY THE MARNE                                                    77
+
+    II. THE CANTEEN AT BAR-LE-DUC                                       87
+
+   III. THEATRICALS AND CAMOUFLAGE                                      97
+
+    IV. THE BURIAL OF PÈRE CAFARD                                      108
+
+     V. A PROVIDENTIAL FORD                                            112
+
+                                PART III
+
+                           LORRAINE IN AUTUMN
+
+                 “_L’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_”
+
+     I. NANCY AND MOLITOR                                              121
+
+    II. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EMANATIONS                                  131
+
+   III. TOUL                                                           144
+
+    IV. A STROLL IN NANCY                                              153
+
+     V. VITRIMONT IN AUTUMN                                            161
+
+    VI. AT THE GUÉRINS’                                                167
+
+   VII. ACROSS LORRAINE                                                174
+
+  VIII. THE CHÂLONS CANTEEN                                            182
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+It will be seen, by the first chapter, how fortuitous though inevitable
+was the writing of this little book, begun before the American troops
+came to France; yet it happens to concern that part of the war zone
+wherein our men are preparing themselves for battle, and which will be
+quickened with their blood.
+
+The time has scarcely come to write of the world war; indeed, it is only
+between wars that one can write of them, when wisdom, with accompanying
+imagination, looks down the great perspectives; now men’s utmost energies
+are concentrated upon deeds of passion performed in hope or in despair.
+
+Oliver’s _Ordeal by Battle_ of 1915 remains the most scholarly and
+philosophic of the war books; Masefield’s _Gallipoli_ the most artistic.
+But even these, and the many, many others, give not so much a sense of
+inadequacy as of impossibility.
+
+Letters from strong souls undergoing supreme emotions have emanated
+from the trenches or the air. We have mourned young perished singers:
+Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger. But for the most part, and so it must be,
+war books are limited to the relation of personal deeds and sufferings,
+and descriptions of localities where they have taken place, colored
+more or less by the temperament of each—even as I, “_en passant par la
+Lorraine_,” wrote these pages.
+
+                                                EDITH COUES O’SHAUGHNESSY.
+
+33 RUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ, PARIS, _January 19, 1918_.
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW ONE MAY HAPPEN TO GO TO THE FRONT
+
+
+                                          PARIS, _Thursday, June 7, 1917_.
+
+Even personal events have their outriders, and this is how an unexpectant
+lady, still fiancée to Mexico, received from Destiny various indications
+that she was to go there where men, ten thousand upon ten thousand, lay
+down their lives _pro patria_. Like everything, it was simple when it had
+happened.
+
+At the Foire Saint-Sulpice, where I was serving at the tea-stall, I met
+E. M. C., whom I thought in California. After greetings (we had not seen
+each other since the fatal month of October, 1916) she said to me:
+
+“You must come down to Lunéville where I have a house, and visit the
+village of Vitrimont, that mother is rebuilding.”
+
+I answered: “My dear, I’m still tied to Mexico, and I can see my
+publishers frowning all the way across the ocean if the second
+much-promised, long-delayed book doesn’t arrive. I oughtn’t even to peep
+at anything else for the moment.”
+
+Then, tea victims beginning to crowd in, “business as usual” engaged us
+and we parted.
+
+When I got home I found that Joseph Reinach, met but once—Polybe of
+the delightful _Commentaires_—had sent me his brochure, _Le Village
+Reconstitué_. I still didn’t hear the outriders galloping down the street.
+
+In the evening I dined _chez Laurent_ with Mr. C., known in Mexico. When
+I got there I found that his sister, Madame Saint-R. T., Présidente de
+La Renaissance des Foyers, was going into Lorraine, to Lunéville itself,
+the next day; conversation was almost entirely of the practical work to
+be done in the devastated districts, and the deeply engaging _philosophie
+de la guerre_, of how one had not only to rebuild villages, but to remake
+souls and lives.
+
+_A quoi bon donner des chemises?_ Give tools and implements, or a brace
+of rabbits, that nature may take its course and the peasant can say,
+“Soon I will have a dozen rabbits, and twenty-five francs that I have
+earned.”
+
+Some one observed that it really would be the rabbits, however—it is any
+living, productive thing that is of account, beyond all else, in the dead
+and silent places of devastation, and gifts of twelve chickens and one
+cock are demanded rather even than shoes.
+
+As we were pleasantly dining in the garden, and philosophizing sometimes
+with tears, sometimes smiles, a terrific thunder-storm broke over Paris,
+and we all crowded into the big central room, with piles of hastily
+torn-off, muddy table-linen. We sat talking, however, till they turned
+both ourselves and the lights out. As we parted, Madame Saint-R. T.’s
+last words were, “But try to come down to Lunéville.”
+
+I thought to myself that night, “Things are getting hot.” I believe in
+signs from heaven, and signs from heaven are not to be neglected.
+
+[Illustration: VERDUN AND VICINITY]
+
+On Saturday, when E. M. stopped by for me to go again to the Foire, I
+said:
+
+“I believe I _will_ go to Lunéville. What does one do about papers?”
+
+We straightway went to the Rue François Premier, not being in the
+_mañana_ class, either of us, and found there a charming specimen of
+_jeunesse dorée_, intellectual, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of
+thought,” but doing his bit. Shears for the cutting of red tape were
+liberally applied, and my papers were promised in an unprecedented three
+days.
+
+As we “swept” out I said to E. M., “You don’t think we were _too_
+strenuous?”
+
+She said, “Oh, they are used to us now, though it was a thrilling moment
+when you ripped your photograph (such a photograph!) from the duplicate
+of your passport!”
+
+The aforementioned charming specimen, M. de P., had said a photograph was
+essential; it was Saturday afternoon, the next day was Sunday, and for
+some unexplained reason photographers don’t seem to work in France on
+Mondays, at least not in war-time.
+
+It was about this time that E. M. said, in a _dégagé_ way: “I am going
+down to Verdun with a friend. It’s awfully difficult, and the women who
+have been there can be counted on one’s fingers. I wish _you_ could go,
+too.”
+
+I said, “That’s out of the question.” But I thought to myself, “We will
+see what Fate decides.” It’s a great thing to keep astride of her, anyway.
+
+On account of Sunday coming in between, my papers could not be ready in
+time for me to leave with her on Tuesday (they have to be sent to the
+_Quartier-Général_ to be stamped), but they were promised for Wednesday
+that I might start for Lunéville on Thursday. I went to see E. M. at
+her aunt’s, the Princess P.’s, on Monday night for a few last words and
+injunctions. I found her after passing through some lovely dove-gray
+rooms with priceless old portraits of Polish great, hanging on silvery
+walls, and rare bibelots and porcelains discreetly scattered on charming
+tables rising from gray carpetings. She greeted me by saying, “It’s all
+arranged for you to go to Verdun, too.”
+
+“Verdun!” I cried. “Glory and sorrow of France!”
+
+I didn’t ask how, but thought of the harmonious working of chance that
+brings as many gifts as blows in its train.
+
+                                         _Thursday, June 14th, 10.30 a.m._
+
+We slipped out of the station, flooded with waves of blue-clad men, at
+eight o’clock, and since then there has been a constant stopping of the
+train in green, glade-like places to let troop-trains pass. A while ago
+I found myself looking out on a river, and a shiver went over me. It was
+the jade-colored, slow-flowing Marne.
+
+White morning-glories are thick on every hedge, and wild roses such
+as grow in New England lanes, and there are many thistles, soft and
+magenta-colored; lindens, acacias, and poplars abound and hang delicately
+over the banks of the river.
+
+Lying open on my lap is the _Revue de Paris_ of June 1st, but I can’t
+read even the beautiful “_Lettres d’un Officier Italien_”—(Giosué
+Borsi[1]), breathing a deep spirit of conformity to the will of God and
+showing the evolution that many an _intellectuel catholique_ of his
+generation has gone through in Italy. In his dugout were Dante, Homer,
+Ariosto, the Gospels, St. Augustine, Pascal, and _Le Manuel du Parfait
+Caporal et les Secours d’Urgence_. And he loved his mother and let her
+know it.
+
+All along the route are villages and peaceful country houses, near the
+train, bowered in acacia and linden; elder-bushes are in full bloom,
+too, and we pass many green kitchen gardens. Women are shaking blankets
+out of windows, and looking at the train going to the front, thinking,
+who shall say what thoughts?
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Big movement of troops is delaying us, and it has been a morning spent
+among emerald-green hills, pale, like Guatemalan or Bolivian emeralds,
+not like the deep-colored gems of the Rue de la Paix. Everywhere are
+patches of blue-clad men, marching down white roads between green fields
+melting into the blue sky at the point of the eyes’ vision. Still others
+are bathing in the pale, warm Marne or resting on its banks. Trains go
+past loaded with battered autos, _camions_ and guns coming from the
+front, or others with neatly covered, newly repaired machines of death,
+going out.
+
+All were silent in the train at first. “_Méfiez-vous, les oreilles
+ennemies vous écoutent_” is the device placarded everywhere. In my coupé
+some one feeling slightly, very slightly, facetious, had rubbed out the
+first two letters of _oreilles_, changed the first “_e_” into an “_f_,”
+so that it read, “_Méfiez-vous, les filles ennemies vous écoutent_.” The
+ruling passion strong in death!
+
+We pass Epernay, whose little vine-planted hills had run red, before
+the treading out of its 1914 wine, with the blood of English and French
+heroes.
+
+At last we began to talk, a dark-eyed colonel of infantry with the
+_Grand’ Croix de la Légion d’Honneur_ having reached down my bag for me.
+
+It is a historic date for France and for ourselves.
+
+The night before, General Pershing arrived in Paris, with his guerdon
+of help, mayhap salvation. All the newspapers had pictures of him and
+his staff, their reception at the station, the crowd before the Hôtel
+Crillon. One officer told the story of the woman in the crowd who was
+so little that there wasn’t the slightest chance of her seeing anything
+or anybody. When asked why she was there she answered, “_Mais j’aurai
+assisté_,” and that, it seems to me, is the epitome and epitaph of the
+generation whose fate it is to see with their eyes the world war.
+
+                            IN THE STATION, CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, _2.30 p.m._
+
+Extreme heat. Train four hours late on account of the movement of troops.
+Wave after wave of horizon blue undulates through the station. They are
+lying about, standing about, sitting about—the _poilus_. Half hidden by
+their equipment, their countless bundles tied around their waists, slung
+on their shoulders, under their arms, they seem indescribably weary and
+dusty, turned toward the blazing front where the best they can hope is
+_la bonne blessure_—theirs not to reason why. Sometimes 30,000 pass
+through Châlons in a day.
+
+Now it comes to me that our men—our fresh, eager, beautiful young men,
+such as I saw disembark at Vera Cruz—will pass through this same station
+to that same blazing front....
+
+By my window, on the siding, is passing an endless train of box-cars,
+with four horses in the ends of each car. Between the horses’ forefeet,
+pale-blue groups of men are crowded; no room to lie, scarcely to
+sit—cramped, hot, with their eternal accoutrement. One bent group was
+playing cards, the horses’ heads above them. But mostly they are looking
+out at people who are not called upon to die.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Pangs of hunger began to assail me as the train pulled out. I went into
+the dining-car and had a modest, belated repast of _œufs sur le plat_,
+cheese and fruit. At the tables were groups of uniformed men talking in
+low voices of what had been and what might have been. As I looked out of
+the window, while waiting, my eyes fell upon the first band of prisoners
+I had seen—tall, stalwart men, wearing the round white cap with its band
+of red—at work on the roads, those veins and arteries of France.
+
+An officer, once the most civilian of civilians, looking like the
+pictures of Alexandre Dumas _fils_ on the covers of cheap editions of _La
+Dame aux Camélias_, with bushy hair parted on one side, mustache, and
+stubby Napoleon, broad face and twinkling eyes, pointed out Sermaize, the
+first of the devastated villages we passed, which has been rebuilt by
+the English Society of Friends. “Conscientious objectors” don’t intend
+to let the sons of Mars do everything, but they can’t keep pace with
+the destruction. In _Le Village Reconstitué_ M. Reinach speaks of the
+ugliness of the models proposed to the victims, which pass understanding,
+and says that even the vocabulary of Huysmans would not suffice to give
+the least idea of them. What the peasant wants is “_mon village_,” which
+doesn’t at all resemble what the _commis voyageur en laideur_ proposes.
+
+                                                      REVIGNY, _4.30 p.m._
+
+I have seen the first black crosses in a green field bounded by clumps
+of poplar against the clear sky. Revigny is a mass of ruins, roofless
+houses, heaps of mortar, and endless quantities of blue-clad, heavily
+laden men coming and going in the station—the eternal waiting, waiting
+for transit. Revigny is on the road to Verdun, Alexandre Dumas _fils_
+told me. He gets out at Bar-le-Duc, which is now the point of departure
+to the fateful fortress. Groups of yellow Annamites are working at the
+roads. They are imported for that purpose, being of little use when the
+cannon sounds.
+
+Awhile ago two young Breton under-officers, colonials, came into the
+compartment. They had been at school together and had not met for ten
+years until just now on the train. They watched together the shifting
+scenery; one was coming from a young wife, the other from a fiancée.
+
+                                                              GONDRECOURT.
+
+Two symmetrical fifteenth-century towers pierce a pale-blue sky. One of
+the young Bretons tells me that for some time the train has been making
+a great détour, as the straight line to Nancy would take it through
+Commercy, daily bombarded by the enemy.
+
+                                                PAGNY, _5.30 o’clock p.m._
+
+Here we pick up the Meuse—and there still follows us the pink-and-gray
+ribbon of willow-fringed canal that links the Marne to the Rhine,
+and which all day long has looked like the marble the Italians call
+_cipollino_. But I remember that its greenness has been but lately
+colored with a crimson dye.
+
+                          TOUL (_where we thread up the Moselle_), _5.50_.
+
+We have just passed Toul. Great barracks are near the station, and
+on the opposite hill is the fortress, high against the sky, bound to
+Verdun by an uninterrupted series of forts. It is a _place de guerre de
+première classe_. The Romans had an encampment here, and Vauban made the
+fortifications of his time.
+
+And because the mind is not always held to the thing in view, even though
+it be of great moment, I thought how Toul was the town where Hilaire
+Belloc did his military service, “was in arms for his sins”; from here it
+was that he set out upon the “path to Rome” in fulfilment of his vow.
+Other things laid long away in memory came to mind, and I was only jerked
+back as my eye was caught by a group of German prisoners being marched
+past the station, one soldier, with a pointed bayonet, in front of them
+and another behind.
+
+And at Nancy we are to knit up the river Meurthe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NANCY
+
+
+Nancy, a dream of the eighteenth century, with the réveillé of
+twentieth-century guns.
+
+We arrived at Nancy five hours late, at seven o’clock.
+
+No sign of E. M., no sign of anything familiar. Fortunately I was flanked
+by Brittany, and a stout heart did the rest. When we found that the next
+train for Lunéville would leave at nine o’clock, I asked them to dine
+with me and take a little walk about the town. Our luggage—we were all
+traveling light, I with a hand-bag and flat straw valise, they with two
+iron helmets—was given to the _consigne_ and, after my _sauf-conduit_ had
+been stamped in three separate places, we departed.
+
+The square before the station was surging with the usual pale-blue
+waves, and as we crossed it the odor of leather and tired feet and hot
+men was a good deal stronger than the linden scent. We passed a very
+banal statue of Thiers, _Libérateur du Territoire_, and some horrors of
+_art nouveau_. A construction with colored-glass windows and unnatural
+cupolas and gilding and mushy outlines protruded from a corner, and its
+name, for its sins, was Hôtel Excelsior. But we were searching for the
+celebrated Place Stanislas. After asking a passer-by, we were directed
+to a street whose name I have forgotten, and we started down its rather
+distinguished length of gray, well-built houses of another century,
+many of them having the double Lorraine cross in red to indicate cellar
+accommodations, with the number they could shelter.
+
+[Illustration: PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY]
+
+When, suddenly, we stepped into the Place Stanislas, I almost swooned
+with joy. I was in full eighteenth century, in the midst of one of its
+most perfect creations, with the low boom of the twentieth-century guns
+in the distance.
+
+Quickly my spirit was ravished from the world of combat into the still,
+calm, beautiful world of art, within the enchantments of the _grilles_ of
+Jean Lamour. A sensation sweet, satisfying, unfelt since the beginning
+of the war, invaded me. I gazed entranced upon that delicate tracery of
+wrought iron, like some rich guipure, at the four corners of the square
+of buildings, its lovely gilding reflecting a soft light; and, outlined
+against a heaven colored especially for them—pale blue, with threads
+of palest pink, and a hint of gray and yellow—were urns and torches
+and figures, half human, half divine, supporting them. The beautiful
+fountains in the corners were banked with sand-bags, but their contours
+were in harmony with the other _grilles_, and one was surmounted by an
+Amphitrite, the other by a Neptune. It was all a symbol of a state of
+mind, a flowering of feeling, to which had been vouchsafed a perfection
+of expression.
+
+There is an Arc de Triomphe, put up by Stanislas at one end, in honor
+of his kingly son-in-law, in front of the Hôtel de Ville, and a statue
+of Stanislas himself in the middle, bearing the name “Stanislas,” the
+date of 1831, and “_La Lorraine Reconnaissante_.” In looking about, my
+eye fell on the Restaurant Stanislas, _dans la note_, certainly, and I
+decided to dine there. We found that we had time to investigate a little
+further, and turned down by the café into a most lovely linden-scented
+square called Place de la Carrière. Through the double lines of trees
+between the fountains at the farther end was visible an old palace, and
+the square was flanked by houses that courtiers only could have lived
+in. It all cried out, “Stay with me awhile.” An old park was at one
+side, with trees planted _en quinconce_[2]—chestnuts, ash, trembling
+poplars—and everywhere was the penetrating fragrance of the lindens. It
+was so sweet and loosening under the shade, after the long hot day in the
+train, that the young officers began to talk, one of his fiancée waiting
+in _Les Landes_, the other of his wife of a year, seen only twice seven
+days. And then again we were silent, and under the flowering trees I was
+seized with a great longing for the beautiful and calm, for the arts and
+ways of Peace. It seemed to me I could not longer think of this, that,
+or the other “offensive,” but that I must see before my eyes, hear with
+my ears, feel with my touch, the lovely, the melodic, the benign. _O
+bon Jésus!_ Not of the battle-fields, not of _réformés_, of limbless,
+sightless men, not of starving, frightened children, not of black-robed
+women, not of lonely deaths, not of munition-factories. What is this
+world we are in?
+
+I don’t know how long we were silent, but at last one of the young men
+said, “We must think of the hour.” Then came a glancing at wrist watches,
+rattling of identity disks, and we went back to the café and got a table
+by the window, where we could look out on the lovely, calm _ensemble_ and
+the fading sky. The menu was brought; it was a meatless day, but with a
+snap of the eye the waiter recommended _œufs à la gelée_. We understood
+later, when we found, concealed in the bottom of each little dish under
+the egg, a thick, round piece of ham. Fried perch, new potatoes, salad,
+strawberries and cream, with the celebrated macarons of Nancy—_des Sœurs
+Macarons_, as the little piece of paper underneath each says—made a
+delicious menu. A certain _petit vin gris du pays_ had been recommended
+us with another snap of the eye.
+
+As we sat waiting, one of the officers exclaimed at a giant, lonely,
+priestly figure passing through the Place:
+
+“_Le voilà, l’aumônier du 52ème._”
+
+I said, “Do run after him and ask him for dinner, too.”
+
+He came back with the young man and we had a most enjoyable repast. The
+chaplain knew all the things about Nancy that we didn’t. He was a huge,
+bearded man, who might have been with the hosts of Charlemagne, and was
+a native of Commercy, where Stanislas used to go with his court. The two
+Bretons were very Catholic and very royalist; when I remarked upon it,
+they said, simply, “Oh, we are all that way, _par là_,” and they spoke
+names of great men born in Brittany, and the _aumônier_ told tales of
+near yesterdays surpassing those of the heroic age. The gayest of the
+Bretons, he who had not just left his young wife and his child unborn,
+began to sing, “_Voici un sône tout nouveau_,” and suddenly it was a
+quarter before nine and we had time only for a dash to the station _d’une
+bonne allure militaire_, which left me breathless. The nine-o’clock
+train didn’t, however, leave till ten, as it was waiting for the Paris
+train, which didn’t arrive at all. Finally, in a strange heat, vagaries
+of lightning without thunder or rain—the thunder we _did_ hear wasn’t
+the old-time, pleasant, celestial sort, but something with an easily
+traceable, regular, decisive sound—we pulled out of the station, I not
+knowing where I was going—no address in the town of Lunéville.
+
+A thick, heavy, soft, enveloping night was about us.
+
+Groups of soldiers were lying, sitting, standing in the little stations.
+We stopped every few minutes, and I could distinguish them by the light
+of cigarette or lantern on their guns and equipment, waiting for motors
+to take them to the trenches. At one place I had to descend to show my
+_sauf-conduit_; it was inspected and stamped by the flickering light of
+a blue-veiled lantern, and I climbed in again. I was beginning to feel a
+bit tired, and the end was _not_ in sight.
+
+We descended at Lunéville in complete darkness, a motley crowd of
+military and civilians. My companions were due at different points at
+dawn—Baccarat and the Forest of Parroy. As I write, they are in the
+trenches. They put me into the hands of a _commissaire_ who said he lived
+opposite E. M.’s. I waited, standing by the door, while he locked up
+the station, looking out on the silhouette of a gutted, roofless house,
+showing dimly against the soft night sky. At last there was a sound of
+rattling of keys and the _commissaire_ picked me and my luggage up. We
+started forth, the only human beings visible, in what seemed a deserted
+town—no lights in streets or houses.
+
+As we passed a wide open space the scent of flowering lindens enveloped
+me, and with me walked the ghosts of lovely and too-amiable ladies, of
+witty rulers loving the arts as well as women—Duke Léopold and Madame de
+Craon, King Stanislas and Madame de Boufflers, and Voltaire and Madame du
+Châtelet.
+
+We walked seemingly through the entire town toward a freshness of parks,
+and in darkness we arrived before a garden gate; silence, and the bell
+nowhere to be found. After looking for it in the light of various
+matches—vainly, of course—the _commissaire_ had the brilliant idea of
+going to the house next door, _la maison de M. le Maire_, the celebrated
+M. Keller. A woman came out and showed the bell where nobody would ever
+have thought of looking for it, and, furthermore, masked by vines. The
+door was finally opened by a tall, slender, white-robed figure with two
+black braids showing over her shoulders and a floating scarf. I thought
+it a vision of Isolde, but it proved to be Miss P., who cried:
+
+“We had given you up! We waited at Nancy till the train came in, and then
+had to motor back as quickly as possible on account of the lights.”
+
+I went in, to find E. M. in a most becoming, slinky, pale-blue satin
+_négligé_, also with braids on her shoulders. I’d rather have found
+them both in _paniers_, shaking the powder out of their hair. However,
+I can’t complain; it was all pretty good as regards the stage-setting.
+We embraced. I explained that various zealous guardians of the gates of
+Nancy had stamped my _sauf-conduit_, and, as I was certainly the only
+one of my species arriving by that train, they should have given news
+of me when asked concerning _une Américaine_. Then, as the only healthy
+rooms in Lunéville in 1917 are on the ground floor, I departed to one
+that had been retained for me at the Hôtel des Vosges. Again through the
+soft-scented night, guided by my _commissaire_, to a room of extreme
+cleanliness and a most comfortable bed.
+
+It is 2 A.M. I am too tired to sleep. My mind is jacked up by all the
+twists and turns of the day. I have been reading the _Cour de Lunéville_,
+by Gaston Maugras, found in my room, belonging to E. M.
+
+Three o’clock. Soft, very soft booming of cannon, and a deep-toned bell.
+But no “poppy throws around _my_ bed its lulling charities.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LUNÉVILLE
+
+
+Lunéville, a dream of fair women of old and new times, linden scents, and
+circling Taubes and little white puffs of shrapnel against blue skies.
+
+                                     HÔTEL DES VOSGES, _June 15th, 8 a.m._
+
+Have just breakfasted to the gentle accompaniment of firing on a Taube.
+
+Dear old village life began at an early hour, but of course the Taube put
+the cocks and the carts and the geese and all the other usual auroral
+sounds quite in the background.
+
+My breakfast service is decorated with the same double cross of Lorraine
+that I saw on various houses in Nancy indicating comfortable cellar
+accommodation. The cross with the _chardon lorrain_ (Lorraine thistle) is
+everywhere.
+
+Popping and cannonading going on at a lively rate, and whir of aero
+wheels; a beautiful day. Some little white puffs of shrapnel visible from
+my window; I must get dressed and investigate.
+
+Cannonading just stopped. I don’t know whether he got off or was got.
+
+The hotel is discreet and clean, _avec un petit air_.
+
+It has been a good house of the good epoch, and over each window are
+diverse and charming eighteenth-century _motifs_ in gray stone.
+
+                                                               _6.30 p.m._
+
+Just home from Vitrimont in a blinding blaze of sun, in a motor driven by
+E. M., and bearing in large letters the words “Commission Californienne
+pour la Reconstruction des Villages Dévastés,” a sort of “open sesame,”
+and everywhere bayonets were lowered to let us pass. Nerves a-quiver with
+another day’s impressions. Tried lying down, but it didn’t go, so I am in
+an arm-chair looking out of my Lorraine window in full eighteenth century
+as regards setting, but with a very definite tide of twentieth-century
+warfare sweeping through it all. Meant to go to church, where there
+are special prayers to be offered up, at Benediction, for the needs of
+Lorraine, but, though the spirit was willing, the rest of me was like
+lead after the hot, full day and two hours in one spot too tempting.
+
+This morning, before I was dressed, E. M. and Mrs. C. P., also staying
+in the hotel, appeared, so I hastily harnessed up for the day and
+sallied forth with them. We went first to the charming old house of
+Mlle. Guérin, and, going in through a wide hallway, stepped out into a
+large garden, where, under some trees, several ladies were sitting, one
+of them Madame Saint-R. T. We embraced cordially, in the very evident
+fulfilment of destiny. Madame Saint-R. T. was reading Pierre Boyé’s _Cour
+de Lunéville_, which I matched with Gaston Maugras’s, and then I looked
+about me.
+
+The house, gray and long and low, was, until a hundred years ago, a
+Capuchin monastery, when it came into the hands of Mlle. Guérin’s family.
+There are old linden-trees in the garden, and some tall cedars and roses
+not doing very well; and masses of canterbury-bells and geraniums. At one
+end of the garden, against the wall, is an ancient statue of the Virgin,
+dark, moss-grown, against still darker walls; we placed the flowers we
+had gathered on her breast and in the hands of the Child. _Avions_ were
+humming above in the perfect sky, and against the faultless blue was a
+very white crescent moon just discernible.
+
+After accepting an invitation for dinner that night, we walked out
+through the town toward the Château, once the haunt of witty rulers,
+philosophers, and of the fair and evidently too-amiable ladies beloved by
+them. However, when we got into the great square of the palace I forgot
+about them, for, looking up at the statue of Lasalle, born in Metz,
+1775, and fallen at the battle of Wagram, 1807, were two Senegalese whom
+_we_ looked at as the Lunéville populace might once have looked at the
+camels the young Duke Léopold brought back with him from his wars with
+the Turks. The juxtaposition was as strange. One of the Senegalese had
+on a blue cap, the other a red. We gave each one a franc for cigarettes,
+received large-mouthed, white-toothed smiles, and proceeded to look at
+the remains of a German _avion_ which had fallen beside the statue the
+day before, the most complete wreck possible. The aviator had been killed
+and his broken wings were being removed to the Museum. It made me quite
+still—there was something so complete about it all, the great Château in
+the background, the statue of Lasalle, the two Senegalese, the shattered
+Taube!
+
+We walked on rather quietly over the bridge of the Vesouze to the Place
+des Carmes—the Place Brûlée, as it is now called. The big Carmelite
+convent which formed the square had been used as a barracks for a
+generation or so, and one side had been burned with incendiary bombs
+when the Germans left, while the other side was untouched. In the
+middle was the statue of L’Abbé Grégoire (who made the mistake of being
+ahead of his time), and on the pedestal are the words, “_J’ai vécu sans
+lâcheté, je veux mourir sans remords_.” We stopped only a moment at the
+church—eighteenth century, of course; fine old choir, delicate baroque
+designs on the great wooden doors, and dominating towers in a lovely
+reddish stone, with charming _motifs_ of urn and scroll, and flying
+angels against the sky, or rather _in_ it.
+
+We began to have that “gone” feeling about this time, and turned back
+through the town to E.M.’s house, where we were to lunch. It was cool
+and charming as we stepped in out of the sun-flooded garden, stripped
+of the mystery of the night before, but quite lovely. In old Lunéville
+china vases were masses of pink and purple canterbury-bells. It had been
+hastily but charmingly got ready for occupancy with old furniture that
+nice people in the provinces can put at the disposition of their friends,
+and I saw again Miss P., the Isolde of the dim, scented garden of the
+night before. After lunch we sat in an arbor jutting into a corner of the
+ancient park, drinking our coffee, and eating some Mirror candies just
+out from New York—all to the continued hum of _avions_ and the rather
+soft crack of guns. Then the motor was announced, or, to be faithful to
+reality, somebody said, “We’d better be off.” We put on our veils, got
+into the motor, which E.M. cranked herself, and started off to Vitrimont
+without any male assistance of any kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+VITRIMONT
+
+
+A merciless blaze of sun as we passed out through the town, badly
+battered at the end, through the Place Brûlée, leading to the road to
+Vitrimont, some three kilometers distant, running through green fields
+with their little groups of black crosses. All is softly green and gently
+rolling. Vitrimont, and around about it, was the scene of some of the
+fiercest fighting of that first August of the war, and Vitrimont itself
+was taken and lost at the point of the bayonet seven times in one day
+as gray German floods kept rolling in over the green eastern hills. The
+village is charmingly placed on a little eminence; sloping down from
+it are very fertile meadows, then other thickly wooded hills slope up
+against the sky.
+
+We passed through encumbered streets of devastated, roofless houses,
+going first to Miss P.’s little dwelling, that she has lived in during
+all these months of the superintending of the reconstruction work. It
+consists mostly of one perfectly charming room done up in yellow chintz
+with a square pattern of pink roses, and some good bits of old furniture,
+books, and flowers. She took down from the wall a violin made by a
+convalescing soldier out of a cigar-box and drew from it a few soft and
+lovely tones. The rest of the house, where she has installed herself
+with a woman servant, is typical of the Lorraine peasant houses: a very
+wide door to let the harvest-wagons in, a narrow one for human beings, a
+narrow hall leading into a kitchen, then the bigger living-room giving
+into it, now so charming in its yellow chintz. From the kitchen some
+steep stairs lead up into an attic which Miss P. has converted into a
+medical dispensary.
+
+Outside, across the street, is a little pergola effect made of boarding,
+where one can sit and look out across the softly rolling, wooded hills.
+In it are a table and a few chairs and some pots of flowers. We deposited
+our tea-things there, and were starting out to make the tour of the
+village, when the mayor, in shirt sleeves, loose suspenders, and slipping
+trousers (his wife was killed in the 1915 bombardment of Lunéville and
+his son fell in the 1914 fighting in Vitrimont), came to welcome us and
+do the inevitable stamping of our safe-conducts.
+
+We then proceeded to the old church, one of the first things to be
+restored, so that its delicious fifteenth-century vaultings and
+window-tracings would be beyond further damage from exposure to the
+weather. One of the things _not_ hurt was the dado running around
+the interior in the form of painted cloth folds by a misguided
+nineteenth-century _curé_. War, with its usual discriminating touch, had
+left _that_. In the vestibule are some small, perfect Louis XV holy-water
+fonts in the form of shells upheld on angels’ heads. A celebrated
+baptismal font was removed to Paris.
+
+We then went to the _maison forte_, as the peasants call what had been
+a sort of château, the dwelling of the “first family” of the place.
+Its medieval tower was battered beyond repair, and the house itself
+pretty well damaged, while some of the rooms still had charming bits of
+paneling, and the locks and latches of the doors were perfect examples
+of eighteenth-century wrought-iron work. In one of the large rooms, whose
+ceiling was broken in by a shell, was a lovely old fireback under a
+marble mantel with the arms of the Counts of Vitrimont. By a north window
+was sitting a woman working at an embroidery screen with a brilliant
+green and silver design; an old man with palsied head was near.
+
+The school also has been rebuilt. A rosy-faced young schoolmistress
+received us, and two little boys kept to do their _pensums_ told us the
+name of the President of the United States, and showed us Washington
+_and_ San Francisco on the map hanging in the room. This having been
+satisfactorily gone through with, the punished little boys, with the
+usual luck of the wicked, were given chocolates by E. M. and dismissed;
+then we walked out into the little cemetery, approached by a narrow
+pathway of arching sycamores. It looks out toward the ancient forest of
+Vitrimont; in between are more green, undulating fields ripening with
+the 1917 harvest. The walls of the cemetery are battered and broken and
+monuments and gravestones are overturned. There was furious hand-to-hand
+fighting there, and in those first August days the long dead again
+mingled with the living. I passed down by broken, sun-baked walls,
+reading the names on the crosses as I went, and these are some of them:
+
+    _Lieut. Jeannot, 26ème Infanterie, aspirant—Un soldat inconnu—_
+
+    _Haye, Louis, Sergent—28 soldats—_
+
+    _A notre fils, Charles Diebolt, mort pour la Patrie 1895-1914,
+    26ème Infanterie—_
+
+    _Charles Carron, Musicien; Souvenir d’un camarade, mort au
+    Champ d’Honneur 31 août 1914—_
+
+A rude wooden cross bears the words:
+
+“_Ci-gît Edouard Durand, fusillé le 25 août 1914 par des lâches._”
+
+As one goes out is the tomb of a young girl; “_Hélène Midon, 18 ans,
+victime du 1er septembre 1915—une prière—la plus jolie fille du
+village_.” A white and virginal rose has been planted where she lies. In
+this cemetery lie, too, the wife and son of the mayor.
+
+The first upspringing of early flowers is everywhere—asters, goldenrod,
+wild roses—and the hot sun extracted from each its soft, peculiar
+perfume. I picked a seemingly perfect rose from the grave of _un soldat
+inconnu_. Its petals immediately fell to the ground. Everything grows
+with an almost ironical luxuriousness on the shallow, hastily dug graves.
+All over Lorraine is this same flowering; it has been and will be, but
+there was no time to ponder on the fate of frontier lands, for we were
+next to call on the officer commanding the detachment quartered at
+Vitrimont, who was housed in a reconstructed building and who had been
+waked from slumber to receive us. When I gave him my boxes of cigarettes
+for his men he said that he had received some before for the soldiers who
+had the Croix de Guerre. I promptly told him mine were for the soldiers
+who had _not_ got it. Mrs. C. P. brought bundles of illustrated papers
+and postal cards.
+
+Soldiers are everywhere helping to get in the hay; sweet odors
+of freshly cut grass float about on the warm air to the sound of
+distant cannonading. However, in spite of everything, it is already
+_l’après-guerre_ here, and the delivered population is breathing again,
+but it all gives the sensation of something prostrate that needs the
+help of strong, fresh hands before it can arise. Mrs. Crocker’s work is
+on such a generous, imaginative, sliding scale, and Miss P., untiring
+and executive, is of immense tact in dealing with the Lorraine peasant,
+a peculiar type demanding peculiar handling. There are numberless
+psychological situations needing adjustment in the human as well as
+material affairs of devastated villages. Miss P. meets all difficulties
+with understanding plus determination. Some are content, some not, with
+what is done for them. One woman whose house was completed, and who was
+evidently dazzled by the result, said, “It isn’t a house to live in, but
+to rent.”
+
+Another, however, when we went into the grange behind her house, pointing
+to the posts sustaining the hay-lofts, said: “Will they hold? The old
+ones were twice the size.”
+
+Sanitary improvements have been worked out as far as possible, but when
+you try to tamper with a peasant’s pile of _fumier_, it’s like tampering
+with his purse—and _that’s_ impossible. Quite a good deal of live stock
+has been put into Vitrimont.
+
+A soldier stationed with the Vitrimont detachment cranked the motor for
+us. His home was near by, and he told us with shining eyes that he had
+just bought for ninety francs two pigs. Somebody observed it was the
+_premier pig qui coûte_. However that may be, the purchase marked the
+remaking of his home.
+
+One is appalled at the time and energy and money necessary for the
+rebuilding of this single village—a million francs is the cost
+estimated—and materials and workmen are increasingly difficult to get.
+One thinks of the hundreds that _aren’t_ being rebuilt. Vitrimont has
+certainly been smiled on by heaven _and_ Mrs. C.
+
+As we drove home, fleecy, delicately tinted clouds were pinned together
+with mother-of-pearl cross-shaped brooches. It is in the air alone that
+there is any “war beauty.”
+
+Soldiers are passing under my window, some in the blue trench-helmets,
+with their equipment; some in their fatigue caps, swinging their arms,
+free of their eternal burdens; and there are officers afoot or on
+horseback, and colonials—marines, we call them—in many kinds of uniforms.
+
+The poster on the old garden wall opposite says: _Alice Raveau viendra
+jouer “Werther,” dimanche, le 17 juin, 1917, en matinée_.
+
+Charlotte might have lived in the house behind the wall on which it is
+pasted, a gray, smooth-façaded house with a good eighteenth-century door,
+and a chestnut and a linden in full bloom. At the café on the corner
+soldiers are sitting, laughing and talking, humming, drinking their
+_bocks_, reading their papers, or throwing words to women who pass by,
+and I thought of the men who pass through these villages, leaving to
+women an inexorable burden and an untransmittable joy. Many swallows are
+flying about, and above it all, in the colorful afternoon air, _avions_
+are humming. On the wings of the French airplanes are stamped a great
+circle of color like an eye with red pupil, white retina, and a blue
+outer rim. After the hot day, something lovely and cool begins to come in
+at the window, and I know soldiers all over Lorraine are resting after
+the heat and burden of the day, though in the distance the dull, muffled
+sound of cannon continues. Now I must “dress”—that is, put on my other
+dress—for the eight-o’clock dinner at Mlle. Guérin’s.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MONSIEUR KELLER
+
+
+                                  LUNÉVILLE, _Saturday, 16th June, 8 a.m._
+
+As I put out my light and opened wide my window last night a rush of
+warm, linden-scented air came in, also the thick, soft, meridional voice
+of some soldier singing “_En passant par la Lorraine_.” I, too, was
+passing through Lorraine, and I got the sleep I didn’t get the night
+before.
+
+This morning more whirring of aeroplanes, but peaceful. The Taube got off
+yesterday; all the events of Friday were accompanied by that constant
+low-flying of aeroplanes, making one feel one was being looked after.
+
+Dinner at Monsieur Guérin’s. Monsieur Keller, the celebrated mayor of
+Lunéville, whose tact, courage, and good sense saved Lunéville many
+tragedies at the time of the German entry, took me out. He has a lively,
+perceptive eye, and, all in all, life seems not to have been unkind to
+him, though he has been invaded, and his parents before him. He received
+the Germans and said adieu to them all in that month of August. His fine
+old dwelling, where the treaty of peace was signed in 1801 between France
+and Austria, is next to E. M.’s, and housed at one time one hundred
+German soldiers, and the general and his staff were quartered in it. He
+was, of course, the bright particular hostage during the occupation, and
+was followed about by two officers and four soldiers wherever he went.
+
+“I kept them moving,” he added, with a snap of his perceptive eye.
+
+At Lunéville one hundred and thirty houses were destroyed and there
+was much loss of life among civilians. The mayor has, or rather had,
+a property near Vitrimont, called Léomont, on a hill where there was
+formerly a Roman temple to the moon, and from this Lunéville is supposed
+to take its name. The great farm and its ancient buildings were destroyed
+during the bombardments of Lunéville and Vitrimont.
+
+“It’s only a war monument now,” he added, philosophically.
+
+It’s the atmosphere of Lunéville that’s so charming to me—this drop into
+full eighteenth century, with the boom of twentieth-century cannon in
+the distance. In spite of the sound of guns, there is some peace they
+can’t destroy. I knew nothing about the French provinces till I got
+to Lunéville, and I suppose it’s their immemorial and quite special
+atmosphere that I have received. Here the war seems to be a thing of the
+past; they think of their _secteur_ only, and of themselves as _libérés_,
+and talk of the war in the past tense, and it might be 1814 just as well
+as 1914.
+
+A heavenly evening. We walked in the dim old garden smelling of linden.
+No lights anywhere, of course, and, though the stars were beautiful,
+they didn’t seem to light up anything terrestrial; the only things
+blacker than the night were the giant cedars. At dinner was a youngish,
+much-decorated general, coming back for a night from the front; though
+born in Lunéville it was the first time he had been here since the
+war—always fighting in other parts of France. Besides the general there
+were Madame Saint-R. T., E. M., and Miss P., who appeared in some sort
+of dull-red tunic that she ought always to wear; the mayor and his wife
+(she is Gasconne, and very animated, though she said twenty years of
+Lunéville had somewhat calmed her); two or three women with husbands at
+the front bringing daughters; several young officers; and M. Guérin and
+his daughter—the usual war-time composition of dinner-parties in the
+provinces, I imagine. Excellent and very lavish repast, _maigre_, of
+course, but everything else except meat in profusion. I didn’t get to bed
+till after eleven. M. Guérin walked back to the hotel with us, and, while
+he and Mrs. C. P. talked, again I was accosted by ghosts of dead rulers
+and lovely ladies and philosophers as we crossed the vast, dim Place
+Léopold. They, too, had crossed it and been amorous and witty, pleased or
+having _vapeurs_, enveloped by linden scent, and the changeless stars had
+controlled their destinies.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+This morning we visited the military hospital in one of the most charming
+edifices I have ever seen, an eighteenth-century convent-building.
+The first entry on the tableau in the hallway giving the names of the
+benefactors was 1761; the last, 1913. It is a two-storied, cloistered,
+rambling edifice, with several wide courtyards planted with trees and
+flowers, a fountain in the middle of one; in another a statue of the
+Virgin; beyond it a sun-baked vegetable garden; and still farther, behind
+a hedge, the inevitable little cemetery.
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR AT VITRIMONT]
+
+[Illustration: CEMETERY, VITRIMONT]
+
+[Illustration: THE BRIDGE AT LUNÉVILLE]
+
+We went through the wards of the hospital, high-ceilinged, spotless,
+airy, with the _médecin-chef_, talking with the wounded and distributing
+cigarettes.
+
+One of the doctors, also mayor of Gerbéviller, said to us, when we told
+him we were going there in the afternoon, “But don’t you want to see the
+young German aviator?”
+
+Thinking it quite “in the note,” we went up-stairs again. He unlocked
+the door of a large corner room. At a table by a window looking out on
+another little tree-planted court was the young eaglet with fractured
+“wing”—arm and shoulder—in plaster. He got up with the military salute
+as we came in. I begged permission to address him in German, and when
+I asked him where he was _zu Hause_, he answered, “Posen,” and that it
+was far. He said he was very comfortable, but, with a longing glance at
+the patch of sky, added that he was dreadfully bored. I suppose he was,
+after being a bird in the blue ether and breaking into secular silences.
+He had been there a month, but was still very thin under the cheek-bones
+and dark about the eyes, and very young. He turned to the doctor with an
+entirely different expression—a sort of shutting down of iron shutters
+over the youthful look—on being asked in German if he had all he needed.
+
+“Why have I had no answer to the post-cards I have written my mother?” he
+asked, adding, “we also have mothers.”
+
+The _médecin-chef_ said: “You know you can only write once a month; but
+write another, all the same, and I will see it is sent off.”
+
+He had a worn French grammar on the table and had been diligently
+studying verbs when we entered. The doctor was _so_ nice with him.
+
+There is no bitterness at the front; the more one sees of it the more one
+realizes that bitterness is the special prerogative of non-combatants far
+from the field. I heard an American woman say to an officer just back
+from the front, so newly back that “the look” was still in his eyes:
+
+“I’d like to see you at Cologne, destroying the cathedral. It would serve
+the Boches right.”
+
+He looked at her and made answer: “_Ce n’est pas comme ça, madame_.
+Enough has been destroyed in the world. Think rather of reconstruction.”
+
+Ah! _les civils!_
+
+Coming out, we met Mlle. des Garets and went with her to her
+evacuation hospital near the station, which was a triumph of turning
+heterogeneous spaces into a single purpose. Two old railway sheds had
+been converted into receiving-rooms, douche-rooms, refectories, and
+several eighteenth-century cellars had been so arranged that in case of
+bombardment they could stow away fifteen hundred wounded. This seems a
+simple enough statement, but just think what stowing away, _suddenly_,
+fifteen hundred wounded means! Mlle, des Garets, a daughter of General
+des Garets, has been marvelous in her devotion and practicality since the
+beginning of the war.
+
+I hear the motor-horn....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+GERBÉVILLER AND LA SŒUR JULIE
+
+
+We started out for Gerbéviller in a blinding sun, over a road leading
+through pleasant green meadows. That is one of the strange things of
+Lorraine—everywhere destroyed villages and everywhere well-planted
+fields, almost as if planted by the ghostly throngs of heroes who lie
+within. For in nearly every field there are the little clusters of black
+crosses, hung with flowers or the tricolor badge, or quite bare—with the
+number of men who lie within, or a date, scarcely ever a name.
+
+We went into the village, very ancient, that owes its name, Ville des
+Gerbes, to a miracle performed there by St.-Mansuy, past the completely
+destroyed château of the Lambertye family, and, going up a winding
+street, reached the house of Sister Julie, the heroine of August, 1914.
+On every side were gutted houses and piles of mortar and stones; one
+enterprising individual of the fair sex had installed against a resisting
+wall Le Café des Ruines, and some soldiers and civilians were sitting on
+bits of stone and masonry, drinking their _bocks_ and reading newspapers.
+The convent-building is in the principal street, and it was unharmed
+save for a little peppering of rifle-fire and a bit of cornice knocked
+off—_par la grâce de Dieu_, as Sister Julie afterward told us. Up three
+steps, and one finds oneself in a narrow, ancient stone hallway. Turning
+to the right, one enters a cool, peaceful room of the convent-parlor
+type—a large crucifix, lithographs of the last three popes, horsehair
+furniture, white crocheted doilies, everything spotless. In a moment
+Sister Julie came in. Her flashing eyes, her determined jaw, show her
+always to have been a woman of parts, and yet her whole life is really
+crowded into those few eventful days of the latter part of August,
+when “they” entered the town. For the rest, the quiet, useful routine
+of the nursing and teaching order of St. Charles de Nancy, which had
+been _chassé_ at the time of the French Revolution; a few nuns managed
+to remain hidden, and the order has been preserved. She is evidently a
+responsive soul, for she immediately began to enact the story of the
+arrival of the Germans, with a certain art in the presentment of the
+tragedy of the little town, gained, no doubt, by many recitals.
+
+The Germans came into the town on the 27th of August, after the heroic
+defense of the bridge over the Mortagne by a detachment of fifty-four men
+of the 2d Chasseurs from sunrise to sunset, who held up during hours the
+brigade of the Bavarian General Clauss. Finally, at five o’clock the gray
+hosts got through and passed in with a great sound of tramping feet and
+ringing hoof, and, after the manner of invaders, _mettant le feu et le
+sang dans le village_. Sister Julie thought her hour also had come. In
+the room where we were sitting she had placed her thirteen wounded men,
+brought in at intervals during the day. “_Mes petits_,” she called them,
+and her eyes shone softly at the memory. She sent the other sisters up to
+the attic, and remained alone to face the enemy and to beg that the house
+be spared. She went out on the little step, not knowing what fate awaited
+her, and found four immense officers on horseback, with their horses’
+heads facing her.
+
+“They thought they were Charlemagnes, immense men, with light hair and
+light-blue eyes and arched noses and gallooned uniforms. I was like a
+dwarf in comparison, and I am not small.” To tell the truth, she is
+indeed a “muscular Christian.”
+
+Then began the interrogatory, the ranking officer demanding of her:
+
+“_Sie sprechen Deutsch?_”
+
+She said to us, with a smile:
+
+“I did speak it in my youth, but it wasn’t the moment to recall my
+studies, and I didn’t answer, and we remained for a few seconds looking
+at each other _comme des chiens de faïence_.[3] I so little on the
+house-step, and they so tall on their big horses, and with poignards
+drawn from their breast pockets, _pas le beau geste de tirer l’épée du
+côté_,” she finished, disdainfully.
+
+Finally, the silence was broken by the ranking officer, whose next words
+were in French: “_Nous ne sommes pas des barbares_; you have soldiers and
+weapons concealed in your house. Lead the way.”
+
+Then the four officers dismounted and, with pistols in one hand and
+poignards in the other, followed Sister Julie into the little room where
+the thirteen wounded men were lying. Their helmets touched the ceiling as
+they looked about them. Standing by the first bed nearest the door, an
+officer pulled down the covers.
+
+“You have arms concealed.”
+
+“We have nothing. You will find only men lying in their blood.”
+
+By this time Sister Julie was not only talking, but acting the scene,
+indicating where the beds were, where she had stood, where the four
+_chefs_ had entered, and how the eyes of the wounded men followed her.
+The officers made the rounds of the beds, pulling down each stained
+cover, Sister Julie following to re-cover the men, who were expecting, as
+was she, the order to burn the house.
+
+She continued: “They were Bavarians, and when I said: ‘You see, we
+have nothing. Leave me my wounded, in the name of Mary most Holy,’ the
+commanding officer began to look at the point of his shoe as men do when
+they are embarrassed. I have seen surgeons do just that when they are in
+doubt about an operation,” she added. “Then he suddenly turned without a
+word and went out, followed by the other three, pistols and poignards in
+hand. They passed up the street with their detachment, ‘_mettant le feu
+et le sang au village; et moi, restée avec mes petits, à remercier le bon
+Dieu—et de leur donner à boire_.’”
+
+We gave our little offerings into her generous hands, and sniffed
+the scent of freshly baked bread that permeated the corridor. E. M.
+photographed her standing on her historic steps, and we went out into the
+hot, cobble-stoned street, to the completely ruined Lambertye château,
+standing in the midst of a park whose gardens were designed by Louis de
+Nesle. Two large and very beautiful porphyry basins near the house were
+untouched—not a nick or a scratch. On the great marble fireplace of what
+had been the big central hall, now uncovered to the day, we could still
+read the words:
+
+                          Charles de Montmorency
+                          Duc de . . . . mbourg,
+                          Maréchal de France.
+
+Afterward E. M. took some more photographs, and we sped homeward to pack
+our belongings and dash into Nancy to get the eight-o’clock train from
+there for Bar-le-Duc, to be ready for the high adventure of Verdun early
+the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BAR-LE-DUC
+
+
+                                   BAR-LE-DUC, _Sunday, June 17th, 2 a.m._
+
+Scribbling in an indescribable brown-upholstered room, where one lies
+on the outside of a dark and menacing bed covered by one’s own coat, a
+strong odor of stable coming in at the window and a horrid black cat
+wandering about. It’s no night to sleep. Two o’clock has just softly
+sounded from some old bell. I didn’t hear one o’clock, I am thankful to
+say. I was in a sort of trance of fatigue when we got here at eleven.
+
+Miss P. motored us into Nancy, straight into the setting sun. My
+eyes were so tired that I didn’t try to pierce the hot glaze, but
+there’s a memory of running through green fields, with black crosses,
+saline installations (Rosières aux Salines), manufacturing towns
+(Dombasle-sur-Meurthe), and Gothic towers (St. Nicholas du Port), and
+a dash through the new factory suburbs of Nancy into the delicate and
+perfect loveliness of the Place Stanislas. Neither E. M. nor I had a
+permit to go to Bar-le-Duc, the point of departure for Verdun, but Mrs.
+P. had, so she was deputed to order dinner at the Café Stanislas, while
+we went to the Hôtel de Ville to try to find the _Secrétaire Général_,
+Mr. Martin, a special friend of E. M.’s, and do what I call “cutting
+barbed wire.” It seemed at one time as if the high adventure of Verdun
+might have to be abandoned, as the _Secrétaire Général_, who alone could
+give us the necessary permission, had been called to Pont-à-Mousson to
+investigate the results of a raid of German _avions_ there and at Pompey
+that morning. However, when fate has made up its mind that things shall
+happen, any deadlock is cleared up by the puppets themselves, literally
+on a string this time, for as we were standing there in the room with the
+impotent substitute of the _Secrétaire Général_, the telephone rang, and
+who was it but the so desired gentleman calling up about something on
+the long-distance wire. E. M. literally grabbed the receiver, explained
+the situation, and he gave the necessary authority to his substitute,
+and we in turn gave the oft-repeated story of our lives from the cradle
+to the present moment, and finally could depart with papers in order for
+dinner at the Café Stanislas. Again as we walked across the lovely Place
+my soul was stirred with memories of peace, love, and the arts of peace.
+I seemed to understand anew those words, “The arts of peace,” and in a
+half-dream I looked up at the heavens. Again pale, charming faded tints
+of blues and grays and pinks were the background for the urns and figures
+of the sky-line of the pure and lovely buildings that surround it, and a
+crescent moon with something untouched and virginal flung a last charm
+about it all.
+
+[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF AMPHITRITE BY JEAN LAMOUR, PLACE STANISLAS,
+NANCY]
+
+We found Mrs. C. P. waiting at the same table at which I had sat two
+nights before with the sons of Mars and the man of God. We were just
+beginning our dinner when, looking out of the window, we saw something
+strange and for a moment unclassifiable, in an almost impossible
+juxtaposition of ideas. No one’s mind would be sufficiently mobile to
+grasp what it was without blinking a bit. The great, portentous black
+cross on its wings was what started the mind working properly. It was
+the Taube brought down at Pont-à-Mousson that morning, being drawn on
+a _camion_ through the delicious, delicate tracery of Jean Lamour’s
+wrought-iron gate!
+
+1755-1917!
+
+We dashed out; a crowd was already gathering. A young French aviator with
+a curious look in his eyes was watching it being set up. Having espied
+the wings on his uniform, we asked “what and where and how” and are
+“they” dead or prisoners? Some one said, “_C’est lui_,” indicating the
+young man, who did not answer our questions, but continued to stand quite
+still in some sort of dream or _détente_ of nerves. But a man in the
+crowd said:
+
+“He brought it down at Pont-à-Mousson, and _they_ are prisoners.” We were
+standing by the statue of _Stanislas le Bienfaisant, Stanislas le Bon_,
+his reign _le règne des talents, des arts et des vertus_ (these last not
+as we know them in 1917), and he _was_ looking on strange things! We went
+back to the café, consumed in haste and distraction the very nice little
+dinner, topped off by strawberries and cream and the celebrated _macarons
+des Sœurs Macarons_, and again I found myself dashing to the station,
+which one thinks is near and isn’t, accompanied by my two fair friends,
+all going at the same _allure militaire_ that I had taken forty-eight
+hours before with the two Breton officers and the Chaplain of the 52d.
+
+Wild dash at the station for our hand-luggage; and stampings of
+safe-conduct, then a hunt for the porter, who, with an excess of zeal
+(and hope), had reserved a coupé for us and put up the fateful words
+_dames seules_. Now there is no such thing as _dames seules_ at the
+front. Many officers were standing in the corridor, one on crutches,
+so we tore the forbidding words from the windows, and the compartment
+automatically, though courteously, filled.
+
+Among them two immense, dark-bearded men from the Midi, with accents to
+defeat the enemy, and a pale officer from near the Swiss frontier, as we
+afterward discovered. He smiled when I said to the dark one sitting by
+me, after the greetings and thanks:
+
+“You come from Marseilles?” (He came from a little place five miles from
+there.)
+
+The officer on crutches stretched his leg with a contraction of the face
+and a sigh of relief. They were all _en route_ for home, from the same
+regiment, the seven precious days of _permission_ counting from the hour
+they reach their homes till the hour they leave them, after months in the
+field. They had fought in Belgium, on the dunes, these men of the south,
+those first eighteen months, up to their waists in water, often for weeks
+at a time. They found the Lorraine landscape that so soothed my soul only
+fairly pretty, and spoke soft praises of _le Midi_.
+
+They all had the strange, bold, hard, shining look about the eyes, with a
+deeper suggestion of sadness, that men just returning from action have.
+It is the warrior look—one kills or one is killed, one conquers or is
+conquered; there is no _via media_.
+
+The pale officer from Savoy said: “There should never be any war; _c’est
+trop terrible_; but, once given the fact that war exists, all means to
+victory are justifiable.” And the bright, hard look deepening on his face
+made me suddenly think of Charles Martel and Charlemagne, and I knew
+it was the way French warriors have looked through the ages, but, oh!
+France. “_Oh doux pays!_”
+
+At Bar-le-Duc, dating from the Merovingians, at least, we descended (our
+bags passed out of the windows by the officers), and went through a dark,
+silent, linden-scented town, obliged to drag our own belongings through
+an interminable street, over a bridge across tree-bordered black water,
+till we got to this abode, known to men by the name of Hôtel de Metz et
+du Commerce. What the devils call it I don’t know; I have just chased the
+black cat out, and if I don’t get some sleep I shall not get to Verdun.
+There’s no linden scent coming in at my window here.
+
+                                          BAR-LE-DUC, _eight o’clock a.m._
+
+Waiting in the sandy-floored dining-room of the hotel. All three of us
+very cross. At dawn not only the light, but the sounds of chopping of
+wood, emptying of pails, and invectives of various sorts came in at the
+dreadful windows. At seven the maid mounted to know if we wanted the
+water in the tea or the tea in the water. That tea “threw” them. Not a
+sign of the famous Bar-le-Duc jellies that one has eaten all one’s life,
+even _outre-mer_. We compared notes of furry, rumpled sheets, dented
+pillows, dark coverlets, dreadful scents, and unmistakable sounds. We are
+now somewhat restored by hot and very good _café au lait_, and Mrs. C.
+P. is looking out of the door for signs of Mr. de Sinçay, who has just
+stepped out of his motor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+VERDUN
+
+
+_Verdun! The sound is like a clarion call. Verdun! It is shorty but
+gravely harmonious. It is satisfying to the ear, it is quickening to the
+soul. Verdun! It is for France the word of words; in it lies the whole
+beauty of her language and of her martial glory as well._
+
+_Who shall say it is but a fortuitous collection of letters, this word
+Verdun, beautiful as a chalice, that holds the dearest blood of France?
+It would not have been the same mystically, perhaps not actually, had it
+been Toul or Epinal or even that other melodic sound, Belfort. Verdun!
+It is the call through red days and nights, and everywhere the sons of
+France rallying to it with great hurryings lest mayhap one be there
+before the other, to dye with deeper color the crimson of high deeds.
+Verdun, ear and tongue relinquish you regretfully._
+
+_Verdun, glory and sorrow of France, I salute you, Verdun! Verdun!_
+
+Night, silence, and memory turning over the events of the day.
+
+I stopped writing this morning as a gentleman of supreme personal
+distinction entered the little sandy-floored café, a gentleman who
+should always be arriving in a dark-red, sixty-horse-power Panhard, or
+receiving on a terrace with a castle behind him, or sitting in a library
+of first editions only, in soft but gorgeous bindings. It was M. de S.,
+and we shortly all got into the big auto, we three women on the broad
+back seat, M. de S. in front with the military chauffeur. Even the bend
+of his long back was _l’élégance suprême_. He said the motor had seen
+three years of war-service, but certainly there was something unfatigued
+about it as it started out through the ancient streets of Bar-le-Duc, on
+the white road to the fateful fortress. The arrow on the first Verdun
+sign-post gave a feeling of having shot itself into one’s heart, as well
+as pointing the way.
+
+Almost immediately we met a long convoy bringing men back from the front,
+ourselves and everything else enveloped in a white plaster-of-Paris-like
+cloud of dust. It seemed an endless line, with their camouflaged canvas
+tops and sides, painted in great splashes of green and brown. In some
+of them the men were singing the _chansons de route_ that soldiers so
+love, and many of them had green branches stuck in the sides as a slight
+protection against the sun and the shifting white dust. The grass and
+flowers of the wayside were as if dipped in whitewash, but the road, like
+all the roads of France—those veins of her body of death _and_ life—was
+in excellent condition. Next we met a great line of Red Cross convoys,
+and all the time we were swinging through ruined villages.
+
+At the entrance to X. the guard stopped us with his bayonet. Our papers
+being in _archi_ condition, we passed through the little village of the
+_Quartier-Général_ without further hindrance. In front of the Mairie
+there is a quaint old fountain with its statue of three women holding up
+a _motif_ of flowers in a basket; near by there is an old hostelry, _Le
+Raisin Blanc_, in front of which soldiers were sitting, drinking their
+_bocks_ and reading newspapers. Turning out again on the white road, we
+pass settlements of Red Cross barracks and munition parks, looking for
+all the world like mining camps in Western towns at home.
+
+We arrived at Dugny at ten o’clock and descended to look about for a
+suitable place for the installing of a canteen, which was partly our
+reason for being where we were. There is an old country house in the
+middle of the little town, with a coat of arms above the door and lions
+crouching on its gates; behind is a lovely ancient park with linden and
+elder trees in full blossom, and under them quiet, shady walks. It is
+used as an ambulance station, and convalescing men were sitting or lying
+about on the ground. We met the _médecin-chef_, who, however, like all
+doctors, didn’t care twopence for well soldiers, and was but platonically
+interested in the canteen matter—just as the military count out the sick
+and wounded soldiers. It’s all in the point of view.
+
+As we stood talking a German aeroplane flew high above Dugny outlined in
+a perfect sky. Little white clouds of shrapnel from the vertical guns
+began to burst about it in the clear blue, and there was a louder sound
+of cannonading as the _avion_ disappeared in some far and upper ether. E.
+M.’s brother had been once stationed here for months, and she told the
+story of his meeting unexpectedly his cousin Casimir. They were going
+different ways with different detachments, and they “held up the war”
+while they embraced! Smart officers, ahorse and afoot, convoys going to
+the trenches with rations, great carts full of bread, and ambulating
+soup-kitchens filled the little street. Verdun was but seven kilometers
+distant, and the road lay straight before us as we left Dugny. On the
+horizon the outline of the citadel and the towers of the cathedral
+showed against the sky. Another endless convoy of ambulances and
+_camions_ enveloped us in a choking white dust. This is the lining of the
+front, and it is quite easy to see where the war billions go.
+
+We passed into Verdun under the Porte de France, and then went
+immediately up to the citadel through the old drawbridge, all dating from
+the days of Louis XIV and Vauban, and it was at Verdun that the sons of
+Louis the Debonair met to divide the empire of Charlemagne.[4]
+
+We got out by the demolished barracks, and M. de S. went to pay his
+respects to the colonel, who was expecting him. As I descended I saw at
+my feet a beautiful tiny bird’s nest, which I picked up with a clutching
+at the heart. The birds went away that first terrible spring of 1916, the
+colonel afterward told me, but they had come back in great numbers in
+1917, and were everywhere building their nests, in spite of the continual
+bombardments. The citadel was a desolate mass of mortar, stones, rusty
+barbed-wire entanglements, blackened and broken tree stumps, but
+everywhere, too, were quantities of undiscourageable new green.
+
+We met a young doctor coming across the Place, and fell into conversation
+with him. He had been at the front since the beginning, and he was
+sad-eyed in spite of his youth. When I spoke of the near-by tenth-century
+tower toppling and half-demolished, all that was left of the ancient
+church, and the celebrated abbey of Saint-Vannes, and said what a pity
+it was that the beautiful things of the old days had to go, he answered,
+with a gesture of complete indifference:
+
+“_Qu’est-ce que celà fait? A nous qui restons de faire de nouvelles
+choses, et mieux, que n’en out fait nos aïeux._ All the comrades I loved
+in the beginning are gone—and what remains, or perishes, of brick and
+mortar is of little account beside the sum of living things that is lost.”
+
+Just at this moment M. de S. appeared with the colonel, and the young
+philosopher touched his cap. We were then introduced to Colonel Dehaye,
+a brilliant officer and delightful _homme du monde_, loving the arts of
+peace, as I afterward discovered, as well as practising those of war.
+In his hands now lie the destinies of Verdun. He presented us each then
+and there with the famous medal of Verdun and an accompanying paper with
+his signature, and furthermore gave us an invitation to lunch, which we
+accepted with delight after delicate references to sandwiches and wine in
+the motor. We spent half an hour walking about the citadel, and he showed
+us the most recent damage—of yesterday—when a very especially precise aim
+of the Germans had destroyed nearly everything that had been left.
+
+Then we descended really into the bowels of the earth, cemented,
+white-tiled, electric-lighted, artificially aired bowels, to the very
+depths of the great fortress. To get to the mess-room of the colonel and
+his staff we had to pass through a long room where perhaps a hundred
+officers were sitting at dinner. There was something deeply impressive
+about the dim, long, low length of it, and those groups of men prepared
+for battle. Thoughts of Knights Templar and Crusaders came to me, and
+there seemed something of consecration about it all. Behind the tables on
+the walls were hung helmets and arms.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A young officer said to me once, “We don’t tell _all_ our stories there
+and we don’t often laugh very loud.” From it we got into the small,
+well-lighted mess-room, where kings and presidents and premiers and
+generalissime, too, have dined in the past few months.
+
+The staff and Paul Renouard, the painter, were waiting, and we sat down
+immediately to an excellent dinner, though the colonel said it was
+entirely _à l’improviste_. There were flowers on the table, too, but
+these I did suspect were specially for us. The colonel remarked, with the
+_hors-d’œuvre_, that he would take us to the battle-field after dinner,
+to the famous Fort de Souville, and the repast, instead of a meal, became
+the prelude to a supreme climax. The arrival of General Pershing was the
+first subject of conversation, accompanied by the most courteous and
+appreciative remarks; one of the officers told of the first day when the
+Stars and Stripes had appeared in the field with the other flags, and
+of the cheers that went up. And they drank to the United States, and we
+drank to France; they praised the work of women, and spoke of the immense
+moral and practical aid of the entry into the war of the United States.
+Whether it would shorten the conflict was another question. To the
+captain sitting opposite I said:
+
+“If the soul of the war has a special dwelling-place it is Verdun,”
+and told him how the thought of America turned about it those days of
+February and March of 1916. “But,” I added, “there was a time when I
+thought they might get through.”
+
+The commandant answered quickly from the other end of the table: “Ah,
+madame, there was a time when we thought they might get through, _mais
+‘ils n’ont pas passé—ils ne passeront pas.’_”
+
+And then I quoted the beautiful phrase of the _Commentaires de Polybe_:[5]
+
+“_Et Verdun y en ruines, avec ses soldats, debouts, toujours dans la
+tempête, comme il n’y en a jamais eu de plus beaux ... avec Nivelle,
+et avec Pétain, avec l’image de Raynal qui vient roder la nuit dans
+les décombres de Vaux et avec le paraphe de Castelnau sur cet autre
+Couronné...._”
+
+We ended a most pleasant repast, with its great under throb, by coffee
+and tilleul and a little glass of cassis (black-currant cordial), the
+native liqueur.
+
+Then, on into a room where we pulled up our coat-collars so no white
+would show, slung the bags containing the gas-masks across our chests,
+left our flowers, parasols, and other impedimenta, and went out through
+the long, dim now empty hall to get into the autos. We waited half an
+hour for ours, which had performed the seemingly impossible feat of
+getting lost in Verdun. The officers began to get impatient, and M. de S.
+to make bitter remarks about his chauffeur; the colonel to walk up and
+down. The commandant said, “_Du calme_,” and the colonel answered that
+only sous-lieutenants _savent avoir du calme_. “_Ils sont étonnants_,”
+said another officer with four stripes on his arm.
+
+Finally our man appeared, with a story no one listened to, Colonel Dehaye
+getting in with us, the other officers leading the way in his auto.
+
+It was two o’clock, and a white, burning sun was shining on a white,
+burning earth as we drove through the crumbling streets, through houses
+in every stage of ruin, to the great plain of La Woèvre, toward the
+dreadful, scarred battle-field, where the chariot of God rides the ridges.
+
+Verdun is built to reinforce the natural rampart of the Côtes de Meuse,
+to bar the passage of the river’s valley, and cover the Argonne.
+
+As we passed out of the town on one side was a cemetery where sleep
+four thousand, on another side sleep twenty thousand—and these are but
+a handful to the numbers that lie everywhere in the white, scarred
+earth around Verdun. The colonel named various battered places as we
+passed—Fleury, Tavannes, etc., and finally we climbed a steep hillside
+near the celebrated Fort de Souville, where we left the motors. The
+abomination of desolation over which we passed once had been a green,
+smiling, wooded, gently rolling hillside. The village of Tavannes was
+but a spot of white horror, even with the ground. The hills of Douaumont
+and Thiaumont had on their blanched sides only a few blackened stumps of
+trees that will not leaf again. To the left as we looked about were the
+fateful summits of Le Mort Homme and Hill 304 with a white ribbon of road
+running between. We walked along, stumbling over heaps of water-bottles,
+haversacks, helmets, cartridge-belts, belonging alike to the invader
+and the invaded—bones, skulls, rusty rolls of barbed wire, remains of
+_obus_, and mixed with what lies in the earth of fair and brave and dear
+are myriads of unexploded shells. The country round Verdun, despite the
+rich blood that could render it so fertile, can’t be cultivated for years
+on account of the vast quantities of shells buried in it. A man pulls a
+piece of wire, and he loses his hand, another tries to clear away bits of
+something round, and his head is blown off. One of the officers told us
+of societies for the demineralization of battle-fields, but the work is
+slow and costly.
+
+Yet a winter’s snows had lain upon it all and spring had breathed over
+it since the first awful combats of February, 1916. I knew suddenly some
+complete “heartbreak over fallen things” as I stumbled, and, looking
+down, saw at my feet a helmet, and by it a skull with insects crawling in
+and out the eyes, and a broken gun-stock.
+
+Great and gorgeous patches of scarlet poppies in a profusion never seen
+before splash themselves like something else red against the white earth,
+or fill great shell hollows and spill and slop over the fields....
+
+The Germans had been shelling a near-by 75 battery that very morning, and
+fresh bits of _warm_ shrapnel were lying all about as we twisted in and
+out of the _boyaux_. I brought away but a small bit with me, having early
+discovered that a small piece is as good a reminder as a big bit, and
+much easier to carry. We passed the grave of a soldier buried where he
+had fallen, a few hours before. His shallow grave, with its little cross,
+was running _red_, but he was mayhap already in his Father’s house of
+many mansions.
+
+In many places under the feet scarcely buried bodies gave an elastic
+sensation....
+
+We first visited the emplacement of a great gun worked by the most
+complicated electric machinery, something that seemed built as strongly
+as the Pyramids, revolving on its great axis, at a touch fulfilling that
+which it was cast into being to perform. When we came out, we climbed
+some last white scarred heights that the colonel called “_Les Pyrénées_,”
+and there, stretched out, was the whole great and fateful panorama of
+Verdun—“_par où ils n’ont pas passé_.” I thought of the men I had known
+who had been engaged in those dreadful attacks, whose mothers and wives
+had looked upon them again, and of others still whose wives and mothers
+would behold them no more. And I had again a breaking of the heart over
+the vast tangle, and cried within myself, “Shall all the world be a
+valley of dry bones?”
+
+[Illustration: OUR PARTY ON THE BATTLE-FIELD AT VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BOYAUX, VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917]
+
+Then we hid ourselves in some _boyaux_ well out of sight, for we were
+nearing a camouflaged battery, two of whose guns had been silenced
+that very morning. In dark woods over beyond Tavannes the Germans were
+intrenched, and their shells were also falling thickly over Douaumont and
+Thiaumont. It was the front indeed. It was at Tavannes that in a dreadful
+moment, in a moment such as can happen anywhere, artillery fire had
+been trained on thousands of men who were rushing to the top in a great
+charge. And yet I kept thinking of the words of a dead hero, “Nothing but
+good can befall the soldier, so he plays his part well.”[6]
+
+At that moment the enemy began to send an unwonted number of shells,
+which were exploding just behind Thiaumont, so the colonel told the
+captain of artillery—who had joined our party at the gun emplacement—to
+answer, and he climbed down a steep decline to his masked battery. In a
+few minutes, as we lay hidden in the _boyau_, twenty discharges sounded;
+but shells that go up, come down, and on the other side of the hill we
+were watching, who shall say what agony? I am so constituted that I
+cannot think of the passage of any soul into the next life other than
+with awe.
+
+We then descended into the Fort of Souville, down 850 feet, where men
+live and breathe and have their being in dimly lighted, damp, narrow
+spaces. But it seemed temporarily like heaven to be out of the glare and
+the heat. Preceded by lanterns, an officer in front of each one of us, we
+crept or felt our way up and down, stumbling through vault-like passages,
+where we would come upon men lying asleep in damp, dim places, or writing
+by the light of lanterns, or preparing meals in their kitchen, or waiting
+at the little dispensary, and then we stumbled up again into the heat,
+reverberating from the white hills.
+
+On the way back we passed a little chapel installed in an old cemented
+dugout. On the altar were many flowers. I bent and peered into the
+dimness, and, as I knelt, it seemed to me that never had I so understood
+the words _Introibo ad Altare Dei_. I thought of the Lamb of God, and
+martyrs new and old, and the catacombs and the primitive Church.... Again
+men in stress were worshiping in the bowels of the earth.
+
+We were photographed against a particularly sinister group of blackened
+trees, and we picked up some helmets and bits of _obus_. As I write, the
+_couronne_ of one, quite evenly exploded, lies on the little table by my
+side.
+
+Just before getting into town the colonel ordered the motor to stop, and
+we got out, and, walking through a field of deep, waving grass, found
+ourselves in the largest of the cemeteries with its long, even lines of
+broad graves where lie, in a last co-mingling, the brothers of France,
+and I repeated to myself in a quiver of feeling, “_Scio quod Redemptor
+meus vivit et in novissime die resurrecturus sum et in carne mea videbo
+Deum Salvatorum meum_.”
+
+All was in beautiful order. The crosses bore sometimes a name, but
+oftener a number only: _140 soldats_, or _85 soldats_. The round tricolor
+badge hung from every cross. There were a few graves of officers who
+could be identified, their bodies having been brought in by friends or
+faithful orderlies. How anything could live on those fire-swept hills is
+the wonder, not that any one died. Suddenly, again, a great sadness fell
+upon me, and as the colonel pointed out the grave of an especially dear
+comrade—Colonel Dubois, I think his name was—dead in some heroic manner,
+I could look no more.
+
+We finally got back into the green freshness of Verdun, whose normal
+state, I see, is to be vine-bowered, tree-shaded, grass-carpeted. After
+the scarred and blazing battle-field, and in spite of the ruined streets,
+the roofless houses, I had a feeling of refreshment, coming from those
+heights where “all the round world is indeed a sepulcher” ... and near
+the station is the monument to the heroes fallen at Verdun, in 1870.
+
+Of the Cercle Militaire on the right bank of the Meuse little is left
+except the walls, but it is no loss architecturally, and _messieurs les
+officiers_ are otherwise engaged. The banks of the Meuse are a pitiful
+sight. The old houses that reach over the water are roofless, bits of
+mattress hang from broken windows, and heaps of mortar are falling
+into the river. The great Porte Chaussée of the fifteenth century,
+with its two huge gray towers, is unharmed. We stopped at the theater
+for a moment. A big shell last month had made a sort of pudding of it.
+We crept in through a large aperture, to find the orchestra stalls
+precipitated onto the stage, and the loges sagging, ready to fall. We
+then went up into the old, high part of the town, and Colonel Dehaye,
+a true lover of the arts, in sadness showed us the cathedral and the
+charming old buildings that surround it. The huge church constructed
+according to Germanic traditions has two equal transepts, with high and
+beautiful vaulting, which is now so damaged that the roof at any time may
+fall. Inside were masses of débris, and nothing was left of the famous
+stained-glass windows except powdery bits of color on the floor. The
+colonel had rescued some old Spanish Stations of the Cross, and had put
+in safety a few other portable things of value. We passed out through
+the sacristy, which was a scene of disorder, bits of vestment, torn
+altar-cloths, and books lying about on the floor.
+
+“But,” I said, “the Germans didn’t get here?”
+
+“Oh,” answered one of the officers, with a smile, “_ce sont nos bons
+français_.”
+
+Then we descended into the crypt, the remains of the church that Pope
+Eugene III built in the twelfth century. Leading down to it is an old
+winding stair, with a delicious eighteenth-century wrought-iron railing.
+An artist in a white blouse, sent to restore some frescoes dating
+from the twelfth century, was rescuing from too complete destruction
+a beautiful figure of Christ with something stern and immutable in
+His look, reminding me of the Christ in the church of San Cosmo and
+San Damiano in the Roman Forum. We then went into the cloisters, with
+lovely and diverse _motifs_ on their vaultings, very much damaged in
+parts, a big shell having landed in the courtyard which they inclose. M.
+Renouard had stationed himself there with his easel, before a beautiful
+arrangement of trees and grass and enchanting old statues on mossy
+pedestals. In front of him was a great heap of fallen masonry, and a
+beautiful bit of toppling vaulting that the colonel had had propped up by
+beams, though he said: “_Demain ou après-demain cela ne sera plus_—it’s
+all at the mercy of a shot.” A sculptured Holy Family, somewhat the worse
+for _war_, is plastered into one side, dating from the fourteenth century.
+
+From there we passed into what had been a seminary until 1914, and one
+of the rooms with rows of _lavabos_ (not of the eighteenth century, as
+the colonel observed) looked out on the great plain of La Woèvre, and
+again the fateful panorama was unrolled before us. In what had been a
+council-room there was an old choir high up over the door, with a little
+balcony giving a Spanish effect.
+
+Coming out, at the north side of the church, an ancient Romanesque statue
+of Adam and Eve on the outer hemicycle of the apse and some little
+windows, also of pure Romanesque, were pointed out to us. In the ground
+underneath the statue of Adam and Eve a great shell had opened up a Roman
+foundation and walls, formed of immense square blocks of stone, hidden
+during ages.
+
+Near the church is the great Cour d’Honneur, once the house of the
+bishop, a very perfect example of Louis XIV, making me think of
+Versailles; but it, too, has received many a blow in its lovely heart.
+One longed so to bandage up all those wounds of war, preserve in being
+those lovelinesses of another age.
+
+We then visited the house of Pope Julius II (I forget what he was doing
+at Verdun), which, fortunately, has not suffered much up to now, though
+it, too, is at the mercy of a shot—to-night, to-morrow, or the next day.
+It would make a perfect museum, with its beautiful old door, bearing
+inscription and date, through which one passes into a tiny V-shaped court
+with a flowering linden-tree, and there are two romantic winding stone
+stairways, with something Boccaccioesque about them, leading to the upper
+stories.
+
+Though it wasn’t an occasion in which to think how one felt, the flesh
+_was_ weary by this time, and we went gladly back to the colonel’s
+mess-room, where we had tea, or rather, to be exact, some ice-cold
+champagne _coupé d’eau_, and some sort of madeleine, a specialty of
+Verdun, which gave us the little flip-up that we needed. Another
+specialty of Verdun is the _dragées_ (hard, sugared almonds), but the
+factory, so one of the officers said, had been destroyed the year before
+in one of the bombardments. Generations of tourists having broken their
+teeth on them, however, we wasted no regrets.
+
+The colonel begged us to stay for dinner, and the cinematograph
+representation after, but we were obliged to regretfully decline, as
+we had to pay our respects to the general at Y——, to whose courtesy M.
+de S. owed the safe-conducts to Verdun. As we passed by we looked into
+the long, narrow hall where the representations are given, the sight of
+which the colonel offered as further inducement. It would have ennobled
+for me forever that most boresome of modern things, had I assisted at one
+underneath the citadel of Verdun. The hall was hung with flags of the
+Allies. With sudden tears I saluted, ours waving among them.
+
+We thanked a thousand times the colonel and his group of officers
+standing by the auto at the entrance to the subterranean passage, and
+though I had a consciousness of the uncertainty of their lives, I thought
+again “Nothing but good can befall the soldier, so he plays his part
+well.”
+
+Now comes to mind a conversation I had before I ever dreamed of going
+to Verdun, when I talked for three hours of battles and scars with a
+young hero wounded on Hill 304, June 9, 1916. He is a flashing-eyed,
+straight-featured, tall, slim-waisted young hero who knows what it is to
+have made, and with astounding ease, the sacrifice of the life that he
+loves so, and drinks in full bumpers. And this is part of what we said,
+one of a thousand, of ten thousand, of a hundred thousand happenings, of
+which Verdun is the golden frame:
+
+    De G.—“There was something hanging about Verdun; ‘_Ils ne
+    passeront pas, et ils ne sont pas passés_.’ If the enemy could
+    have but known how thinly, poorly, in so many places it was
+    defended! It was seemingly the will of Heaven rather than the
+    strength of mortals that they were not to pass, not man, not
+    artillery, but the high destiny of nations.
+
+    “When I lay during those hours at the _poste d’observation_
+    on Hill 304, in front of the French army, signaling ‘shell
+    square 17,’ or 16, or whatever it might be, I could see clearly
+    the havoc in the German ranks as the shells would fall. Great
+    groups of men would be blown to atoms and new formations would
+    press in to take their place. The whole horror was there before
+    me, mapped out in numbered squares.
+
+    “I dismissed all my men except my orderly of the fourth
+    Zouaves, who wouldn’t have gone, anyway. It was a work I
+    could do alone, lying with a sand-bag against my head, my
+    field-glasses in my hand, and before me my field map held down
+    by four sticks. We lay there just under the crest of the hill
+    from two o’clock in the morning until the next afternoon,
+    watching seven attacks. Toward three o’clock I was wounded, and
+    I knew it was only a question of time and chance when I would
+    lie like the dead man at my side, that Dueso had been pressing
+    his feet against, and whose place I had been sent to take.
+    Almost at the same moment I caught sight of Dueso spinning
+    around, holding his elbows to his side, and crying out: ‘_Nom
+    de Dieu! Nom de Dieu!_ I’ve got it in the arm!’—but trying with
+    the other hand to undo his _cravate_.
+
+    “Two jets of blood were now spurting like two faucets from
+    my leg, the big artery was cut. _Ça y est._ In five minutes
+    I’ll be dead, I thought, and there came a fainting away and a
+    thinking not on God, but on still untasted joys of the flesh
+    and life—not even on my mother’s grief; and waking up after
+    years, it seemed, and calling for water, and Dueso bending
+    over me, after a frantic twisting at his _cravate_, and a
+    frantic pulling and tightening of it about my leg, with one
+    hand and his teeth, and then a pleasant, happy fainting away. A
+    delicious sensation of ease invaded me, and I said to myself,
+    ‘_Ce n’est que ça, mourir?_’ (‘Is death only this?’) I have
+    seen so many men die, and whatever their agonies, if long or
+    short, minutes or hours or days, as it may happen, just before
+    dying something gentle and simple takes place.”
+
+    E. O’S.—“The inevitable dust to dust, the natural law
+    fulfilling itself?”
+
+    De G.—“It may be. This _rictus de la mort_, I haven’t seen it,
+    though I have heard men screaming and cursing and praying in
+    the trenches as they got their blow, and watched their agonies,
+    but before death something else, softer, always happens. Unless
+    it comes too suddenly. I remember once being on the dunes in
+    Belgium, and against the yellow sand men were sitting in red
+    trousers and _chechias_, and one was telling a tale of laughter
+    when a shell burst. In a moment the blood of his brains was
+    flowing red upon the yellow sand, and then it got blue, and
+    then it sank and was no more, like the laughing man himself
+    from whom it flowed, and his tale of laughter.... About nine
+    o’clock we were brought in. Dueso had been lying with his head
+    under my armpit, and his feet still on the dead man, and we
+    would both come out of a faint from time to time and ask for
+    water.
+
+    “Dueso! ah, Dueso! for a human being _il est plus chic que
+    moi_. He had been in jail for various reasons not very _chic_,
+    and I was warned against him when I took him for my orderly,
+    but to him I owe my life. Now he is in Salonique, _cité à
+    l’armée_, knows how to live in those regions, hard as nails,
+    originally from Tunis; a dark man, with dark mustache and very
+    big white teeth.”
+
+    E. O’S.—“One thinks so often how little the common soldier,
+    defending honors and riches that he doesn’t share, has to gain.
+    There is nothing for him, in fact, except to step out into
+    anonymous death; at a given moment to make the sacrifice of his
+    life, or his eyes or his limbs, knowing nothing of war except
+    its horror, rarely any glory, sometimes a mention or a medal,
+    oftener not. But,” I continued, after we had sat silent for a
+    while, “who will carry it all on? Few like yourself are left,
+    and it is not enough. France is bleeding white—France, whose
+    sons are heroes, not fathers!”
+
+    De G.—“What does it matter if we do go? There are the little
+    ones coming on. It will be like something out of which a whole
+    piece has been cut and the ends must be sewed together. The
+    very old, and the very young, the children, are these ends. We
+    shall have done what we were born to do. This is the immortal
+    history of France that we have made, her _chant du cygne_, too,
+    the most beautiful of her epics and it is enough to have lived
+    for that. To others the carrying on of the generations....”
+
+A pale rose light begins to come in at the window, but sleep cometh not.
+Fortunately, if need be, I can do without it, but I must close my eyes
+now. He, too, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHÂLONS.—CHÂTEAU DE JEAN D’HEURS.—REVIGNY, THE “LINING” OF THE FRONT
+
+
+Each, on comparing notes, was found to have spent the night on the
+outside of the bed. One of the party, who naturally wishes to remain
+anonymous, found a _cafard_, the classic cockroach, in her ear toward
+dawn, and Aurora was welcomed by no hymn of praise from her.
+
+Now we are sitting drinking lemonade on the pavement in front of the
+abode of iniquity. We have been twice through the hot town, which
+consists of a modern town around the station, and a picturesque old one
+on a hill at the back, to find the proper authorities for the stamping
+of our papers with the military _permis_ to go to the château of Jean
+d’Heurs, belonging to Madame Achille Fould, for luncheon. We caught the
+major by a hair’s breadth; he was disappearing around the corner by the
+military _commandature_ on his bicycle. Then to the _préfecture_ for
+permission to telephone to Châlons for rooms that night; on returning,
+found Miss M. and Miss N. awaiting us. They have been working at the
+“Foyer des Alliés” near the station. They want now to get a much-needed
+canteen in shape at Châlons, and are asking us to help. The word from the
+colonel of Verdun is an “open sesame,” and we will investigate _en route_
+to Paris.
+
+                                      CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, _10 o’clock p.m._
+
+It’s been as long as to Tipperary since the scrawl at Bar-le-Duc.
+
+At 11.30 we got into the comfortable motor Madame Fould sent to bring
+us to Jean d’Heurs’ for lunch. It’s a beautiful old château of the
+eighteenth century, given by Napoleon to the Maréchal Oudinot, and in
+the Fould family since those days, though not lived in until the war
+by the present generation. It made us feel quite like “folks” as a
+side-whiskered, highly respectable, rather aged majordomo received us and
+led us up a broad stairway and showed us into a big library where Madame
+Fould, her seven _infirmières_, and a young officer were waiting. After
+that, a perfect lunch in the way of each thing being of the freshest and
+most delicate and tasting of itself. The young officer was recovering
+from a wound received at Verdun last September, followed by a trepanning,
+evidently highly successful, as, in addition to all his senses, he had a
+thick mat of hair.
+
+The library, to which we returned for coffee, was lined with the most
+precious books in the most precious bindings, one whole side containing
+first editions only from Voltaire and J.-J. Rousseau to Châteaubriand and
+Taine. And I ran my fingers with such a friendly feeling over some soft
+and lustrous bindings.
+
+The vast spaces of the château are now made into wards, and relays of
+several hundred men are cared for in them. White hospital beds are pushed
+against elaborately frescoed walls and Empire gildings. Everything in
+spotless order. Afterward we went out into the beautiful old park, where
+convalescent men were sitting or lying about under the great trees. The
+park is now closed to visitors, the fair sex from neighboring villages
+having been too generous in their offerings on the altar of Priapus. It’s
+a lovely spot, and Madame Fould has had her hospital going since the
+beginning of the war.
+
+At two o’clock we motored into Revigny, accompanied by the handsome
+young trepanned officer, who deposited us at the military headquarters
+for the stamping of our safe-conducts. Mrs. C. P., who can put her head
+through a stone wall, without injuring it, as neatly as any one I ever
+saw, proceeded to perform the feat, with the result that the major in
+command gave us all permission for the next _étape_, Châlons. Then Mrs.
+C. P.’s young son, serving with the American Ambulance, met us, motoring
+over from Z——; a friend came with him, originally from Swarthmore,
+Pennsylvania, rather discouraged at the quiet of the _secteur_ in which
+he was stationed. But all he has to do is to wait. Everybody at the front
+eventually gets what’s “coming to him.” Mrs. C. P.’s boy had on his
+_Croix de Guerre_, got for fearless ambulance work at Verdun during one
+of the big attacks.
+
+Revigny seen from the inside is a hole of holes—but through it defile
+continually the blue-clad men of France. Twelve thousand had already
+passed through that day. In the _carrefour_ of the road by the station
+is a ceaseless line of convoys coming from or going to Verdun. This once
+banal little village has come to have something symbolic about it, though
+looking, as one passes by, like dozens of other destroyed villages. But
+inside it is the lining of the war—that thing of dust, fatigue, thirst,
+hunger, sadness, fear, despondence, hopelessness, running up and down the
+gamut of spiritual and physical miseries. “Theirs not to reason why.” ...
+
+The English canteen is the only bright spot in the whole place. Those
+sad-eyed men, like us, love and regret, and are beloved and regretted;
+women have let them go in fear and dread; and all over Europe it is the
+same, east, west, north, and south—all they love they lay down at the
+word of command. I watched for an hour the blue stream of heavily laden
+men as they passed in, coming up to the counter with their battered
+quart cups, drinking their coffee standing, in haste, that the comrade
+following might be sure to get his drink, the sweat dripping from their
+faces. Fifteen minutes later a great thunder-storm broke, and thousands
+of sad-eyed men were huddled together, shelterless, like sheep, suddenly
+soaked; the hateful dust became the still more hateful mud. I left it all
+in complete desolation of spirit, and wondering, Is God in His heaven?
+
+Revigny was worse to my spiritual sense almost than the
+battle-field—there all was consummated. Here the men are still passing up
+to sacrifice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MONT FRENET.—LA CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE.—THE RETURN
+
+
+                                                        CHÂLONS, _10 p.m._
+
+We dashed into the train at Revigny during the hail-storm, an infernal
+kind that didn’t cool the air, and arrived at Châlons at six o’clock.
+No cabs, at least none for us, so we begged two Quaker women with the
+red-and-white star in the little black triangle on their sleeves, who
+were getting into the only visible conveyance, to take our luggage and
+deposit it for us at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, whose name so
+appealed to me. We paid our share of the cab, and all and everything
+departed, we on foot. Châlons seems quite without character as one passes
+through the streets, though I caught sight of several old churches and,
+alone, would have lingered on the busy bridge that spans the Marne.
+We got to the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu and interviewed the female
+keeper of that special paradise, who said she had nothing for us, had
+received no telephone message from the _préfet_ at Bar-le-Duc or any
+other _préfet_ from any other place. Then Mrs. C. P.—the Verdun day
+and the Bar-le-Duc nights having somewhat stretched our nerves—began
+to get annoyed; the desk-lady finally asked us, did we belong to the
+Westinghouse Commission, which we didn’t. We then betook ourselves
+to the streets. Nothing at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, nothing at the
+Hôtel-Restaurant du Renard. We finally asked a large, beady-eyed,
+determined-looking female, standing at a door, if she had accommodations
+or knew of any one who had. She proved to be the _sage-femme_ of the
+quarter and eyed us askance.
+
+Just then appeared a very _comme il faut_, pretty young woman with an
+expression at once so charming and so modest that we did not hesitate to
+accost her and tell her of our plight—that it looked as if we should be
+passing the night _à la belle étoile_ if some one didn’t do something for
+us. She hesitated, looked at us, hesitated again. Smashed down on her
+head at a smart angle was the identical hat that Mrs. C. P. was wearing,
+blue with a twisting of gray, from Reboux. I think that hat crystallized
+things, for she ended by saying, sweetly:
+
+“I have a room that I sometimes offer to friends; only,” she added,
+“there is a horrible stairway leading to it.”
+
+We turned our backs on the _sage-femme_, doubtless naturally good,
+but soured by the constant witnessing of the arrival on the scene of
+apparently superfluous human beings (I say “apparently,” for who shall
+decide which souls are precious?), and followed those neatly clad, small
+feet and slim ankles up a winding stairway that might have been of any
+epoch—except the nineteenth or twentieth century, and found ourselves
+in a charming little interior, spotlessly clean. “_C’est à votre
+disposition_,” she said, and then a servant appeared, a refugee from
+Tahure, as we afterward learned, a garrulous refugee. I beat my breast
+later on when I heard the loud bassoon, telling Mrs. C. P. that I even
+hated refugees and that that one would have, if possible, to contain her
+tale till I had had a night’s sleep. At the moment I hated her with all
+the unreasoning hatred of the beneficiary for the benefactor.
+
+Well, to make a long story short, closets were opened, the freshest
+of embroidered linen sheets, the largest of towels, were got out, and
+were left to us in the handsomest of ways _with_ the refugee, the owner
+departing to her country house. The refugee managed to get in part of the
+story of her life and she brought hot water; she was from Tahure and left
+on the run with an aged husband, just before the entry of the enemy.
+
+Then we looked about the pleasant room. The first object I espied
+was a pair of manly brown kid gloves, the next a blue gas-mask bag,
+and a cigarette-case, with a crest, lying near a volume of Alfred de
+Vigny. (Can’t you see them reading it together?) And there was such a
+comfortable _chaise-longue_ for him to rest on, and an expensive, very
+“comfy” rug and many cushions. As the refugee from Tahure proceeded to
+make up the bed and sofa she interspersed the story of _her_ life with
+remarks concerning her mistress, like: “_Allez, elles ne sont pas toutes
+comme cela, elle a un cœur d’or_”; “_Moi, qui vous le dis, elle n’a pas
+une mauvaise pensée_.”
+
+At this juncture we delicately asked, But where does she _live_?
+“Oh, he has given her a little château in the environs.” This was a
+convenient town apartment with the one big room giving on the Place de
+la République; at the back a dining-room and little kitchen. Having
+removed the dust of travel, hot water being produced in a jiffy from the
+gas-stove on the kitchen range, we descended to take dinner at one of the
+restaurants near by. We were so tired about this time that the decalogue
+wasn’t much to us, neither the Law nor the Prophets, but be it remembered
+of us, we _did_ love our neighbor as ourselves.
+
+When we came back after supper the sofa was spread with large, crisp,
+spotless linen sheets, the bed the same, the refugee gone, and here
+we are in this clean, low-ceilinged room with eighteenth-century
+wood-panelings and charming door-handles of the same period. There is a
+crayon of the present tenant reflecting her sweet and candid expression
+over the mantelpiece, on which are two Dresden-china figures and a small
+white-marble “Young Bacchus”; furthermore an etching by Hellu of the
+Duchess of Marlborough, which made one feel quite poised. In fact, there
+is nothing _demi_ about it.
+
+The Place de la République is full of soldiers coming and going, and
+there are several ambulances of the Scottish Ambulance Corps drawn up
+by a big fountain representing three women (typifying the Marne, the
+Moselle, and the Agne). Over the soft, warm night is borne the low boom
+of cannon. The guard has just called out: “_Faites attention! Lumière au
+troisième étage_”—so I must stop.
+
+                                                      _Tuesday, 9.30 a.m._
+
+Sitting in the Place de la République on chairs borrowed from a little
+lace-shop, and waiting for the cab to come to take us to General Goïgoux,
+to whom Madame Fould had given us a letter of introduction. Just
+opposite is the inhospitable Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, and I have
+been telling Mrs. C. P., who has gone to buy some fruit, of the story of
+Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet passing through Châlons _en route_ from
+Versailles to Lunéville. At Châlons Madame du Châtelet thought she’d like
+to have a bouillon at the Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or, where they stopped
+to change horses. (It still exists and is the only one we didn’t try
+last night.) It was brought them to their carriage by the _aubergiste_
+herself, who had learned from the indiscreet postilion the identity of
+the illustrious travelers. When Longchamp, the valet of Voltaire, asks
+to pay, she firmly demands a louis d’or for the bouillon. “La divine
+Emilie” protests, the woman insists that at her hotel the “price of an
+egg, a bouillon, or a dinner is a louis”; then Voltaire gets out and
+tries by amiable processes to explain that in no country in the world
+did a bouillon ever cost a louis; more cries and reproaches; a crowd
+gathers; Voltaire, strong in his right, doesn’t want to give way. Madame
+du Châtelet points out the gathering crowd, now quite noisy. Finally
+they pay, Voltaire commending to all the devils the hospitable town of
+Châlons-sur-Marne; they depart to the accompaniment of the gibes of the
+amiable inhabitants. It may be _autre temps_, but not _autres mœurs_;
+it’s just like the woman at the desk at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu,
+who wouldn’t take us in, in any sense, last night.
+
+The most awful-looking cab has just drawn up in front of “our” house, and
+a smart American ambulance officer is trying to get in.
+
+                                          IN THE TRAIN EN ROUTE FOR PARIS.
+
+The first quiet breath I have drawn, and very comfortable it is to sink
+into the broad seats, out of the glare of the setting sun, and feel there
+is nothing to inspect save the flying aspect of nature for the next three
+hours.
+
+The handsome officer this morning proved to be Mr. B., and he didn’t get
+that cab, which, however, we promised to send back to him once we were
+deposited at the general’s headquarters.
+
+General Goïgoux is most agreeable. When he asked us where we were lodged,
+we threw a stone at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu and told him of our
+Good Samaritan. He gave a grin, if generals are supposed to grin, when
+we said that we had not disturbed her to any great extent, as she had,
+in addition, a country place where she really lived. We then told him of
+our meeting with Miss N. and Miss M., who had asked us to investigate
+the canteen prospects on our way back to Paris. The installing of one
+has long been the idea of General Goïgoux, who loves his _poilus_, and
+he immediately rang the bell on his table—among his books was a German
+Baedeker of eastern France—and in a moment a captain with a sad face and
+a black band on his arm appeared, and we departed in a huge military auto
+to the station to investigate the great railway shed that the general has
+requisitioned for canteen purposes.
+
+Going through the streets, we were held up for a moment by a detachment
+of prisoners in various uniforms and from various regiments, but all with
+P.G. (_prisonnier de guerre_) marked in large letters on their backs.
+A tall, upstanding set with ringing tread, not at all unhappy-looking,
+despite a something set about their expression, seemingly in very good
+physical condition.
+
+Statues of the top-hatted, frock-coated political men of
+nineteenth-century France have banalized the public places of every town
+in the _doux pays_. They simply can’t compete with the saints and kings
+and warriors of the artistic periods—it’s too bad they have tried.
+
+At 12.30 we got back to our pleasant quarters, to find our hostess there,
+in a very smart dark-blue serge dress from Jeanne Hallé. In addition to
+the château, the shop down-stairs, called “Aux Alliés,” where all sorts
+of edible delicacies are sold, belongs to her together with a tall and
+beautiful red-haired Frenchwoman. This is her up-stairs resting-place
+during the day. We sank on bed and sofa, exhausted by the heat, the visit
+to the station to inspect the canteen facilities, which seemed most
+promising, visits to two churches, and luncheon in the crowded Restaurant
+du Renard. In the church of St.-Alpin white-bloused experts were busy
+removing the beautiful sixteenth-century stained-glass windows. “If
+’twere done, ’twere well ’twere done quickly.” That continued booming of
+guns made one realize at once their fragility and their beauty.
+
+Shortly after, a handsome young officer came in, a gentleman, and
+speaking beautiful English. It wasn’t “he,” however, but a friend of
+his, and we did a little “society” talk—the weather, the necessity of
+learning the languages young, the theater, that Réjane was getting old,
+and “_L’Elévation_” was bad for the morals, and fashions, if the skirts
+_could_ get shorter—but nothing of the war.
+
+At two o’clock another military auto was announced, which the general
+had sent with a doctor to take us to Mont Frenet, four kilometers from
+Suippes and six from the German lines. The young officer departed; we
+veiled and gloved ourselves and descended, and got into the motor, where
+we found a large, dark, military man inclining to _embonpoint_, who
+thought he was good-looking, and started out. The first thing we met as
+we got out of town on the dusty, blazing highroad was a little funeral
+cortége, preceded by a priest. The body of the soldier was draped in
+the tricolor, and following to his last rest, close behind, was his
+_camarade_, with head bared. He had doubtless expired in the big hospital
+near by, one of those lonely hospital deaths that hundreds of thousands
+have suffered before transfiguration.
+
+We were in the great plain of the Champagne Pouilleuse that leads to
+Suippes, Sainte-Ménehould, and stretches out to Reims—a plain with great,
+white, chalky scars of quarries, interspersed with fields and dark
+patches of pine woods. I asked the doctor about the site of the ancient
+camp of Attila and the battle of the Catalonian fields, but his knowledge
+of the matter was vague and his interest perfunctory. I thought afterward
+he might have had a more personal afternoon planned than that of taking
+two objective-minded ladies to Mont Frenet. There was once a great Roman
+road from Bar-le-Duc to Reims, and all about are little churches of the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries, mostly touched up in the eighteenth.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour we found ourselves nearing what might
+have been a modern mining settlement. It is the great front hospital of
+Mont Frenet. A model establishment organized and conducted by a man of
+heart and brain, Doctor Poutrain. Young, _élancé_, alert, he took us the
+rounds of his little world, from the door where the ambulances deposit
+their wounded, their dying, and oft their dead, where they are sorted
+out, through the numberless wards, even to the model wash-houses and
+the places where the garments of those brought in are scientifically
+separated from their inevitable and deadly live stock.
+
+As we passed through one of the wards, I saw the doctor’s eye change,
+and, following it, I perceived, as he quickly went to the bedside, a face
+with the death look already on it; and in a moment, with a slight sigh,
+a soul had breathed itself out—_en route_ to the heaven of those who die
+_pro patria_.
+
+And I thought in great awe, “All I know or ever will know of that human
+being is his supreme hour.” And so fortuitous, so sudden was it all that
+I had not even time to breathe a word of prayer, nor even to reach out
+for his hand. And I, come from so far, so unrelated to him, was thus the
+destined witness of his passing. I can’t get it out of my mind.
+
+Doctor Poutrain loves his broken men, and he said, “I want no man who
+has been severely wounded or mutilated to leave my hospital without
+his decoration.” He had tears in his eyes as he stood by a bed where a
+bright-eyed, thin-faced boy was lying with a hip fracture. “He brought a
+comrade in, under fire, who was shot off his back as he was carrying him
+in.”
+
+In one of the beds an aviator was lying, brought in three days before;
+the eyes, the mouth, the whole face had still the peculiar look of
+strain. Indeed, three faces stand out in one’s mind—the captivity face,
+the hard, shining face and eyes of unwounded men just from the combat,
+and the faces of wounded aviators. About this time I noticed the gloomy
+look deepening on the face of our accompanying Esculapius, and it
+suddenly occurred to me “he is one of those who support with difficulty
+the praises of another.” For we _had_ been very explicit in praise of
+Doctor Poutrain’s wonderful installation.
+
+It was a slack day, and according to the record in the antechamber there
+had only been 517 brought in that day.
+
+We have tea with the _directrice_ of the _gardes-malades_ (ten or twelve
+women only), a friend of Madame Fould’s. As we sat there talking I
+discovered that the eager _médecin-chef_ had had, before the war, as
+hobby, archeology and ethnology, especially of the prehistoric races of
+Mexico; that he also possessed one of the few Aztec codices existing—all
+of which we discussed to the sound of the German guns and the whirring of
+their airplanes.
+
+We finally made our adieux, came home over the hot, unspeakably dusty
+road of the Champagne Pouilleuse, unreasonably disappointed that nobody
+would give us permission to make a little détour by Suippes, then under
+fire. We got back to our headquarters, packed our belongings, and
+diffidently brought up the subject of remuneration, which the _belle
+châtelaine_ firmly refused. I was traveling light, without a single thing
+approaching the superfluous, but Mrs. P. had a breakfast-cap and her
+tortoise-shell toilet things and trees for her shoes, and she also found
+among her belongings a lovely amber box, which she presented in token
+of our gratitude. We _could_ make the garrulous refugee from Tahure not
+only happy, but speechless, which was more to the point; and here we are,
+looking out on a darkening world, and there are soldiers bathing in the
+river, near stacked guns, and everywhere little detachments are marching
+down dim roads, and there are the eternal troop- and equipment-trains
+going to the front—and I feel an immense regret at leaving it all....
+
+                                                                    PARIS.
+
+As we were sitting in the dining-car, idly wondering how on earth we were
+going to get from the station to our respective abodes once the train had
+deposited us at the Gare de l’Est, or planning to spend the night there,
+the Marquis de M. passed through the car. His motor was to meet him, and
+he gallantly offered transit, that can be above rubies and pearls _par le
+temps qui court_.
+
+When we got to Paris at 10.30 we saw in the dim light, as we stepped into
+the big motor, _voyagers_ departing with luggage on their backs, or,
+preparing to await the dawn, sitting on it. We got into the motor with
+Comte de ——, the Marquis himself sitting outside, “for the air,” as he
+said, and also because there was no more room inside.
+
+As we rolled along through the dimly lighted streets, the air dense and
+hot, a terrific hail- and thunder-storm suddenly deluged the town, and
+especially the generous Marquis outside, well punished (as usual) for his
+kind act. When, slipping and skidding, we finally pulled up at my hotel,
+a very wet gentleman, but remembering his manners, said, “_Au plaisir de
+vous revoir, madame_.” (He must really have wished me to all the devils,
+where he would never meet me a second time, hoping it was a last as
+well as a first meeting.) I had to laugh, also he, the pleasure was so
+evidently doubtful. It ended by his betaking his soaking person into the
+auto, and I came up-stairs to find my lamps trimmed and burning and my
+beloved mother awaiting me to hear “all about it.”
+
+So may one go to the front and return....
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BY THE MARNE
+
+
+                                    GARE DE L’EST, _Wednesday, July 25th_.
+
+No, it isn’t possible, even for one whose business is not that of
+stopping bullets, to go toward the combat a second time without a thrill.
+
+Few soldiers in the station; they are mostly at the front, at Craonne and
+Le Chemin des Dames and other sacrificial places, and in a week or two
+the empty beds in the hospitals will be full again. Some officers are
+hastening back from their _permissions_ with pasteboard boxes and other
+unwar-like accoutrements. One is sitting by me, a straight-featured young
+man with dark-ringed eyes, his _Croix de Guerre_ and _fourragère_,[7]
+reading _Brin de Lilas_. In forty-eight hours he may be dead. Another
+officer is reading _Cœur d’Orpheline_, and _Le Pays_.
+
+Miss N., with something of serene yet brooding in her being, plus a sense
+of humor, arrives with a telegraphic pass from army headquarters at
+Châlons, which may or may not “pass” the train conductor.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Chelles, where the arts of peace in the form of a vermicelli-factory
+testify to the arts of war by having every pane of glass broken; and once
+there was a celebrated abbey at Chelles which was destroyed, with a tidy
+amount of other things beautiful, at the time of the French Revolution.
+
+Farther along much thinning out of the woods, the beautiful
+warmth-giving, shade-giving forests of France. In one place there is a
+planting of young, slender trees, and I thought on those other children
+of France who must grow to manhood, remake her soul, transmit her
+immortality. The first harvest is stacked and yellow, and nature is
+densely, deeply green where it had been pale and expectant. Even the
+Marne, which we caught up here, has a deeper color than in June, as it
+reflects the lush green.
+
+Meaux, with its cathedral rising from the center of the town, untouched
+except by time. Meaux has now come to be a sort of joke (“_de deux
+maux choisir le moindre_”) which few can resist—I’ve even heard it at
+the Théâtre Français—and it’s supposed to be the heart’s desire of the
+_embusqué_, far enough from the front not to get hurt, and far enough
+from Paris to be out of sight.
+
+Château Thierry, with its first vintage of white grapes, and I bethought
+me how the whole of France is one vast wine-press—“He is trampling out
+the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
+
+Epernay, with its peculiar church tower. The great building of the
+champagne Mercier firm near the station has every window-pane broken,
+and part of it is serving as a Red Cross station. The wave of invasion
+pressed hard through Epernay that August of 1914.
+
+In the dining-car we sat at a table with two officers—an airman, tall,
+deep-eyed, some sort of _tic nerveux_ disturbing his face, with the
+_Grand’ Croix de la Légion d’Honneur_ among other decorations; and a
+captain of infantry, who had been months at Arras, and at Verdun the
+terrible March of 1916.
+
+About the time that the cross-eyed waiter (it was easy, poor soul, to see
+why he wasn’t wanted in the trenches) threw the last set of plates with a
+deafening crash down the line of diners (the captain of infantry said it
+was just like the first-line trenches), the airman, whose nerves couldn’t
+stand it, pursued, rather irritably:
+
+“You don’t even read the _communiqués_ any more, I wager. _Oh, les
+civils!_”
+
+“I can’t truthfully say I do, always,” I answered, feeling called on to
+defend the _sacrés civils_. “After three years of it we are fatigued and
+bewildered by the spectacularness of it, the great, dazzling, hideous
+mass of it, and you who perish on the battle-field but perform an act
+that all must some day perform, only different in that it is far better
+done—_dulce et decorum_—but, after all, the same act that we must perform
+against our will, at the mercy of some accidental combination. It’s the
+same outcome, ‘and one’s a long time dead.’”
+
+After a pause and a deep look, perhaps it is the look men have when alone
+in the secular spaces, he answered:
+
+“_Choisir et aimer sa mort, c’est un peu comme choisir sa bien-aimée_,”
+and suddenly a flash illuminated my soul, showing me something of the
+_dulce_ as well as the _decorum_ of dying for country.
+
+And then we looked out of the window, and there came into my mind a
+completely commonplace event that caught my attention in the first
+wonderment and horror of the world war. Accompanied by her daughter,
+an elderly woman, one August evening of 1914, took the Fifth Avenue
+motor-bus to get some fresh air, and they placed themselves on top. At
+that epoch, instead of going straight up the Avenue, which was being
+repaved around about Thirty-fifth Street, the omnibus took a turn into
+Madison Avenue and reappeared again at the north side of Altman’s. Now
+the roof of the _porte-cochère_ of Altman’s has a _motif_ of bronzework.
+The omnibus lurched just at this point; the head and hair of the old
+lady were caught in it; she was lifted up from the top of the omnibus,
+remained suspended in air for an instant of time, then dropped to the
+pavement, where she breathed out her soul. Doubtless there are those who
+will understand why this completely unimportant matter has remained in my
+mind—even why I thought of it at that moment.
+
+                               CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, 36 RUE DU PORT DE MARNE.
+
+An 1860 house requisitioned by the military authorities for the _Dames de
+la Cantine_.
+
+                                                               _6.30 p.m._
+
+Sitting in a little glass-inclosed veranda even with the ground. The
+side against the house, in between the doors and windows, is painted
+in a crisscross pattern of dark green against light green, and the
+woodwork is that favorite but uninspiring shallow brown; a large, empty,
+double-decker cage for birds is in a corner. The veranda leads into two
+low-ceilinged rooms with parquet flooring and little squares of Brussels
+carpet. In the first is a writing-table, some arm-chairs, and a horsehair
+sofa is across a corner; brown wallpaper ornamented with the inevitable
+oil-paintings of “near” Corots, and “farther” Guido Renis—everything
+distinctly early Victorian, and something soothing in its atmosphere
+after three lustrums of _art nouveau_. After all we’ve been through in
+art lately, early Victorian isn’t as bad as we once thought.
+
+I looked for a moment into the walnut bookcase and found bound volumes of
+_La Semaine des Familles_, 1850-60; _Le Musée des Familles_ of the same
+dates: _Le Magasin d’Education_, of the eighties; and the curious part
+is that here beside the Marne it doesn’t seem of any special country, but
+of a special period.
+
+The kitchen leads out of the dining-room (which latter is the spiritual
+twin of the _salon_), and has an old, unused fireplace with a high
+masonried shelf above it and a beautiful ancient fireback with coat
+of arms. Near the high window is a little range and the inevitable
+gas-stove. I put my valise in the sitting-room and went out into the old
+garden, untouched since the winter’s sleep and the spring’s awakening.
+It looks out on the road; beyond is a raised walk along the river, and
+across the stream, just opposite, is the station and the evacuation
+hospital.
+
+But I was feeling uneasy as I looked about, for I was separated from
+my _carnet rouge_,[8] which has been unnecessarily reft from me by a
+too-zealous station individual. Miss Mitchell had met us, smiling and
+waving, which ought to have been a patent of respectability, from the
+other side of a bayonet, the side we wanted to be on; but the man had a
+dullish eye and didn’t see that we were birds of a feather, and, anyway,
+had just been put in authority and was enjoying his full powers, after
+the usual manner of the unaccustomed.
+
+So I departed, and got sopping wet in my only suit (am traveling lighter
+even than the first time), and my garments were furthermore ravaged by
+falling pollen from a linden-tree under which I had confidingly stood
+during the downpour. I was a sight, but I _had_ to get that _carnet
+rouge_. Any one who has been in _la zone des armées_ and has been
+separated from it will understand the orphaned and anxious feeling that
+possessed me.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+A pale brightening of the western sky after the heavy rain. Two _avions
+de chasse_ passing swiftly to the northeast. I wandered out of the
+garden, past some modern houses (this part of Châlons, for some reason,
+is called Madagascar), taking the little raised earth-walk by the Marne.
+The river, always slow-flowing, has an almost imperceptible movement in
+front of our house, and there are many grasses and reeds; the banks are
+weedy and little green boats are made fast to them, and nature is a bit
+motley and untidy. A soldier is fishing on the opposite side near the
+station. An officer and a black-robed woman pass. Farther down, the banks
+are thickly wooded and the trees glisten after the rain; even the great
+railway station is a-shine, where tens of thousands of men pass daily,
+together with millions of francs of war material, and it all looks like
+some not very sharp wood-cut of the sixties—the kind you wouldn’t buy
+if you were looking over a lot; but, somehow, lived in, it is charming.
+Then I found myself on a path by the river, with a lush border of
+trees, poplar, willow, white birch, ash, hawthorn, and clematis-twined,
+wild-grape-vined bushes. On the other side were ripe wheat-fields. Near a
+sycamore a man and a woman were locked in an embrace, whether of greeting
+or farewell I know not. Neither was very young—this much I saw before
+I turned my eyes and went on; but when I passed there again they were
+as before, their eyes still closed; and I suddenly knew them for true
+lovers, who count not moments, but were lost in some infinity; and for
+all I know they may be there yet, and if not they, then others, for the
+spaces of love are never empty. To some it may be nonsense that I am
+talking, but there are those who will know. All the while there was a
+dull boom of cannon, and other men who could love women were giving up
+their lives; and I seemed to understand little or nothing, but did not
+need to understand, for I had a full heart, which is better than a full
+brain. And I cried, as I walked back, “_Domine Deus, Rex Celestis, Pater
+omnipotens_,” and left it all—the soft love and the hard death—where it
+belongs. And I was glad to have walked for a few moments alone by the
+green Marne.
+
+When I got back I found Joseph of the 71st _Chasseurs à pied_ sitting
+with Miss N. Joseph thinks we are friends; he _knows_ we are friends,
+so different from “world’s” people, who are suspicious and think nobody
+loves them, or fatuous and think everybody does.
+
+We sat in the 1860 dining-room. There is a pressed-bronze clock on the
+mantelpiece, representing a mild and smiling Turk with a drawn sword—and
+there is a sideboard you could find in Barnesville, Maryland, or Squedunk
+(I forget _where_ Squedunk is), and the extremely “distant” Guido Renis
+decorate the brown walls, without, however, enlivening them.
+
+And this is Joseph’s story—Joseph of the grateful heart, Joseph with two
+years and a half of service, Joseph who won’t be twenty till December,
+Joseph with his young, round face and flat nose, dark under his pleasant
+eyes, and a bit hollow under his cheek-bones, and with decorations on his
+chest:
+
+“I never knew my parents; the Fathers brought me up. I have had only good
+from them, and when they were _chassés_ I was taken with them to Pisa. I
+was going to continue my studies, _mais la guerre, que voulez-vous_? They
+call me ‘_le gosse_,’ I was the youngest in the regiment. Now I am alone
+in the world since my brothers were killed, one at Verdun three weeks
+ago, the other last year on the Somme. I miss the letters,” he added,
+simply.
+
+“But, Joseph, tell us how you got your _Croix de Guerre_.”
+
+“Oh, I only happened to save the life of my captain at Verdun. We were
+making a reconnaissance, and he fell with a ball in the hip. I started to
+bring him in, with a comrade who was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the
+head and killed instantly. I caught ‘mine’ in the arm, but I was still
+able to drag my captain in by his feet. It was quite simple, and since
+then he is very good to me.”
+
+Joseph is _en perm_, his regiment is at Reims, but he spits blood and his
+voice is hoarse—he was gassed a few weeks ago.
+
+“It smelt of violets,” he said, “and we didn’t know that anything was the
+matter till an officer rushed toward us. Eight of us never got up. I’ll
+never speak clearer than this.”
+
+Joseph stayed to supper with us—a supper of _soupe à l’oseille_,
+scrambled eggs, and salad, but the brown, dull, little room gradually
+seemed to fill with a sifted glory, and we left our meal and went out
+to find the whole world dipped in transparent pink, and the great Light
+of Day about to disappear, a reddish ball, in a mass of color of an
+intenser hue. The delicate willows were like silver candelabra reflected
+in the Marne, which now was a satiny pink. The wheat-fields were seas of
+burnished gold.
+
+Over all a terrific boom of cannon was borne on the damp evening air. It
+seemed impossible to do other than walk magnetically on and on toward
+the dreadful sound, out of that world of surpassing beauty toward those
+supreme agonies, toward Mourmelon and Reims, where men were laying down
+their lives, even as we three women walked the fields at the sunset
+hour. I remembered suddenly a picture known and loved years ago—a woman
+kneeling by such a river-bank, her hair falling, her face buried in her
+hands, called “_Hymnus an die Schönheit_,” but over the pink-and-silver
+beauty of _my_ sunset world I heard the deep and dreadful tones of
+_their_ cannon, and the answer of the 75’s, which Joseph likened to the
+_miaulement d’un chat_—and all the world seemed askew, and I looked
+through tears at a golden half-moon that was rising in the pink to add an
+unbearable beauty to it all.
+
+                                                  IN MY ROOM, _10.30 p.m._
+
+                                                 The cannon still booming.
+
+My room also has a dark-brown paper with great white flowers on it—some
+cross between peonies and dahlias, if such union is possible—and heavy
+mahogany furniture; a few books which I immediately investigated, on a
+gimp and tasseled trimmed shelf, for a clue to the one-time dwellers.
+Among them were two by Victor Tissot, _Le Pays des Milliards_ and _Les
+Prussiens en Allemagne_; the dates were 1873 and 1875, and they told of
+that other war; and I looked at Germany through the eyes of forty years
+ago as I turned the pages of _Le Pays des Milliards_, listening to the
+1917 guns. History was not only repeating itself, but tripping itself up!
+
+Joseph is sleeping in the garden in the steamer-chair. I hear his
+gas-cough, a cross between a croupy cough and a whooping-cough. We
+wanted him to sleep inside, but he said “_J’étouffe_,” and took the
+steamer-chair out under the spreading chestnut-tree, and sleeps the sleep
+of youth, even though weary and gassed.
+
+                                          _Thursday, 26th July, 1.30 p.m._
+
+Sitting in the garden, after lunch, where we have had coffee under the
+spreading chestnut, ready to go to Bar-le-Duc. _Avions_ are whirring in
+the perfect blue, and we plainly hear the cannon. We are to take night
+shift at the little _Foyer des Alliés_. When I say that we carry nothing
+with us, not more than if we were going to take a stroll about town, one
+sees that the journey will be fairly elemental.
+
+Many white butterflies with an unerring instinct for beauty are flying
+in and out of the little white ash-tree. And in spite of the boom of
+cannon there straightway came to me a dear and fugitive realization that
+beauty is the first thing sought by instinct, its earliest and its last
+love, its imperishable means and its end. And how every other seeking of
+instinct comes after perpetuation, conservation, survival of the strong,
+and how it accompanies and pushes the soul toward its transfiguration.
+
+Suddenly, under the rustling chestnut, all about me the murmur of the
+gently stirring garden, I found I was mad for beauty, and some liquid,
+long, unrepeated lines came to me, I know not why:
+
+    _E il pino_
+    _ha un suono, e il mirto_
+    _Altro suono, e il ginepro_
+    _Altro ancora, stromenti_
+    _diversi_
+    _Sotto innumerevoli dita._
+
+    ...
+
+    _Che l’anima schiude_
+    _novella,_
+    _Su la favola bella_
+    _Che ieri_
+    _M’illuse, che oggi t’illude,_
+    _O Ermione._[9]
+
+When you’re not carrying anything with you except your money and your
+safe-conduct, you _can_ dream till it’s time to take the train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CANTEEN AT BAR-LE-DUC
+
+
+_Epitaphe_
+
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts simplement: en victimes,_
+    _Et n’ayant de la guerre éprouvé que l’horreur._
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts sans nourrir en leur cœur_
+    _La haine et tous ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes._
+
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts comme ils avaient vécu:_
+    _Assidus noblement à de modestes tâches._
+    _Bénis ceux qui, n’étant ni très braves, ni lâches,_
+    _N’ont su que résigner leur corps pauvre et vaincu._
+
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts pour servir et défendre_
+    _Des honneurs et des biens dont ils n’ont point leur part._
+    _Bénis ceux qui se sont donnés sans rien attendre_
+    _De leur postérité, de l’histoire ou de l’art._
+
+    _Bénis ceux qui, luttant seulement pour la vie,_
+    _Ont ignoré les lois qui reposent sur eux,_
+    _Mais compris en mourant qu’ils sont les malheureux_
+    _En qui depuis toujours Jésus se sacrifie._
+
+    _Bénis, ils le sont tous, et saints entre les morts,_
+    _Ceux qu’on ne pleure guère et que nul ne renomme:_
+    _Car, devant les héros, ils ne sont rien que l’Homme;_
+    _Car, parmi tant de gloire, ils fondent le remords;_
+
+    _Car leur don si naïf, ce don de tout leur être,_
+    _Mêle aux vertus du sol les grâces d’un sang pur,_
+    _Pour composer, avec tout l’or du blé futur,_
+    _Les moissons d’un esprit dont l’Amour sera maître._
+
+                                                           GEORGES PIOCH.
+
+                                                     CHÂLONS, _27th July_.
+
+Half past four. Half an hour ago, _alerte, sirènes_. We hastily arose
+from resting, and have just come up from a really charming cellar, with
+nice vaulting, evidently much older than the house itself.
+
+Returned from Bar-le-Duc this morning rather sketchy in my mind, blurred
+with fatigue, in a compartment with five silent, dead-tired officers.
+It’s a great human document, night shift in a canteen. From ten o’clock
+till six I watched the _poilus_ fill the _Foyer des Alliés_, in and out,
+in and out. From time to time the voice of the station-master called out
+some fateful destination. I was thankful for any momentary slackening of
+the rush, so that when one gives coffee, chocolate, or bouillon one can
+also give a word, the precious word, where all is so anonymous. Between
+three and four there was a lessening, and a short, haggard, deep-eyed,
+scraggy-mustached man of forty-six, leaning on the counter, said to
+me, “I am father of five,” and, showing his blue trousers tucked in
+his boots, added, “I am of the attacking troops.” He then shifted his
+accoutrement and dug out from his person the photographs of the five
+children and his _épouse_, and I think more and more, “it is for the
+young to fight.” I can’t bear the look on the faces of the middle-aged
+going up to battle.
+
+The _poilu_ trying to find his purse or the photographs of his family,
+among everything else in the world that he carries on his person, pressed
+tightly against other men carrying the same, feels doubtless the way a
+sardine trying to turn over would feel!
+
+The next with whom I spoke was a _gaillard_ with a glancing blue eye,
+reddish mustache and high color, from Barcelona, of French parents, and
+he insisted on speaking Spanish with me. His brother is professor at
+Saint-Nazaire.
+
+“Every time he writes me it is about Mr. Lloyd George instead of about
+the family.”
+
+This is a delicate tribute to my supposed English nationality.
+
+“Do you think we are going to win, señorita?”
+
+“Of course,” I answer, “with the help of God. _Dios y victoria_,” I add,
+piously.
+
+But as he tosses off his coffee he says, with a gleam, “_Victoria y
+Dios_,” and then gives way to a comrade who was at Craonne in April.
+
+He was a man with a softish eye and full-lipped mouth and was probably
+naturally flesh-loving, and wanted his coffee very hot, and looked
+approvingly at me as I said:
+
+“_Mon ami_, I know all about it, if coffee isn’t _too_ hot, it isn’t hot
+enough.”
+
+He ended a conversation about an engagement he had been in by saying:
+“The most awful sensation is to see the dust raised by the mitrailleuses
+and to know that you have got to walk into it and to see the men ahead of
+you stepping with strange steps—and some falling.”
+
+As I said, he was naturally ease-loving and pain-fearing, yet that is the
+way _his_ dust may be called on to return to dust.
+
+There are many jokes about shrapnel and shells, but nobody ever jokes
+about a bullet. It’s a thing with a single purpose—and you may be it.
+
+Our headquarters are at ——, not far away, and it was at Bar-le-Duc that
+I first saw our own men among the French for the same strange purpose.
+Something stirred deeply in my heart, with an accompanying searing,
+scorching consciousness of what an elemental thing they have come across
+the seas to do—quite simply kill or be killed. It’s all to come, for “He
+hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,” and it
+is for the young to fight.
+
+At 3.30 they come into the canteen and ask for eighteen fried eggs; they
+are oozing with money, and _they_ aren’t feeling sentimental. One of the
+four young spread-eagles (he proved to be from Texas, and was changing a
+big plug of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other) said, with
+an appraising look at the counter, that he could “buy us out,” and a
+second added, “And more, too.”
+
+“How about those coming in later?” I suggest, and then I ask how long
+they’ve been here.
+
+“Been here? Just five hundred years,” a small one answers, promptly,
+“and the next time the ‘Call’ comes they won’t get me. They can take the
+house and the back fence, too, but they won’t get little Joe. This loving
+another country’s one on me!”
+
+“Don’t listen to him, lady; he’s homesick. We’re out to can the Kaiser,
+and he’ll take some canning yet, but I say next July he will be about as
+welcome as a skunk at a lawn-party.”
+
+And then even the homesick one cheered up. The simile made me think of
+summer evenings in New England, but I only asked when they were to go
+back to ——.
+
+“We ought to have been there at 10.15.”
+
+I gave a stern glance at the big canteen clock. The hands pointed to
+3.30. They were then five and a quarter hours late.
+
+“You don’t know ‘_Gun_court.’ It’s a fierce place,” said one, in answer
+to the look.
+
+“Aren’t you busy?”
+
+“Holy smoke! She says _are we busy_! Why, we dig ourselves in all day,
+and we dig ourselves out all night, and somebody after you all the time.
+I don’t call this war. We’re out for real trouble.”
+
+“Well, you’ll get it when you see your officer,” I remarked, unfeelingly.
+
+Just then a _poilu_ whom they seemed to know approached with his ten
+centimes. One of the Sammies knocks it out of his hand onto the counter,
+points to his own chest, says, “On me, a square meal,” and opens his
+bursting purse for me to take whatever is necessary.
+
+The _poilu_, hearing the chink of coin and rustle of paper, says to me,
+with eyes the size of saucers, “_Sont-ils tous millionaires?_” ...
+
+Apart from his “private resources,” which seem unlimited, the American
+receives just twenty times a day what the Frenchman does.
+
+But how my heart goes out to them, so young, so untried, so generous—and
+a sea of blood awaiting them!
+
+Toward morning, when a chill was in the air, a thin-faced, dark-eyed man
+with glasses shiveringly drinks his hot chocolate. “It’s too long, the
+war,” he says, “two years—even three—_mais cela traîne trop, nos bonnes
+qualités s’usent et se perdent_.”
+
+“What were you before the war?”
+
+“My father has a book-shop at Chartres, _j’adorais les livres et une
+bonne lampe_,” he added, so simply.
+
+And then a trench-stained comrade came up to him and they talked after
+this fashion—one couldn’t have done better oneself—while I mopped up the
+counter and refilled my jugs:
+
+“This country pleases me. I will come back and take a turn about after
+the war.”
+
+“_Mon vieux_, one should never return to a place where one has been
+happy; one is apt to find only regrets and disillusions. You are thinking
+of the young _boulangère_ here, but she herself will leave the town after
+the hostilities! And then what? _Un seul être vous manque et tout est
+dépeuplé!_ But nothing, however, counsels one to return to a place where
+one has suffered.”
+
+From this point of view one must say that the life of the _poilu_ is
+ideal, for when he will have tried all the fronts, including those of the
+Orient, the war will perhaps be over.
+
+And then they slung everything except the kitchen stove on their persons,
+and, thanking me, went out to be killed, or, in the very best event, to
+get _la bonne blessure_.
+
+One in a thousand, one in ten thousand gets it, _la bonne blessure_,
+indeed, not disfiguring, not incapacitating, and afterward, sometimes,
+decorations, honors. On the other side they say, “_Glück muss der Soldat
+haben_.”
+
+A strange, intense blue, like some outer curtain to the windows,
+announced the coming of dawn, and out of it appeared nine men shivering.
+
+“Why are you so cold?” I ask.
+
+“_Il fait du brouillard_,” said one, with a beard in a point and wearing
+a _béret_, such a man as would have gone into an inn of Rabelais’s
+time, _en route_ for some seat of war; and as he drank his big bowl of
+chocolate he added, “_Cela console_; toward dawn one’s courage is low.”
+
+Then a young, stone-deaf man with blue eyes and delicate, pink-skinned
+face came in with something vague and searching in his look. I didn’t
+realize in the first moment what was the matter, as I asked, did he
+want coffee or chocolate, but a comrade pointed to his ears and said,
+“Verdun.” He himself smiled, a dear young smile, but sudden tears came to
+my eyes and I slopped the coffee.
+
+A little before six we closed the canteen, which is always swept and
+garnished between six and seven, and went back to the house where
+Miss Worthington, who so admirably runs it in conjunction with Miss
+Alexander, lives.
+
+I lay me on a sofa with my shoes unlaced—my feet by that time were
+feeling like something boneless and bruised, mashed into something too
+small.
+
+Seven-thirty a great knocking at the door.
+
+“_L’alerte! A la cave, madame!_”
+
+I was then in a state where a bomb couldn’t hurry me, but, the knocks
+continuing, I finally got up and went down-stairs to find the lower floor
+full of people, too _blasé_ to go into the vaulted cellar below.
+
+“_Quelle comédie!_” said one woman. “_Moi, je m’en vais._”
+
+“_Quelle tragédie, si c’est pour vous cette fois_,” answered another,
+pressing her baby to her breast.
+
+“The bits of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns firing at the
+aeroplanes make more victims than the bombs,” said another.
+
+Miss Worthington appeared at that moment, but decided, however, to go
+back to bed. I went out into the hot streets; the early sun was shining
+in a faultless sky. The _Foyer des Alliés_ had been hastily evacuated at
+the _alerte_, according to orders, so I asked for the nearest church,
+where I could sit down in peace, or comparative peace, out of the glare
+and the heat, not to mention the enemy airplanes. I was directed up the
+principal street, told to turn down by the river, and was proceeding
+under the dusty poplars to the church of St.-Jean, when suddenly some
+beauty of the morning touched my face and a feeling almost of joy
+succeeded the fatigue of the night. I was turned from thoughts of men
+going to their doom, and destruction coming from the lovely sky, and I
+could receive only the morning light, and the glory of the shining river
+and the rolling hills was for the moment mine; and I saw how “dying, they
+are not dead.” ...
+
+Mass was over when I got to church, but I sat down, crossed myself, and
+commended, with a suddenly quiet heart, the world of battle to its God,
+and then, instead of _un_lacing my shoes in the sanctuary, I proceeded
+to lace them _up_, having walked from my abode with the laces tied about
+my ankles; it wasn’t as sloppy as it sounds, considering what was going
+on overhead. But I found myself thinking of praying-carpets, and rows of
+sandals outside of dim mosques, and things and ways far from Bar-le-Duc.
+
+After twenty minutes of a somewhat hazy contemplation of other than war
+mysteries, I went back to the canteen.
+
+Betwixt the time I had left it and my return a bomb had fallen between it
+and the station; a large piece of roof had been removed from the station,
+and a very neat nick had been made in the corner of the canteen where we
+kept our hats and coats and hung up our aprons. The street in between
+looked like an earthquake street. I stood quite still for a second of
+time—not thinking—you don’t think on such occasions. The Barrisiens, or,
+in plain English, the Bar-le-Dukites, were engaged in business as usual.
+
+I then began the cutting up and buttering of endless large slices
+of bread, with a Scotchwoman, who has unmodifiable opinions about
+Americans—any and all Americans. Even when she only remarks, “I saw two
+new people in town yesterday, _very_ American-looking, _very_,” you feel
+there’s something the matter with the States, and if you had time you’d
+get argumentative, even perhaps annoyed.
+
+Soldiers were coming in again. To one tired, deep-eyed man, sitting
+listlessly, with the heavy load slipping, I said:
+
+“_Vous avez le cafard,[10] mon ami?_”
+
+And he answered, suddenly, as if the words had been ejected by a great
+force from his soul:
+
+“_Je monte demain_—and I can’t bear the sound the bayonet makes going in.”
+
+I answered, “A hot cup of coffee and you will feel all right again.” But
+to myself I said, “There’ll be trouble for him; he _can’t_ any more.”
+
+And then a huge Senegalese, all spinal column and hip, waving a generous
+five-franc note in his hands, came along and wanted to know if there was
+anybody _bas mariée_ among the ministrants, as he had a day off. The
+service is quite variegated, as will be seen from these random specimens.
+
+Last night we walked up the hill of the ancient town. A yellow half-moon,
+hanging behind the fourteenth-century tower, further decorated the scene.
+We sat on immemorial steps, in a little V-shaped place that framed
+the valley and the town, and talked of war and wars. I thought how the
+legendary Gaul had wandered over these hills and these wooded stretches,
+with his battle-ax and skin about him, and long-haired women had waited
+his return, and children had played in front of caves. As the clock on
+the tower struck nine a woman appeared, waving her arms and calling
+out, “_Une incendie!_” and we went higher up the steps and saw masses
+of smoke and flames on one of the hills. It was the huge barracks for
+refugees that was burning, and the flames were blowing toward the near-by
+encampment for German prisoners. Then we went down the ancient roadway
+through the dim, warm, summer streets to the canteen overflowing with
+blue-clad men, singing, drinking, disputing. A blue mist of smoke and
+breath hung about them, with a smell of hot wool and worn leather—and it
+was the war. As I put on my apron I found myself repeating the words:
+
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts simplement: en victimes,_
+    _Et n’ayant de la guerre éprouvé que l’horreur._
+    _Bénis ceux qui sont morts sans nourrir en leur cœur_
+    _La haine et tous ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THEATRICALS AND CAMOUFLAGE
+
+
+                                                     _27th July, evening._
+
+This afternoon Lieutenant Robin fetched us to the theatrical
+representation the _Division Marocaine_ was to give.
+
+Generals thick as leaves in Vallombrosa were there in a hemicycle about
+the stage, pressed close by the flood of _poilus_. Terrible heat in the
+great, glass-roofed auditorium, a slanting afternoon sun pouring itself
+in like hot gold. Some thousands of spectators; thick odor of _poilu_;
+blind being led in; groups of one-legged men naturally gravitating to one
+another; groups of one-armed the same. A few _gardes-malades_ from the
+hospitals, and ourselves the only women in the audience.
+
+We were presented at the door with some copies of a charming, really
+literary newspaper, _L’Horizon, Journal des poilus_, and there was a
+little paragraph, “_Hiérarchie française qu’on trouve au Théâtre des
+Armées_,” which also described the protocol of seating, “In the first row
+near the stage wounded men are lying, immediately behind them wounded men
+are sitting, then come ladies, if there are any—and then come officers!”
+General Goïgoux and General Abbevillers sat near us.
+
+While waiting we looked at _L’Horizon_ and laughed with General Goïgoux
+over a paragraph showing the philosophy of a son of Mars under certain
+circumstances, and it was the following:
+
+    Nature is kind. She places the remedy near the ill and often
+    cures, as one has seen, evil by evil.
+
+    A woman, too much loved, sent me a letter so cruel that I
+    didn’t even have the strength to tear it up, but carried it
+    around in my pocket for weeks.
+
+    One night, being quartered in a stable, I took my coat off and
+    hung it up.
+
+    The next day, no letter. A cow had eaten it. Nature is kind.
+
+When General Gouraud, first in command, entered, the “Marseillaise”
+sounded, a thrill went through the vast assemblage, and we all arose. _Le
+Lion d’Orient_ is tall, intensely straight, his whole thin, khaki-clad
+body on parallel lines with his perpendicular armless right sleeve.
+Long, straight, brown hair _en brosse_, bronzed skin. His entry was a
+thing not to be forgotten. I wondered “Is it the East that stamps great
+chiefs with such majesty, that can give them such calm?” and I thought of
+Gallipoli—blue seas, battles, wounds, hospital ships. Then the curtain
+rose on one of the most delightful theatrical representations I have ever
+seen, screamingly funny, and quite chaste.
+
+But all that _entrain_, all that life, to be snuffed out to-morrow or
+the next day, or the next? At Craonne or Reims or Verdun or wherever it
+may be? And how natural that they should sing of love and women, and say
+witty things concerning food and raiment and the government, till the end!
+
+After the performance, during which nobody had ever been so hot before,
+the sun moving across the hall and grilling each row in turn, we passed
+out in a great jam of _poilus_. One huge man, with the thickest of
+meridional accents and red cheeks, and eyes like two black lanterns, and
+a coal-black beard, was gesticulating at a small, hook-nosed, blond man.
+
+“_Le Midi, le Midi—qu’est-ce que tu en sais, toi, bêta? Les Anglais
+t’ont déjà pris ton trou de Calais, aussi je te demande, sale type_, what
+army corps took the _plateau de Craonne_” and he burst into a great laugh
+of triumph. Then, borne on the blue waves, we found ourselves in the open
+air and realized what we had been breathing.
+
+General Goïgoux presented us to General Gouraud standing by his motor
+with several other generals, while a squad of German prisoners, looking
+out of the corners of their eyes, were being marched by. His mien was
+dignity itself, and out under the sky one was even more conscious of that
+harmony of browns and straight lines, that something remote yet majestic
+in his being. As we turned to go I saw him speaking to a blind zouave,
+and he pressed his hand lingeringly on the man’s shoulder. _Oh, enfants
+de la patrie!_
+
+                                         _Saturday, July 28th, 10.30 a.m._
+
+All last night the strange, recurring, sinister sound of the _sirènes_
+over the plain of Châlons, and it seemed to me like cries of men of the
+Stone Age.
+
+These two days I have been haunted by ghosts of beings of the twilight
+ages; elusive emanations, dim suggestions of their psychologies have at
+moments possessed me in this city of the Catalaunian Plains.
+
+Rested in my pink-silk wrapper, dead tired—too tired to care whether
+“they” got here or not—and stayed in bed during the _alertes_, but I
+thought of airmen, attackers and defenders, in the soft summer sky, a
+golden half-moon lighting a dim heaven.
+
+Dreamed, but only in snatches, of peace and the ways of peace.
+
+At 4.30 I heard Joseph’s gas-bark and knew he was again with us,
+stretched out on the _chaise-longue_ under the chestnut-tree.
+
+As I stood at the window my thoughts went twisting about the stars of
+the gorgeous night that was so soon to give way to another summer day,
+and I suddenly saw human beings, only as tiny specks, everywhere going
+forth at some word of command to their doom. There was a flinging back of
+my thoughts upon me, and I turned from my window, as suddenly the chill
+of early dawn and the boom of cannon came in, and I could see nothing
+for tears and I knew the beauteous earth for what it is—the abode of mad
+horrors.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Paid my respects to General Goïgoux for an instant of time (I can always
+get out quickly) in the old gray house of the Rue Grande Étape, and found
+him as always, _distingué_, human, untired, cordial. Officers passing in
+and out of his room, and the walls tapestried with maps. Later Colonel
+Rolland of the 1st Zouaves, very jaunty in his red fez, adoring his men
+and adored by them, and flicking his leg with a short cane having a
+deadly knife on a spring in the top, took us to the railroad station, to
+inspect the great, dreary sheds that with time, labor, and much energy
+are to become _La Cantine Américaine_. Blue-clad men were lying around
+like logs in inert bundles on the earthen floor. One had to step over
+legs and motley equipment to get anywhere. A dreadful sound of hammering
+was echoing through the vast spaces, without, however, seeming to disturb
+the slumbers of those men, and I dare say was as a lullaby in comparison
+to the first-line trenches.
+
+We stepped into the kitchen. A smiling, twinkling-eyed _cuistot_[11] who
+probably had something awful the matter with him—flat-foot or hernia or
+something of the kind, or he wouldn’t have been there—with pride asked
+us to partake of some of his coffee. He proceeded to dip it from a
+great, steaming caldron, pouring it into worn tin cups carefully wiped
+first on his much-used apron. My soul responding to echoes of fraternity
+enabled me to drink with a smile, which, though it started out rather
+sickly, behaved all right as I returned the cup with compliments. The
+_cuistot_ said he hoped the _cantine_ would soon be in order, and as he
+looked through the small opening through which he shoved the cups to
+the _poilus_, rendered still smaller by piles of bread and festoons of
+sausage, he added, “_Les têtes de ces dames seront plus consolantes que
+la mienne_.” He was a nice, human _cuistot_, though no lover of water
+except for making coffee, and then, as we fell into conversation, he
+added, “_Si la guerre pouvait finir; mais il y a un fossé de dignité et
+personne des deux côtés n’ose le sauter_.” These _poilus_ are astounding!
+
+We then visited Lieutenant Tonzin, who is going to decorate the _cantine_
+as never _cantine_ was decorated. He was at the camouflage grounds. As
+one knows, camouflage is _de l’art de la guerre le dernier cri_, but the
+grounds were discreetly veiled from public gaze, and we were directed
+into a little garden, green-treed and sun-flecked. In it was a trestle
+with a large, very clever, plaster cast of a _camion_ taking _poilus_
+somewhere; they were hanging from every possible place except the wheels,
+just such a sight as one constantly sees on the roads near the front.
+
+The gayest sounds of whistling and singing issued from the rather
+coquet sun-flooded house behind the garden. Several other young artists
+appeared on hearing women’s voices, loving life, adoring art with a new
+adoration, and who with something of wonder and much of thankfulness
+found themselves for a sweet, brief space in charge of the camouflage
+work, with brush and chisel again in hand instead of bayonets.
+
+We looked at the designs for the _cantine_ decorations, quite
+charming—but we delicately suggested suppressing the figure of a too
+fascinating “mees” that was to embellish the entrance and point to the
+_poilus_ the way to those delights. We feared some confusion of thought.
+
+Afterward went to church at Notre Dame, and, sitting there, drew my first
+quiet breath in Châlons, out of the hot streets. Beautiful music rolling
+through the gray, antique vaulting. A white bier near the altar; some
+beloved child was being laid away from sight and hearing and touch and
+earthly hope. As I looked about the lovely gray spaces I remembered how
+in _La Cathédrale_ Huysmans says the length symbolizes the patience of
+the Church during trials and persecutions; the width, that love which
+dilates the heart; and the height, our aspirations and our hopes—and
+some speechless gratitude overflowed my soul because of being one of the
+enduring community to whom, through the gorgeous, terrible ages, nothing
+human is foreign. I had a strange, complete sensation of brotherhood and
+I saw us all of the great laughing, weeping caravan, winding through the
+desert, and the Church compassionate the spot of living waters. And how
+“men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither. Ripeness
+is all.” ...
+
+On the same site had once been a pagan temple, and on its altar was the
+figure of a Virgin, and at her feet were graven the words, “_Virgini
+Parituri_” (“to the Virgin who shall bring forth”). And it had come to
+pass.
+
+The most precious of the old windows have lately been put out of harm’s
+way, but the ogival tops remain with their jewels of medieval reds and
+blues; and on each side, as one looks through the lovely gray vaulting,
+are delicate windows of a later epoch, with designs in fawn and green and
+yellow.
+
+As I came out behind the mourners following the little white bier, I
+noticed again with a sinking of the heart the revolutionary defacement
+of the splendid portals. Men in all ages have had seasons of madness,
+wherein they destroyed whatever mute and unresisting beauty was within
+their reach.
+
+Again through the hot streets—an epic in themselves of war, dust, sun,
+blue-clad men, blue-gray automobiles, gallooned officers, and I realized
+among other things that without uniforms war would be impossible.
+
+Bought _Le Champ de Bataille de l’Epopée_, also _Le Mannequin d’Osier_,
+out of a huge stock of Anatole France’s books, who is evidently a
+favorite here. I passed through the old courtyard of the museum,
+hermetically sealed _depuis la campagne_, as the porter told me when
+I sought his lodge, from which the most savory of noonday smells was
+issuing. Uninteresting and entirely beside the point, Buddhist sculptures
+fill one side of the court, and then, passing through the portal of a
+seventeenth-century church, transported there when the church itself
+was being done away with, one finds oneself in a narrow passage on the
+walls of which are hung quaint old fire-backs, _plaques de foyer_. The
+first is of the eighteenth century, “_l’amour désarmé_” (love was nearly
+always disarmed in those days), and this one represented Cupid supporting
+a languorous lady. “_Le retour du marché_” of Louis XVI depicted a
+housewife returning with a full basket on her arm, and evoked the odor of
+the porter’s _pot-au-feu_. A French soldier wounded in the Crimea, 1855,
+with his colonel bending over him, might have been any one of a hundred
+thousand scenes of to-day. On one were the arms of the King of Spain, and
+the date 1608, and on another those of Maria Theresa and her consort,
+Francis III, Duke of Lorraine. Their origins were as diverse as the
+history of Lorraine itself, and I glimpsed family groups sitting about
+hearths, looking at them through the flames.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Met to-day two Englishwomen coming out of the hospital. One, nearing
+sixty, had something ardent in her charming blue eyes and under austerely
+brushed whitening hair; there was a suggestion of banked fires—banked
+under ashes of circumstance, probably, as well as time. The other,
+somewhat younger, in the full grip of _l’âge dangereux_, had something
+inexorable in her regard. When we passed on I asked who they were, and
+found they were daily doers of acts of mercy and devotion, and then I
+found myself looking for eternal reasons in transient things, under
+the impression made by those two women—met only in passing, but whose
+emanations I suddenly caught. And I thought: Among the innumerable
+phenomena of the war are these women of various ages (though the
+phenomenon is most apparent between thirty-five and sixty), brought
+for the first time into personal contact with man, other than father
+or brother, ministering to his wants, witness of his agonies, awed
+spectator of his continual apotheosis, and all the daily transmutations
+of the definite and ordinary into the infinite and divine. The world
+war gives the one chance for the twisting of conventional fives, lived
+along the straightest of fines, into completely unexpected shapes. They
+come from abodes of hitherto unescapable virginities, these elemental
+women of indescribable innocence, with that warm, wondering look, or
+sometimes that determined and inexorable look, upon their faces, these
+unchosen and unmated, to become part of the strange lining of the war,
+part of the vast patchwork. Not the least strange are these pale, thin
+bits, sewn into something riotous, reckless, multicolored, heroic. It’s
+a far cry from Shepherd’s Bush or Clapham Junction or Stepney Green
+to battle-fields, hospitals, vanishings, potent reminders of forces
+withdrawn forever from the world-sum, or, still more, of convalescences
+and evocations of returning forces, but _not_ re-established order.
+
+Everywhere the subtle but deathless emanation of the male—his heroisms,
+his agonies, his needs, his weakness, and his strength.
+
+Can one wonder at the mighty tide obeying nameless natural laws, like
+other tides, that flood the areas where the manhood of the world is
+concentrated?
+
+Very hot. Out there in the _Champagne Pouilleuse_ men are marching in
+the white dust, resting in the white dust, giving up their lives in the
+white dust. Am sitting under the chestnut-tree. A soldier, in civil life
+a gardener, has been sent to tidy up our garden, and its _belle patine_
+will soon give way to spick-and-spanness. I sensed such a passion of
+tenderness in the way he handled his rake that I went over to speak to
+him, and this is his history. He is from Cette—_une ville si jolie_—and
+he speaks with the heavy accent of his part of the world. He is a
+territorial and forms part of the _État-Civil des Champs de Bataille_
+(civilian workers on the battle-fields). This doesn’t sound bad, but it
+really means that since he was called, eighteen months ago, he, who all
+his life has planted flowers, has been digging up dead bodies, hunting in
+a literal “body of death” to find the plaques, and then identifying by
+means of a map the place where they are found.
+
+“_Madame, je rien pouvais plus._ It was too terrible. I am forty-seven
+years old, but I asked to be put among the attacking troops. They
+refused, but sent me here. Now in this garden I have found heaven
+again.” And his eyes, his soft, suffering eyes, filled with tears.
+
+I asked him about his family—one son is fighting in the Vosges.
+
+“He is six feet four and he so resembles Albert I that they call him _le
+roi des Belges_. I lost my daughter a few months ago—a beautiful girl
+with curling blond hair. After her fiancé fell at Verdun, she went into
+a decline. My other son is young, seventeen, but his turn is near. I
+had a beautiful family.” The gardener himself is straight-featured and
+straight-browed, caught up how terribly in the wine-press of the war.
+“All my life I have been gardener in great houses,” he added, with a
+shudder. “The work they gave me _là-bas_ is the most terrible of all.
+_On n’y résiste pas à la longue. O les pauvres restes qu’on trouve! O,
+Madame!_”
+
+I asked him to bring me the photographs of his family, and his face
+brightened for a moment as he stood with his head uncovered. One speaks
+to any chance person, and immediately one gets a story that is fit only
+to be handled by some master of that incomparable thing, French prose.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+A while ago investigated the house. Up-stairs is a little room toward the
+north, papered in a yellow-and-white pin-stripe design of forty or fifty
+years ago. In it is a yellow baroque niche with a shell design at the
+top, having a temple or altar-like suggestion, in spite of the too-large,
+ugly, marble-topped mahogany wash-stand that fills it. Above the mahogany
+bed is a carved wooden holy water font, a little shelf in the corner
+for books, and another for a lamp, and there is a window looking out on
+small gardens cut up into bits for flowers and vegetables. As I entered
+it I seemed to know that some spirit rare and strong enough to project
+emanations, sensible even to a stranger long after, had lived, perhaps
+died, in it. I settled down immediately in a really not comfortable,
+too-small, brown, upholstered arm-chair, sloping forward, and felt
+somehow as if I were in choice company, and began to turn the pages of
+Bordeaux’s _Dernier jour du Fort de Vaux_, which I had in my hand as I
+entered. But something unseen held my attention, not the book. The room
+was gently, softly haunted, and the world of spirits was sensibly about
+me.... Anyway, the plain of Châlons gives me the creeps.
+
+Joseph, reappearing this afternoon, brought the news that there had been
+another air raid on Bar-le-Duc at noon, and they had dropped pounds of
+leaflets telling of the Russian defeat, Rumanians retreating, in danger
+of being enveloped. The leaflets wound up by saying the Germans were sick
+of the war—they supposed the French were—and why not have peace?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BURIAL OF PÈRE CAFARD
+
+
+                                                  CHÂLONS, _Sunday, 29th_.
+
+Telegram that M. de Sinçay may be passing through. I would like to see
+his _grand seigneur_ contour decorate our 1860 establishment. Go to the
+_Bureau de la Place_, and nothing less than a general (Abbevillers)
+grasps the receiver and telephones for me to Bar-le-Duc—but without
+result. They are all in “our” _secteur_ “of a courtesy”!
+
+Twelve-o’clock mass at Notre Dame. Again rolling music, and the green
+vestment of the priest especially beautiful at the end of that high gray
+Gothic vista. Many, many military. I thought of an English officer who
+said to me not long ago:
+
+“See how the soldier is exalted in the New Testament. It is certainly not
+the man of law, the money-changer, the man of politics, nor governors.
+When Christ has an especial lesson to show, how often He shows it through
+the soldier, even unto the servant of the centurion.”
+
+On returning, found Mrs. S. and Miss E. arrived from the village of
+the fifteenth-century towers,[12] and the khaki-clad sons of Mars from
+over the seas, their hearts filled with patriotism and their tank with
+American _essence_. Coffee under the chestnut-tree, lovely sun filtering
+through, and the little white butterflies flying about the little white
+ash-tree; and we told stories, being all of us souls that laugh, which we
+did, till we couldn’t breathe, at the story of the woman’s-preparedness
+meeting in a certain transcendental town where the head of the assembly
+in solemn accents besought as many as felt drawn to such work to become
+automobilists—“and the moment the Germans set foot in New York rush the
+virgins to the West, preferably Kansas City.” In the town of brotherly
+love, where a like assemblage was held, an immediate position was
+available, March, 1917, with a commission of major-general, to look after
+dead soldiers’ widows for another blinking female. _Oh! là, là!_—and when
+one thinks we’ve _got_ to win the war!
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Have just laid down _Le Mannequin d’Osier_, completely dazzled by that
+first chapter, so monstrously clever, so diabolically lucid, so icily
+logical, so magnetically cynical, and I said to myself, after all, “one
+can only write of war in between wars.” I long for a friend to read with
+me the pages where M. Roux, on short leave during his years’ military
+service, says to M. Bergeret, “_Il y a quatre mois que je n’ai pas
+entendu une parole intelligente_,” to the paragraph where M. Bergeret
+says, “_Mais nous sommes un peuple de héros et nous croyons toujours que
+nous sommes trahis_.” It stimulated a desire for the discussion of things
+as they are, over against what one idiotically hopes they may be, with a
+bit of imagination concerning the future thrown in.
+
+                                                     _July 29th, evening._
+
+In the afternoon we all went to another theatrical representation in
+the big hall, given by the _1er Régiment de Marche des Zouaves_. Again
+immense concourse. Again the “Marseillaise,” and again the _Lion
+d’Orient_ made his majestic entry, and dozens of generals and high
+officials followed him, and again all sat forming their glittering
+hemicycle in front of the stage. Again a few nurses, some wives of
+officers, and the thousands of _poilus_.
+
+A great poster read: “_Vous êtes priés d’assister au convoi, service, et
+enterrement du Père Cafard, assassiné par le Communiqué._
+
+“_Le deuil sera conduit par le Pinard, le Jus, la Gniole, le Tabac, et
+tous les membres du Chacal hurlant._”
+
+It appears that those of the 1st Zouaves still in hospital had had a rise
+in temperature at the thought that their representation might not equal
+that of the Moroccan Division of Friday. The _Compère_ was made to look
+as much as possible like Colonel Rolland—adored by his men. “_On R’met
+Ca!_” has been given in the trenches all over the front, and was just as
+funny and amusing as the other, but there was a strange intermezzo about
+three o’clock, when the dreadful sun, shining through the glass panes of
+the sides (on the roof great squares of canvas had been spread), began
+to get fainter. It was like being in the hot-room of a Turkish bath.
+Suddenly a darkness fell, accompanied by a deafening and terrifying
+noise of a heavy rattling on the roof and a beating in at the sides; the
+voices and music were completely drowned and the performance had to be
+suspended. Even the officers were beginning to look about—when the lights
+suddenly went out and we found ourselves in Stygian blackness at 4.30 of
+a summer afternoon, the terrific noise continuing, with the under-note of
+the stirring of the thousands assembled. A nameless fear, or something
+akin to it, went through the vast assemblage. Finally we realized that
+it was heaven, not the enemy, bombarding us, as hailstones, even by
+the time they had gone through many hot hands, as big as turkey eggs,
+were passed about. There was the sound of breaking glass, water began to
+rush in, the heavy canvas, spread on the roof as protection against the
+sun, and also to prevent the light from being seen from the air, alone
+prevented the roof from breaking in. Finally the lights reappeared and
+the performance proceeded to the diminishing sound of heavy rain—but it
+was a strange experience. Even those generals of Olympic calm had begun
+to “think thoughts” at one moment. It would have been a big “bag,” had
+anything been doing, and we all knew it.
+
+Mrs. S. and Miss E. have been persuaded to stay at the house by the
+Marne, rather than at La Haute Mère Dieu, and we have arranged to double
+up.
+
+I am to motor back to Paris with them to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A PROVIDENTIAL FORD
+
+
+                                                       PARIS, _July 31st_.
+
+Yesterday, at 8.30 in the damp morning, Lieutenant Robin appeared with
+my military pass to return by auto instead of by train, and I said a
+special farewell to the gardener, carrying our bags out to the motor
+in a passionate tenderness of courtesy. Miss Nott and Miss Mitchell
+bade us Godspeed, and we passed over the Marne and out of town. At the
+_consigne_ examination of our papers, our charming chauffeuse excited
+much attention. An officer standing there with pasteboard box and leather
+bag asked if we would give him a lift. The road was unusually empty and
+he had been awaiting an act of Providence for two hours. We were it.
+
+He would be in ordinary times a Frenchman of the stereotyped banal sort,
+and he was entirely without charm, though I dare say he is known as a
+_beau garçon_ in Lyons, where before the war he was _marchand de bois_.
+But the war transmutes everything it touches, and he, too, had undergone
+the subtle change. He said, quite simply for a man naturally fatuous,
+“_Je ne retrouverai jamais ma vie d’autre fois_.” I seemed to see what
+that life had been. Small but good business transactions; some success
+with women, as I said he would be considered as handsome; the theater;
+reading newspapers in a café; talking of the happenings of his quarter
+of the town—and the lamp of his soul burning only dimly. But even he has
+been caught up in the “chariot that rides the ridges” and must partake of
+_la haine et tous ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes_. We drop him
+at a crossroad and he takes a muddy side-path to the village where his
+regiment is billeted.
+
+At another crossway just out of the village of Vertus another officer
+was waiting. We called out, “Is this the road to Epernay?” And then, “Do
+you want a lift?” This time it was a dark-eyed young man with a kindling
+glance and something responsive and mercurial in his being, giving a
+sensation of personality, awake, running, a-thrill. He had twenty-four
+hours’ permission to go to Paris to see his mother, and had arrived to
+see the train pulling out of the little station. He also was waiting
+Fate at the crossroads, and crossroads in war-time are a favorite abode
+of Fate. He had been wounded near Suippes, lay twenty-four hours in a
+shell-hole, and was finally brought in by some man he didn’t know, whose
+head was blown off as he was pulling him into the trench. Something deep
+rustled in my heart at the vision of the splendor of that anonymity. Six
+months in hospital, six months of convalescing, and then a hunger for the
+front—_quorum pars fuit_.
+
+We were passing through a beautiful country of vineyards, Vertus, Mesnil,
+Avize, in the loveliness of graded greens, malachite, beryl, emerald,
+jasper, and stretches of aquamarine where the grapes had been powdered
+with the _mélange de Bordeaux_. Everywhere were little sharp, steep
+hills, their plantings taking all kinds of lights as they turned to east
+or west or south.
+
+At Epernay we wound about the streets till we came to the Hôtel de
+l’Europe, marked with a star in the guide; but you see no stars when you
+get into its encumbered, dull little courtyard—as slightly modern as
+possible—ask for luncheon, any kind of luncheon, and find one can’t have
+it or anything till twelve, the only fixed thing, except the _consigne_,
+I have discovered in the war zone. We went across the square to the Café
+de la Place, where we had _œufs sur le plat_, a yard and a half of thin,
+crusty bread, a thick pat of yellow butter, and a bottle of Chablis,
+that poured out pinky into our glasses. After which, reinforced and
+most cheerful, we went to the Place du Marché, where were many signs of
+the campaign of August and September, 1914. Among débris of bombarded
+buildings the fruit-market was being held. Plums, peaches, and apricots
+were of the most delicious, and we got pounds of them, which later were
+to be smashed and mashed and to ruin our dressing-bags and our clothes
+and the motor seats as we bumped along. It all came from Paris except the
+tiny, sweet, white grapes.
+
+Epernay seems banal, driving through it, but if one thinks a bit, all
+sorts of things flash into the mind. It has a Merovingian past, and has
+been pillaged innumerable times by innumerable hosts. It belonged to
+the Counts of Champagne, to Louise of Savoy; Henry IV besieged it in
+person, and Maréchal de Biron fell by his side. Now thinking of its great
+champagne industry, into mind come memories of dinner-tables around which
+sat white-vested, decorated statesmen, even unto the kind that did not
+prevent war, and lovely women, and the toss of repartee, and flash of
+jewel and white throat, and all the once-accustomed things no longer ours.
+
+As we got out of Epernay a terrible temptation assailed us. Three
+law-abiding women, by reason of original sin, I suppose, were drawn to
+take the forbidden road to Reims—Reims, the scarred, the pitiful—Reims,
+whose cannon sounded even now in our ears—rather than the straight path
+of duty and _sauf-conduits_ to Paris.
+
+“After all, we’re not here to go joy-riding in the war zone,” said
+one, virtuously; and then prudence, most dismal of virtues, triumphed,
+bolstered up by a look at a well-guarded bridge, and I told the inspiring
+story of the principal of the school my mother went to, whose last words
+to every graduate class were, “What is duty, young ladies?” And the young
+ladies were expected to respond, “A well-spring in the soul.” It isn’t
+(and never has been), and our eyes kept sweeping the hill between the
+Epernay road and that great plain of Champagne in the midst of which is
+set the broken jewel of France. A military auto passed as we stood there,
+and an officer waved us onward. We let that hand pointing us to Paris
+decide. It was the triumph of prudence—plus a lively sense of favors to
+come. Some one muttered, “Had we been going to take the boat on Saturday,
+oh, then mayhap, mayhap....”
+
+Dormans. Several kilometers before we got into Dormans little crosses
+began to show themselves along the roadside. All through here was heavy
+fighting during the battle of the Marne. The first grave we stopped by
+bore on its little cross the words, “_Trois Allemands_,” and it was
+neatly fenced up with black sticks and wire. We started to climb the
+hill, and among the malachite, the beryl, the emerald, the jasper, and
+the aquamarine vines were many other graves. Sometimes it would be “_20
+Français_,” the red-and-white-and-blue _cocarde_ decorating the cross.
+Once it was “_30 Allemands_.” On another was the name “_Lastaud, le 3
+septembre, 1914, souvenir d’un ami_.” I thought how friendship has been
+glorified in this war.
+
+But mostly it was the continuous gorgeous anonymity of the defenders of
+the land that clutched the heart and with them the invaders, pressing
+their bayonets and their wills into a land not theirs. I was once
+more again before the awful tangle of the world as I looked at these
+resting-places. Over beyond the crest of the hill and the forest was
+Montmirail. Just a hundred years before, Napoleon had put these names
+upon the scrolls of history, and again and then again they had resounded
+to marching feet, the terrors of invasion, the heroisms of defense. One
+of a group of soldiers passing called out as we stood by one of the
+German graves:
+
+“I came through here in 1914.”
+
+“But you still walk the earth,” I answered.
+
+“I got a ball in the hip, all the same, on the top of that hill,” and he
+pointed across the road. “_Mais j’ai eu de la chance._” And a look of a
+strange and pitiful wonder that he was above the earth, not under it,
+flashed for a moment over his young face; then he touched his cap and
+went singing down the road with his companions, and I caught the refrain,
+“_Ces mots sacrés, ces mots sacrés, gloire et patrie, gloire et patrie_.”
+
+And somehow, after Dormans, we were all quiet. I only remember long,
+gray villages, mostly eighteenth century, and many blue soldiers walking
+about their broad, central streets, and signs of billetings, “_30 hommes,
+2 officiers_,” “_5 hommes, 2 chevaux_,” black-robed women coming out
+of little Gothic churches, and children playing, and in between the
+villages great avenues of poplar and plane trees. Then we lost the Marne
+and picked up the Seine, and passed La Ferté, and Meaux, seen from the
+inside, preserved its flavor of “_autres temps, autres mœurs_,” in spite
+of the 1917 soldiers billeted there, walking hand in hand with girls who
+don’t have a ghost of a chance, in military towns, to get through the war
+as they began it.
+
+Entered Paris in a fine drizzle of rain at 6.30. Our charming chauffeuse
+dead tired after the long day, but steering us so prudently and yet so
+quickly through the wet, crowded streets. Give me a good woman chauffeur
+_any day_!—not simply when coming from the front! She takes no chances,
+but she makes good time and she gets you there. But somehow one leaves
+one’s heart at the front, and I thought to myself as I got to the hotel
+door, “It’s not so good, after all, to feel _just safe_ and to be
+comfortable.”
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+LORRAINE IN AUTUMN
+
+“_L’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+NANCY AND MOLITOR
+
+
+                                        _1.30 p.m., Tuesday, October 9th._
+
+Passing Meaux. Square gray tower of its cathedral against a gray sky, the
+gray hemicycle of its lovely apse cutting in against reddish-gray roofs;
+gray houses with old towers built into them; yellowing acacia and plane
+and willow trees; level corn-fields stripped of their harvest, pheasants
+and magpies pecking in them; golden pumpkins; and _betteraves_ showing
+red and vermilion roots bursting out of the ground; everything wet—wet.
+
+                                                         LIGNY-EN-BARROIS.
+
+Two American soldiers walking up a muddy village street in the dusk; rain
+falling; a cinnamon-colored stream slipping by; and a quantity of shabby,
+wet foliage and wetter meadows.
+
+                                                      GONDRECOURT, _5.40_.
+
+In the extreme point of the angle where the Nancy train seems to turn
+back to Paris and where many American soldiers are billeted. Cheerless,
+dimly lighted station. Groups of our men standing about, high piles
+of United States boxes, marked “Wizard Oats.” Some persuasion of
+black-frock-coated “sky pilot” walking up and down and humming, “Pull
+for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore” (there _was_ a lot of water
+about!), and then in the darkness the train slipped out. There and in
+all the dim, wet Lorraine villages about are damp, puzzled, homesick,
+forlorn, brave, determined, eager young Americans.
+
+                HÔTEL EXCELSIOR ET D’ANGLETERRE, NANCY, _Tuesday evening_.
+
+Cabs at station, hot water, writing-paper, meat, warmth, all sorts of
+things you don’t always get on Tuesday in Paris. Everything, in fact,
+except light. Dining-room full of officers. _Chic atmosphère de guerre_
+began to envelope me, not yet experienced that day. Started from Paris
+tired and not particularly receptive, but was conscious of a slow
+quickening of sensibility as the hours passed, drawing me within the zone
+of armies.
+
+This “chic war atmosphere” is like nothing else. Impersonal and larger
+lungs are needed to breathe it. We no longer, so many of us, read of
+their battles, but they still fight them, these blue-clad men out here.
+In the coal-black evening, stumbling from the station, one realizes it
+all once more—and there is some lighting of the soul.
+
+                                                           _October 10th._
+
+Nancy in rain and storm, and all night the sound of cannon and gun and
+mitrailleuse turned against sweet flesh and blood, the sons of women
+dying in agony hard as their mother’s pain, and no way out. Never were
+the imaginations of men less elastic; little groups everywhere are hourly
+setting this cold grind in motion with a word or a gesture, around green
+tables or bending over maps—in a few small spaces deciding the agonies of
+millions.
+
+An _avion_ almost tapped at my window once toward morning and reminded me
+of a young aviator with whom we talked in the train last night, his face
+a-twitch, strange eyes, gloomy, set mouth, once _jeunesse dorée_. A hard
+look as he answered:
+
+“_Avion de chasse, il n’y a que cela._” He had been “resting” in the
+cavalry, where there was little movement, and he couldn’t stand it. As
+for the trenches—
+
+“_O les tranchées! Être avec des gens que je ne connais pas, sous des
+conditions indescriptibles; non, je n’en peux plus._”
+
+“Better to fall from the heavens?” I asked him.
+
+And then I realized the disarray of nerves, the complete unfitting of the
+being to an earthly habitat, in the knowledge that life is measured by
+an almost countable number of hours or days, scarcely weeks, and rarely,
+rarely months, and the calling on help from the flower of sleep to fit
+one for acts impossible to normal being.
+
+I must say this very evidently “made-in-Germany” hotel is most
+comfortable. _Jugend-Stil_ designed bed, exquisitely clean; great white
+eiderdown; a munificence of brass electric-light fixtures representing
+leaves, with frosted shades running from pale pink to pale green, and
+giving plenty of light; the iron shutters tightly pulled down, of
+course. Large wash-stand with a huge faucet for hot water, bearing
+the name “Jacob”; the heating apparatus by Rückstuhl; the telephone,
+“Berliner-system”; electric light and lift the familiar “Schindler.”
+Wardrobe and mirror over wash-stand have, like the bed, a design,
+not of conventionalized flowers, but of flowers devoid of life. The
+inexpressibly sloppy _mollesse_ of _art nouveau_ is in such contrast to
+the beautiful precision of touch of the eighteenth century.
+
+At 9.30 E. M. came into my room and said, “We’d better doll up and be
+off.” I leave it to the gentlest of readers to surmise what we did before
+being off, and I would like to say here that one doesn’t always “doll up”
+for others; the process gives to one’s own being a sense of completeness
+most sustaining. It comes after that of having one’s clothes put on
+properly.
+
+_En route_ to the Prefect’s we met the tall, good-looking blond young son
+of Jean de Reszke, “_très chic, cherchant le danger_”; “_en voilà un qui
+n’a pas froid aux yeux_,” the only and adored child of his parents. It’s
+not a very promising situation for them. But again I thought, “Nothing
+but good can befall the soldier, so he play his part well,” and started
+to ponder on the incalculable growth of filial piety, and of the love
+of mothers, and their griefs, when, suddenly walking along the gray
+streets of Nancy, the scene shifted, and it was the Metropolitan Opera
+House that I saw—the lights, the red glow, the boxes, the jewels; the
+warmth, the stir of the orchestra, the quiet of the listening house, were
+about me. It seemed to be the second act of “Tristan and Isolde” after
+the duo, when King Mark makes his noble entry and in those unforgetable
+accents begins his broken-hearted apostrophe to Tristan, “_Tatest du’s in
+Wirklichkeit, wähnst du das?_” And all that unsurpassed and unsurpassable
+art of the great Polish brothers was again evoked; one now gathered to
+his rest in stress of war, the other knowing a greater fear than for
+himself.
+
+Then I found myself in the Place Stanislas under gray morning skies,
+instead of the gleaming twilight web. I felt suddenly and acutely the
+turning of the seasons and the inexorable advent of winter through which
+unsheltered flesh and blood must pass. That ravishing of the spirit I
+knew in the warm June sunset was mine no more.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+                              Waiting for the motor to drive to Lunéville.
+
+Went with Madame Mirman, the wife of the _Préfet de la Meurthe et
+Moselle_, to visit Molitor. It is a huge collection of barrack-buildings
+which for three years has contained that terrible precipitation of
+old men, women, and children from the devastated districts around
+about. They are received in every conceivable condition of hunger,
+dirt, disease, and distress of soul. They had been living in the woods
+and fields that first summer, and the children running the streets of
+half-ruined towns, before being brought to Molitor.
+
+[Illustration: SISTER JULIE]
+
+[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF OF THE REFUGEES
+
+As they passed at Evian—but typical of any group anywhere.]
+
+We went first to the school-building, and into the kindergarten room
+where rows of children were making straight lines with beans on little
+tables. Very hot and stuffy in the hermetically sealed room, every child
+sniffling and sneezing and coughing. There are always faces that stand
+out, and in this room, as the children rose and sang a song with patting
+of the hands, there was one child of five with gestures so lovely and
+movements of the body so rhythmic that one realized afresh the eternal
+differences in the seasoning of the human _pâte_. She was between two
+clumsy, wooden-faced children, one with a peaked forehead, the other with
+a heavy jaw.
+
+We then went up-stairs to a class-room of older boys, and after we had
+spoken to the schoolmaster I noticed a handsome boy with shining eyes and
+a firm mouth. The master, who was new and wished to become acquainted
+with his pupils, had written the following questions on the blackboard:
+“Whence do you come? What was the occupation of your parents? Are you
+happy at Molitor?” etc. Well, that little boy of eleven, when asked what
+he had written, turned out to be a sort of cross between Demosthenes and
+Gambetta, and read from his slate an impassioned apostrophe about “_le
+flot envahisseur des barbares, quand délivrera-t-on la France martyrisée
+de la main destructrice de l’ennemi?_” and to the question, “Are you
+happy at Molitor?” the answer was, “_Oui, on est bien à Molitor, mais
+rien ne remplace le foyer; quand on a perdu cela, on a tout perdu_.”
+
+The face of the master showed some embarrassment at any restrictions
+on happiness at Molitor, but the boy, whose eyes had begun to flame,
+continued: “_O quand viendra le jour de la Revanche, le jour sacré de la
+délivrance?_” and wound up with something about his blood and the blood
+of his children. His father, who was dead, had been employed in the
+customs at Avricourt, and his mother now cooked in one of the Molitor
+buildings. Then we passed through a room where some fifty women were
+sorting and stemming hops; the strong, warm odor enveloped us and the
+eyes of the women followed us.
+
+Then out across the immense courtyard to one of the dormitory buildings.
+Rows of beds, and above them, around the walls, a line of shelves on
+which is every kind of small article that could be carried in flight,
+from trimmings for Christmas trees to shrines and little strong-boxes.
+
+As we entered the first room, Madame Mirman said to an old woman with
+deep, soft eyes:
+
+“_Comment ça va-t-il aujourd’hui?_”
+
+And with such grace she answered:
+
+“_Oh, Madame, c’est la vieillesse, et on n’en guérit pas._”
+
+Another woman, nursing a rheumatic knee, when asked about her son, who
+had been at Molitor on a three days’ permission, put her cracked old hand
+over her heart and said, “_Voir un peu sa personne fait oublier tout_.”
+
+In all the big rooms near the long windows women sit bent over embroidery
+and passementerie frames. One of them, with thin hair and horny hands,
+was working with extreme rapidity on a bright _pailleté_ strip for an
+evening gown, a design of silver lilies on white tulle, in such contrast
+to her worn face and bent figure.
+
+Many were working at lovely and intricate tea-cloths, with designs of
+the Lorraine cross, and thistle, oak and acorn designs, that had been
+handed down through generations. Some of the work Madame Mirman is able
+to dispose of directly, while some is contracted for with big shops.
+
+When we came down-stairs there was a great sound of young feet and voices
+and various noises of well-cared-for children, just dismissed from the
+seats of learning, coming up the stone stairway to their dinner.
+
+It’s the threading up of all these destinies, this web of the France to
+be, that is the great problem. And oh, how terrible is this uptearing
+of human beings, this ghastly showing of the roots! I have seen it
+wholesale, east and west. I remember especially the first two evacuations
+of Czernowitz and the adjacent towns and villages during the Russian
+advance through Galicia. They would flood the streets of Vienna by the
+tens of thousands, in pitiful groups, always the same—old men, women, and
+children; and it’s all alike, it’s war, the ruthless, the indescribable,
+and everywhere the children paying most heavily. Could the war-book of
+_children_ be written no eyes could read it for tears....[13]
+
+We went back to luncheon at the Prefecture, where I met M. Mirman, one
+of the most striking figures of the war. Since the 12th of August, 1914,
+when he took up his duties as _Préfet de la Meurthe et Moselle_, his
+handsome, straight-featured face has figured at every gathering of sorrow
+or relief. As he sat at his table, surrounded by his six children, he
+talked of those first days when Nancy was in danger and it was not known
+if _le Grand Couronné_ on which Castelnau had flung his _paraphe could_
+protect them, and then he told of many urgent present needs.
+
+After lunch we drove with Madame Mirman to her favorite good work,
+_l’école ménagère_.
+
+When we got there the elementary class, girls of thirteen to fourteen,
+were chopping herbs and onions to make seasoning for soups in winter, and
+putting it up in stone pots. Another class was kneading and rolling out
+dough. Then we went into the great sewing-room and turned over the books
+of miniature sample pieces of underclothing. When the girls become expert
+they are given material and make their own trousseaux.
+
+With a sigh Madame Mirman said: “But I am sad for these girls. The men
+who might have been their husbands lie dead on the field of honor, and
+there will be no homes for them.”
+
+Something chill and inexorable laid its hand on me as I thought: only
+graves, and they leveled out of memory by time; except in the hearts of
+mothers, to whom _voir un pen sa personne_ is the supreme joy, and the
+knowledge that it can be no more the supreme sorrow.
+
+                                 HÔTEL DES VOSGES, LUNÉVILLE, _11.30 p.m._
+
+A long day. Many pages of the book of life and death turned. Just before
+leaving Nancy, made a little tour of the battered station. Scarcely
+a pane of glass left anywhere, but in and out of it is the ceaseless
+movement of blue-clad men. A few flecks of a strange, dull amber in a
+pale-pink sky, the true sunset sky of Nancy. A bishop with a military
+cap and a chaplain in khaki pass, lines of _camions_ and Red Cross
+ambulances. Suddenly, beyond the station, a dark-winged thing against the
+sky is seen to drop, right itself for a moment, then a column of smoke
+goes up from it, then a flame, then there is a falling of something
+black just behind the twin Gothic towers of St.-Léon. The streets filled
+instantly, “_C’est un des nôtres_,” said a man with field-glasses, and
+then, death in the sky not being unusual here, they went about their
+business, and the long, delicate towers of St.-Léon got black as ink
+against the flaming sky. But a man’s soul was being breathed out in some
+distant beet-root field or in the forest of Haye. Peace to him!
+
+The next thing I saw, that has become a familiar sight in the last
+months, was an American soldier on some sort of permission, and hanging
+from his arm, neatly bound, was a pretty little “dictionary”—from whom,
+however, came sounds of broken English. The British Expeditionary Force
+saved the classics from destruction at one time; now “salvage” seems to
+be rather the turn of the American forces. One can only philosophize on
+the indestructibility of matter.
+
+The Place Stanislas was a bit out of our way, but when I saw the lovely
+Louis XV knots of pink that the orb of day was tying in the sky before he
+quite departed I begged for three minutes in its pale loveliness. Against
+the delicate ribbons of the sky were urns and figures, urns with stone
+flames arising from them, softly glowing, or stone flower-twisted torches
+held by winged beings, children and youths or angels I knew not—but I did
+know in a flash just how and why the Place Stanislas came into being.
+
+In the gray streets were blue-clad, heavily laden men, and the chill
+autumn twilight was falling about them. Oh, Nancy! dream of the past and
+yet with so much of the hope of the present within your gates!
+
+As we sped out of town, through the vast manufacturing suburbs, I turned
+and saw a bank of orange glory in the west, cut into browns and reds,
+with little threadings of gray and green and blue, for all the world
+like an ancient Cashmere shawl with light thrown on it.
+
+Night was falling as we passed through St.-Nicolas du Port. The two
+immense towers of the church, which dominate the landscape, were cutting
+black and cypress-like into the sky. The streets were full of dim
+figures—soldiers, overalled men, and many trousered women coming from
+munition-factories, with baskets and clinging children, hurrying home to
+get the evening meal.
+
+We two American women found ourselves threading our way through it all in
+a Ford which E. M. was driving herself, the Ford which in the afternoon
+had allowed itself caprices only permissible to lovelier objects, and
+there, close behind the French lines, we talked of love and marriage, and
+the Church. And these things had been and are for one, and for the other
+all to come.
+
+Among its various imperfections, the Ford was one-eyed, and our little
+light did not cast its beams very far. We got tangled up into a long
+line of _camions_, with blinding headlights, quite extinguishing us as
+we hugged the right side of the road. Finally we reached the outpost of
+Lunéville, where the guard stopped us, dark and disreputable-looking as
+we were, flashed his lantern, saw the lettering on the auto. We cried,
+“Vitrimont,” and then passed on. The chill night had completely fallen,
+but in the dark fields rose darker crosses that only one’s soul could
+see. Peace to them that lie beneath!
+
+Into town safe; drew up at the door of the house that was once an old
+Capuchin monastery, groped our way through a dark garden to find a warm
+welcome from Mademoiselle Guérin, a shining tea-table, an open fire, many
+books, things seemed _too_ well with us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EMANATIONS
+
+
+                                                     _October 11th, 7.30._
+
+Awakened at five o’clock to the sound of cavalry passing under my
+windows. I have three, and got the full benefit of the hoofs. I looked
+out into a bluish, late-night sky; endless shadowy lines of men that
+I knew were blue-clad were defiling, and there was a faint booming of
+cannon. Everything that the pitchy blackness of the streets of Lunéville
+prevents the inhabitants from doing between 5 and 8 P.M. they do between
+5 and 8 A.M. The hour was set back on the 7th, which is why we have
+suddenly so much morning and these chopped-off afternoons. It makes the
+streets of the old town “hum” in the early hours. No Taubes; the sky too
+threatening. Again _chic atmosphère de guerre_.
+
+My big room is charming. The doors have panelings of the great epoch
+of Lunéville, but on the walls is a fresh papering of a pinkish _toile
+de Jouy_ design, in such good taste, an abyss between it and the
+_Jugend-Stil_ of the “Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre”; over each door is
+a lunette containing a faded old painting.
+
+The pink-curtained windows have deep embrasures; a fresh, thick,
+pale-gray carpet quite covers the floor; on the mantelpiece is a bronze
+clock, a large Europa sitting on a small bull. I suspect _it_ is 1830.
+In one corner a commodious Louis XV _armoire_. On one of its doors
+is carved a peasant’s house and a hunter aiming at a deer half-hidden
+in some trees. On the other is a fishing scene and a bridge, and in
+the distance a château. The panels are inclosed in charming Pompadour
+scrolls, and there is an elaborate wrought-iron lock of the same period.
+It seemed to epitomize the life of Lorraine, as well as “the reign of
+the arts and talents.” Discovered last night that the electric light is
+in the right place, so that a lady can dress for dinner or read in bed
+with equal facility. There is all the hot water one could wish, an open
+fireplace, but it was with a sigh that I said, as I heard the cannon,
+“_Rien ne manque_.” The maid, who had been in England, put our things out
+last night with a dainty touch, the ribbons on top; my pink satin négligé
+was placed with art across the chair by my bed. In E. M.’s room, equally
+comfortable, her pale-blue one was also tastefully displayed. Somehow,
+all the physical comfort is so insistently in contrast with what is
+being gone through with a few kilometers away, and though my soul can be
+supremely content without any of it, I looked for the moment with a new
+appreciation on this flicker of comfort behind that dreadful front.
+
+Again we groped through the Place Léopold after dinner at Mlle. Guérin’s,
+feeling our way slowly under completely remote stars, Jupiter so
+gorgeous that for a moment my heart was afraid. Then I became sensible
+of ghostly and lovely companions, the amiable secrets of whose amiable
+lives have been revealed to me in many a tome since I crossed that square
+in those linden-scented nights of June. Did linden scent, on which a
+long chapter could be written, have anything to do with their morals, I
+wonder? However that may be, I thought of Duke Léopold going from the
+château through the park to the house in the rue de Lorraine to see
+the Princesse de Craon, who bore twenty children here in Lunéville,
+preserving her beauty and her husband’s love, and that of Duke Léopold as
+well, evidently having the secret of squaring the circle without breaking
+it (unknown in the twentieth century, when everything “goes bang” if it
+is but breathed upon). Then of the wild and witty Chevalier de Boufflers,
+painting and making verses, loving and forgetting, whose mother, beloved
+of “_Stanislas, Roi de Pologne et Duc de Lorraine et de Bar_,” was the
+bright particular star of Stanislas’s Court, as his grandmother had
+been of Léopold’s. And how often _La divine Emilie_ and Voltaire passed
+through the Place Léopold in their coach to be put up at the Palace
+and contribute to the gaiety of nations. They and many others filled
+the square, and I was thinking of discreet sedan-chairs coming from
+rendezvous rather than of the uncompromised and uncompromising lamp-post
+that finally got me, minus the light.
+
+Now I quite dislike getting up from this literally downy couch, with
+its dainty pink-lined, lace-trimmed, white-muslin covered eiderdown and
+its heaps of soft pillows, to investigate further their _amours_, and
+in general the _arts et talents_ of the eighteenth century, but so I
+willed it, and so it must be done. For some reason nervous energy is at a
+low ebb. There are moments when I throw my life out of the window, when
+nothing seems impossible and most things quite easy, but to-day the gray
+world outside, _l’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_, I would consider
+well lost for converse with a beloved friend by my fireside.
+
+                                                           _October 12th._
+
+Nothing to be found in Lunéville on an October night except your soul,
+and if you don’t keep it fairly bright, you won’t find even that. Oh, woe
+is me! about six o’clock mine was suddenly too dark and sad for words,
+so I betook me to the downy couch of the morning, with a batch of letters
+and various books given me by M. Guérin at lunch, some old, some new,
+concerning _l’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_. The Hôtel des Vosges
+is ahead of any Ritz that was ever built, and, what’s more, in it your
+soul’s your own, even if it is a poor and dark and trembling thing.
+
+My “_Symphonie Pastorale_” letter to —— returned to me. Have just reread
+it and pinned it into the Journal. It’s all part of the same.
+
+                                 AIX-LES-BAINS, _vendredi, 27 août, 1917_.
+
+... The orchestra, pale, emasculated, having the minimum of strings—the
+musicians of France are dead or in the trenches—seemed without accent
+during the first part of the program. “_La Chasse du Jeune Henri_” of
+Méhul, “_Les Eolides_” of César Franck, something of Grétry, Dukas,
+Saint-Saëns, _enfin_, one of the usual war-time programs. But then
+followed the “_Symphonie Pastorale_” and the master’s voice suddenly
+swelled the thin sounds, triumphant in the beauty of his order and
+splendor.
+
+A.—(_Sensations agréables en arrivant à la Campagne. Allégro ma non
+troppo._) I felt myself invaded by a familiar but long-untasted delight
+as my ear received the gorgeous consonances, and the lovely theme of
+the violins drew me to an interior place. My fancy was set a-wandering
+in a world of green glades, and broad meadows covered with asphodel and
+belladonna and fringed by dark plantings of pines, such as the master had
+wandered in, and “upon my eyes there lay a tear the dream had loosened
+from my brain.” In deep serenity I found myself thinking on appearances
+of “things wise and fair,” feeling myself in some way included in a
+company of paradisaical beings.
+
+Suddenly an almost unbearable spiritual exasperation succeeded
+the delight, and I saw a scarred and dreadful scene, like to the
+lunar landscape of the battle-field of Verdun, and I knew that my
+dwelling-place was a world of blood-madness. I tried to beat off the
+invading horror. Hot tears of protest came to my eyes, a feeling of
+suffocation clutched my throat, and a something burning wrapped my soul.
+Delight was dead.
+
+B.—(_Au bord du Ruisseau. Andante molto moto._) The master spoke again,
+in a voice of purling water over smooth stones and through soft grasses;
+the music of the lower strings, monotonous, hypnotic, possessed my
+fancy. Again the joy with which he was looking on the beauty of the
+exterior world tried to communicate itself to me. But my eyes fell on a
+white-haired man seated near me, a black band about his arm, dozing or
+dreaming, I knew not which. He awakened with a start and groan, and was
+doubtless thinking on combat and empty places and “heroes struggling with
+heroes and above them the wrathful gods.”
+
+And I thought of Veiled Destinies and high and nameless sacrifices and
+children at evening and silent firesides, and broken loves and other
+visible and invisible things.
+
+C.—(_Joyeuse réunion de Paysans. Allégro._) Expressing the master’s
+deep belief in the goodness of humanity, its deathless adorations, its
+inextinguishable hopes.
+
+But the houses of the peasants are empty, even here in Savoy, and
+husbands and fathers and sons will cross their thresholds no more. “The
+ancients have ceased from the gates, the young men from the choir of the
+singers.”
+
+I sat by the stream among the peasants and remembered suddenly two
+combatants, an Austrian and a Serb, visited in a hospital in Vienna that
+first winter of the war. One had lain by a frozen brook across a fallen
+log for two days, his hands and feet alone touching the ground, and
+when he was brought in they were black and swollen, and as I saw him he
+was but a trunk of a man with dull eyes. And the other, the Serb, with
+something wild and burning in his look, and restless hands, had fallen
+with his feet in a stream, and he, too, would walk no more; and so one
+thinks of brooks and sweet, moving waters these days.
+
+(_Orage—Tempête. Allégro._) The sudden D flat, the world in noise and
+horror and protesting hate, and hard, bright-eyed men meeting from East
+and West, the sons of the world falling for the sins of the world; and
+there is no way out, for all words save that of peace may be spoken. And
+I thought on the loneliness of the mind, and knew it for as great or
+greater than that of the heart, for mostly humanity lives by its personal
+throbs, its desires and its hopes and fears, and these are of such
+abundance that there are always contacts. But the loneliness of the mind
+is a world where there is scarcely any sound of footsteps, few voices
+call, and sometimes it is deathly cold, and that is why I write to _you_
+to-night.
+
+I listened again. (_Joie et sentiments de reconnaissance après l’orage.
+Allegretto._) And I suddenly realized how unsubstantial, for all their
+thickness, are the towers wherein each dwells isolated from some near
+happiness, shut off from some close beatitude, that for a dissolving
+touch might be his own. And I found that the completed harmonies of the
+lovely finale, “_Herr, wir danken Dir_,” were seeking my mortal ear,
+and my soul was being regained to tranquillity. My mind was turned from
+untimely vanishings, or the despair of men of middle life who go up
+to battle, and from all the company of those who “have wrapped about
+themselves the blue-black cloud of death,” and I saw again visions,
+felicities, progressions, accomplishments. Then, not bearing less
+beneficent harmonies, I went out, and Hope, with lovely, veiled, outcast,
+undesired Peace, accompanied me through the warm Savoyan night. But
+they left me at the door of my dwelling, as the one-armed _concierge_
+saluted me, and the one-legged lift-man (symbols of my real world) took
+me up-stairs. Now I am alone with thoughts of him who gave to melody its
+eternal fashion and to music itself its furthest soul, and would that you
+had listened with me!... You who will not, Peace!...
+
+M. Guérin’s book-loving, artistic, perceptive son, _en permission_, with
+a dreadful cold, was at lunch, Colonel ——, and several other men. Mr. G.,
+whose family have been part owners of the Lunéville porcelain-factories
+for one hundred and fifty years, is charming, erudite, and afterward,
+over our coffee by his library fire, we talked politics and literature
+and music. I had just been reading Madame de Staël’s _De l’Allemagne_,
+not at all in favor just now, which I had picked up on her centenary.
+
+“_Une exaltée_,” said one of the officers.
+
+“That is not enough to say of one who always had the courage of her
+convictions,” I answered, and recalled the conversation between her and
+Benjamin Constant when under the Consulate he threw himself into the
+opposition.
+
+“_Voilà_,” he said, “_votre salon rempli de personnes qui vous plaisent;
+si je parle demain, il sera désert; pensez-y_.”[14]
+
+And she answered, “_Il faut suivre sa conviction_.”
+
+“She certainly followed out her convictions; but what did Madame de
+Staël know of the Germans?” pursued the colonel. “She saw them in the
+quite factitious setting of the Weimar Court, and was intoxicated by
+the play of mind. Those _beaux esprits_ presented the character and the
+future of their race, through rose-colored clouds of Romanticism, to one
+of the most charming and gifted women another race had ever produced, _et
+puis elle rentre et elle écrit de l’Allemagne! Cela serait comique si ce
+n’était pas si triste._”
+
+“Don’t you think both sides played up,” I asked, “at those Weimar
+suppers? She was under the charm of philosophers and musicians, and they
+under the charm of her wit and appreciation. I keep thinking how they all
+enjoyed it—and how those black eyes flashed under the heavy red-and-gold
+turban.”
+
+“Without doubt it was more than agreeable. I only complain that she was
+in a position to mislead succeeding generations, and did so. She seems to
+have had no _flair_, and because she got the personal enthusiasm, the hot
+striking of mind against mind, that was at once her gift and her delight,
+she glorifies a nation that later makes furious attempts to destroy hers.”
+
+I then remarked, but a bit warily: “Talking of centenaries, I have just
+had in my hands the discourse of Wagner on the centenary of Beethoven. It
+has fire.”
+
+“We won’t talk of Wagner, the mere memory of a phrase scorches one’s
+ear. Beethoven, yes, for all time, but we French can’t listen to Wagner
+now. He’s like a hot iron on seared flesh—or a rake in a wound. We want
+nothing more to do with the Lohengrins and the Tannhäusers and the
+Siegfrieds. I only wish they had been annihilated with their Walhalla.”
+
+“These beings, however, were potential in the German race. Madame de
+Staël got their projections, together with the metaphysics of Goethe and
+his contemporaries, and carried away with her the memory of a blue-eyed
+people lost in metaphysical dreams, passionately loving poetry and music.”
+
+“Yes, and presented them to us as an example of all the social virtues.
+Look at history,” said another officer, with a gesture toward the east.
+
+One _can_ talk of other things besides the booming of cannon, even in
+Lunéville—but not with complete pleasure.
+
+Then E. M. and I departed to take a _tournée_ about the country. But the
+Ford reposing in the Guérins’ garage was completely unresponsive; it
+might have been dead. It appears it hates cold weather. A dozen officers
+are billeted in the Guérins’ house; two of their orderlies and the butler
+tried to crank it. The only signs of life were in the handle, which from
+time to time flew round with extraordinary rapidity. We called out to one
+not-over-cautious soldier, “Be careful; you will break your arm.”
+
+He only answered:
+
+“If that happens I shall have two or three months of tranquillity.” And
+that’s how _he_ felt anent the breaking of his arm!
+
+At last we found ourselves on the road bounded by the meadows of the
+silent crosses, skirting the hill of Léomont, with its great scars of
+1914 shell-holes, beneath which is a little village with the strange name
+of Anthelupt. The Romans were all about here and it was once “Antelucus”
+(before the sacred grove), and afterward was a dependence of the priory
+of Léomont built on the site of the ancient temple to the moon. Then
+we found ourselves on the broad ridge of road leading to Crévic. Great
+stretches of Lorraine, _l’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_, were flung
+out before us under rain-clouds and sunbursts—lovely stretches, with
+fields of mustard greedy for the light, blowing patches of red-stemmed
+osier, and everywhere fields of beet-root in which women and old men and
+little children were working, piling high red-white mounds or separating
+the wilted leaves into greenish-yellow piles.
+
+Crévic is shot to bits. Of the château of General Lyautey[15] but a few
+crumbling walls remain. Though the piles of stones and mortar are covered
+with the green of three summers’ growth, still the cannon are booming to
+the east and north. The perfectly banal church is intact. People were
+walking about the streets and improvised roofs cover some sort of homes,
+and there seemed many very little children. We passed out over an old
+bridge in a dazzling sunburst, while a great curtain of rain hung to the
+west near Dombasle, the smoke-columns of whose hundred chimneys caught
+and held and reflected the gorgeous afternoon light, and there were other
+great stretches of unspeakable beauty, soft, rolling, and radiant—crying
+out about the generations that have bent over them.
+
+The great village of Haraucourt has a lovely destroyed church of pure
+Gothic that workmen are at last roofing over; but three winters have
+already passed over its beauty, unsheltered and unguarded. We go out
+through the village in the direction of Dombasle, and suddenly against
+some gorgeous masses of clouds we see an _avion de chasse_, “type
+Nieuport,” as E. M., who has ample reason to be expert in things aerial,
+tells me. There is a moment when it is a great silver brooch pinning two
+gray velvety curtains together, where a ray of blinding light falls. Then
+it makes a series of marvelous _vrilles_, and I say to her, “How can men
+who do that love finite woman?” A great observation balloon, _saucisse_,
+hung in the sky, and another broad shaft of light lay on the far hills
+behind which lie intrenched gray-clad men with pointed helmets.
+
+At this moment a _panne_. The only thing in sight is a long line of
+war-supply wagons drawn by tired horses, and women and old men and
+children bending over their eternal piles of beet-root. But E. M. said,
+“Sooner than change that tire, I’ll bury the Ford by the road.” So we
+bumped and crawled along till we met a line of _camions_. The first
+was driven by a handsome, tall, very small-handed, extremely polite
+Frenchman, who knew Fords, having been four months with Piatt Andrew
+at the Field Service Ambulance in the rue Raynouard, and who agreed to
+change it for us.
+
+A hail-storm, like a pelting of diamonds, as sudden bursts of light
+caught it, came up in the middle of the operation, which was finally
+completed with expressions of mutual satisfaction. The shining storm
+was withdrawn like a curtain, showing the sun on the great stretches,
+and Dombasle with the smoke of its hundred chimneys was a thing
+of inexpressible beauty, while behind it were the great towers of
+St.-Nicolas du Port, for which we decided to make a dash. We got into
+it, through Dombasle, as a perfect rainbow rose from the Meurthe and
+disappeared into the horizon, where the gray-clad men with the pointed
+helmets are intrenched.
+
+“For luck,” said E. M.
+
+But I asked, “Whose luck?” the rainbow evidently being neutral.
+
+We had some difficulty in finding anything but the towers of the church.
+There is no square in front; tiny streets encircle it on all sides. But
+we at last got into the narrow street in front of the cathedral, which is
+called “_Des Trois Pucelles_,” in memory of the three young girls to whom
+St.-Nicolas gave a _dot_. I was not alone in remembering that he is the
+patron saint of those contemplating matrimony.
+
+The church is of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and among the
+largest of the Gothic churches of Lorraine. Swelling-breasted pigeons
+with gorgeous pink and red and green and purple upon their throats were
+nestled against the beautiful carvings of the gray portals, and much
+soft cooing was going on. Above the central door, in the _trumeau_, is
+a statue of the saint said to have been done by the brother of Ligier
+Richier, and I thought of the lovely Gothic fireplace by Ligier Richier
+himself taken from St.-Mihiel, and now at Ochre Court in Newport.
+
+Noble interior, though the pillars have had the beautiful sharpness
+of their chiseling blunted by much painting and whitewashing. There
+are remains of early frescoes on some of the croisillons, and near a
+door I found a tiny, ancient painting representing scenes in the life
+of St.-Nicolas, inclosed in glass in a modern varnished wooden frame.
+Somewhere in the pavement of the church is a certain potent slab, and
+she who steps upon it is married within the year. Its exact position is
+not known, but I told E. M. to take an exhaustive walk about and commend
+herself to heaven and the saint.
+
+When we came out into the ancient streets the western sky was aflame and
+there were translucent pale greens ahead of us. We turned again toward
+the open road and Dombasle, named after a monk of the fifth century.
+Hermits brought the first civilization to these forests, followed by the
+great bishops and the builder-monks, who constructed the immense abbeys
+and the churches of Lorraine. Dombasle from some mysterious wilderness
+had become what I saw it that afternoon. From the chimneys of its
+munition-factories, against the amber sky, there poured and twisted a
+wonder of gray and white and deep brown and violet smoke. The darkening,
+soot-blackened streets were overflowing with human energies spilling
+themselves into the greedy war-machine. There are vast monotonous
+workingmen’s quarters, and everywhere children, little children, being
+trampled in the wine-press....
+
+It was dark when we drew up in front of the house of the _maire_, Mr.
+Keller, the celebrated house where the Prince de Beauvau was born, where
+the beautiful Princesse de Craon had most of the twenty children, where
+the Treaty of Lunéville was signed in 1801, and where, in 1914, the
+_maire_ lodged the generals of the German army. Madame was still at her
+hospital, so we left our cards and came back to the hotel.
+
+Now I must leave the almost Capuan delights of this pleasant room to
+motor a hundred kilometers. Nancy, Toul, the antique Tullum, and back, is
+the program. It’s raining, it’s hailing, it’s blowing, but I bethink me
+of St.-Mansuy and St.-Epvre, the great Bishop of Toul, and those other
+saints, St.-Eucarius and St.-Loup, starting out in all kinds of weather,
+and of the _œuvre_ that we are to visit, founded last summer for children
+gathered in 1917 from villages where there had been bad gas attacks. The
+history of Lorraine piles high about me—the cannon boom. What a day to
+lie with your life’s blood flowing from you in wet beet-root fields....
+The motor horn sounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TOUL
+
+
+                                                           _October 13th._
+
+We lunched at the Café Stanislas yesterday after the wildest of drives
+into Nancy, the Ford seeming like an autumn leaf in the high wind. We
+did ourselves well, even I, who care not a farthing what I eat except to
+“stoke the engine.” The proprietor, who left Alsace as a boy after 1870,
+stood and talked to us, as we ate our _œufs au beurre noir_, as French
+people alone can talk. He said “they” came only with fire and sword;
+the great Napoleon, who came with the same, had also his “Code” in his
+pocket. Then he spoke of the marvelous administration of Germany, the
+order and the use made of each one’s capacities, which was why they could
+_tenir_.
+
+“We only ask for a leader here in France, to be _bien menés_. All other
+things we have in abundance. But if a department is to be organized or
+reconstructed, it seems always to be given into the hands of some one
+knowing nothing about it.”
+
+In between I kept looking out where against gray skies beings half child,
+half angel hold up stone flames, and _panaches_ leaning one against the
+other. The gilding of the _grilles_ has a dull gleam through the wet.
+The statue of Stanislas _le Bienfaisant_ was black and big. Everybody
+was talking about the unexpected visit of the German _avion_ in the bad
+weather the night before.
+
+The station was further devastated, a train moving out was wrecked and
+many _permissionnaires_ killed, a house near the Hôtel Excelsior et
+d’Angleterre was totally demolished, the _avion_ flying very low, not
+more than twenty-five meters above the town at one time. After lunch we
+went over to the prefect’s house, from where we were to motor with him
+to Toul. He could not go with us, as he was out investigating the damage
+of the night before, but one of his daughters was waiting for us in the
+Prefecture motor.
+
+_Le Grand Couronné_ was but a ridge of mist and clouds as we passed
+out of town, but it was there that the Germans were held up and Nancy
+was saved that first September of the war, there that was written the
+_paraphe de Castelnau_, and from there the German Emperor had looked into
+France.
+
+I never should have known Lorraine if I had not seen it gray and wet
+under its autumn skies, bands of lemon and amber at sunset finishing
+the garb of its gray days. As we sped along I could just distinguish
+the landscape—villages lost in the immense stretch of the plains, and
+great forests of beech and oak in which are strange, mysterious ponds
+(_étangs_), and before my mind passed for an instant images of those
+solitaries of the twilight centuries, slipping through them with staff
+and scrip, after the Romans, and bringing to the land the things Rome
+tried to destroy.
+
+A beautifully kept straight road leads to Toul. From time to time one
+sees rusty barbed-wire entanglements and camouflaged trenches, for, on
+this road, had the Germans taken Nancy, they would have come to Toul, as
+they did in 1870. Outside the town are double ramparts, where the guard
+stopped us, but the military chauffeur cried the magic words, “_Monsieur
+le Préfet_,” and we passed in through the Porte de Metz, dating from
+the time of Vauban, then skirted the town, to get to the barracks of
+Luxembourg, where hundreds of little children, first gathered together
+by Madame Mirman, are now being taken care of by the American Red Cross.
+It is conducted by Doctor Sedgwick, unfortunately in Paris. It seemed a
+dreary spot that afternoon, and it has since been confided to me that the
+weather is always dreadful there. The barracks are after the new model of
+groups of one-storied houses, which, it appears, have also disadvantages,
+as well as the large buildings they superseded.[16]
+
+It was raining and hailing and blowing as we made blind dashes from one
+to the other with the French directors. A consolation to find oneself in
+the dormitories where many blessed tiny babies lay asleep (or howling!)
+in little cots or perambulators, out of the horrid cold.
+
+They are not always orphans, but their mothers work in the fields of
+Lorraine or in the munitions-factories. Doctor Peel, second in charge,
+came at last from a distant building, and met us in the school-room, out
+of which a hundred noisy, warm, well-fed children were scuffling. Tea was
+offered us, but we came away; time was short and I was a-hungered, after
+the cold, windy, wet desolation of the Luxembourg barracks, for a sight
+of the beautiful cathedral.
+
+Some one said, “Why ‘sight-seeing’?” but I said, “It’s soul-seeing.” And
+there was some lifting of the being as we stepped into the loveliness
+of the pale-gray vaulting of the church of St.-Étienne. At the end of
+the apse was an immense, high, narrow, blue window, and it reminded me
+of Huysmans’s phrase about the cathedral of Chartres, “_Une blonde aux
+yeux bleus._” We stepped over worn _pierres tombales_, and as I stood on
+one of them, whose date, scarcely decipherable, was fifteen hundred and
+something, I looked up and saw in the wall a new marble plaque, and it
+was to the memory of “_Jean Bourhis, aviateur-pilote, chevalier de la
+Légion d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre, né 1888.... Mort glorieusement pour
+la Patrie, le 22 mars, 1916._” And so one’s thoughts are jerked from the
+past into the dreadful, sacramental present.
+
+Close by the cathedral is the Hôtel de Ville, once the Episcopal Palace,
+a gem of the eighteenth century. We stepped from the little square in
+front of the church into the wet, wind-swept garden. At one end is a
+flat, round fountain, and behind it is a moss-grown statue of a woman
+in contemplation, and one side of the garden is hedged in by the flying
+buttresses and gargoyles of the cathedral. Broad, low steps lead down to
+its gravel walks from the terrace of the Palace, onto which open long
+windows, forming a great hemicycle. I did not need to see it under warm,
+sunset skies, with the linden-trees of the garden in full blossom, to be
+possessed of its charm.
+
+An American soldier was coming out of the cathedral as we issued from the
+garden in a gust of wind which blew my umbrella wrong side out, and when
+I and it were righted he was gone. But it’s all a part of history.
+
+We went for a moment to St.-Gengoult, the old Gothic church in the rue
+Carnot. (Like every town in Lorraine and in the whole of France there is
+a rue Carnot, and it’s horribly monotonous when your soul is aflame.)
+
+As we entered, a thick rich light came through the ancient windows.
+
+A black-robed woman was sobbing before a grave and pitying statue of
+St.-Anne—sixteenth or seventeenth century, I didn’t know which—and a
+pale, tiny child with a frightened look was standing by her. Again I
+thought on the oceans of fear children have passed through in this war,
+and again I besought God to take care of His world.
+
+As I passed up the central aisle I saw two American soldiers kneeling
+before the high altar. That spot of khaki and its young, unmistakable
+silhouette under the gray vaulting of that old church suddenly seemed
+momentous beyond anything I had ever seen. It was the country of my birth
+and my love pursuing its gigantic destiny down an endless vista, crowded
+with uncountable khaki-clad forms, men with souls. The two anonymous
+soldiers became typical of each and every Miles Gloriosus since the world
+began, and as they knelt there on the altar steps I knew that they had
+been laid on that other dreadful altar of the world’s sin....
+
+An open door showed us the way to a lovely Gothic cloister of the
+sixteenth century, surrounding a tree- and flower-planted court. It had
+a few fresh chippings on its _belle patine_, the results of a bomb which
+fell in it a few months ago.
+
+Long lines of soldiers’ socks were hung on strings across one corner of
+it, and soldiers were sitting in a little room-like corridor, leading
+I know not where, reading newspapers, whistling and writing. Then,
+out through a delightful sixteenth-century door into the streets, the
+loveliness of Toul imagined rather than really perceived, for the rain
+was falling again. Khaki-clad men of the _Division marocaine_, together
+with blue-clad companions, were threading their way through the narrow
+streets, and there were few women and children. I thought how I had seen
+the two towers of the church shining from afar as I passed by in the
+train that June evening with the two Bretons whose fate I shall never
+know.... Did the one from Nantes return to hold his first-born in his
+arms? Or the fiancé return to consummate his nuptials?
+
+Then I caught sight of my own two soldiers standing at the door of a
+little tobacco-shop. I suppose it was the nearest resemblance to anything
+familiar in Toul, and they were rather cuddling up to it. They smiled
+broadly when they heard themselves addressed in what they termed the
+“blessed lingo,” and called it “some luck.”
+
+“I was just thinking, ‘me for the coop,’” genially continued the biggest,
+raw-boned, lantern-jawed one who had a bad bronchial cold and wore a
+muffler about his throat. He turned out to be from Omaha; the smaller
+one was from Hackensack, N.J. (with an emphasis on the N.J.). We talked
+about simple and unglorious matters, what they had for breakfast, among
+other things, and it was, in parenthesis, what any Frenchman would call
+a dinner—ham and eggs and oatmeal and white bread (which none save
+American soldiers get in France these days) and jam and coffee. They were
+from Pagny-sur-Meuse near by—pronounced “Pag-ni” by the Omaha man. The
+Hackensack man avoided it. He quite simply wanted “the war to begin,” so
+that he might “show the Germans how.”
+
+“We’re sure to lick ’em in the spring,” the one with the cold said, “but
+it’s a long time waiting for the fun to begin, and I haven’t been warm
+since I got here.”
+
+I asked them how they came into France.
+
+“All I know is that after we got off the boat we were three days in some
+sort of a milk-train; there wasn’t room to sit, let alone lie. We drew
+lots and I got the baggage-rack; but what saved us was that we could
+get out at every station, and, believe me, the fellows that got drunk
+were the only ones that pulled in all right—the others were sent up to
+hospital soon as they arrived.”
+
+In the best and most persuasive of Y.M.C.A. manners I said to this
+special Miles Gloriosus:
+
+“It isn’t a remedy, however, that you could really count on.”
+
+“But I say,” answered the Omaha man, “you’ll own up that it’s worth
+trying.”
+
+It was getting late and, the Omaha man having the best of it, we parted
+with smiles of mutual appreciation. It’s all so simple—and so momentous.
+
+Then back to Nancy, running swiftly over a white road, the gray sky very
+low, and on either side green and yellow and brown fields, and the oak
+and beech forest of Haye. The _Grand Couronné_ for a moment was divested
+of its mists, and some brightening of the western sky touched its ridge
+with a subdued splendor; and then we got into Nancy and were deposited
+at the Prefecture, where we made our adieux. We proceeded to the garage
+of a stoutish, blond man of pronounced Teuton type and accent, with an
+uncertain smile—and a coreless heart, I think—who cranked _la Ford_ (by
+the way, Fords change their sex in France), and we started out through
+the town that night was enveloping, with but one dull eye to light us to
+Lunéville. We thought the trip might prove fairly uncertain, but didn’t
+know how much so till there was an impact, in the crowded suburb, and
+a horse’s form with legs in air, looking as big as a monster of the
+Pliocene age, showed for an instant on our radiator, then fell to the
+ground. A crowd immediately gathered, while the driver of the cart
+proceeded to tell us what he thought of us in particular and women
+drivers in general. But, though unfortunate, we felt blameless, as the
+horse had been tied _behind_ the wagon standing at the curb and there
+was no light, except something very dim coming from a green-grocer’s.
+We departed to the _commissaire de police_ with the man and a couple of
+gendarmes, explained that we were willing to do anything and everything
+if he would only let us proceed to Lunéville, gave the magic name
+“Commission Californienne,” and equally potent reference to the _Préfet
+de la Meurthe et Moselle_ whose house we had just left. Then with
+beating hearts and a chastened outlook on life—I use the word “outlook”
+rather wildly; we couldn’t see anything—we passed out through the great
+manufacturing district. Every now and then our feeble ray was swallowed
+up by the great lamps of a military auto or the large round headlight
+of a _camion_. As we passed through St.-Nicolas du Port and Dombasle
+the blue of the soldiers’ tunics took on a strange ghoul-like color, a
+white incandescent sort of gray, and the moving forms seemed twice their
+natural size. We couldn’t see the streets at all, and the only thing we
+wanted to do in all the world was to get to Lunéville and run _la Ford_
+into the garage of M. Guérin.
+
+When that was accomplished we decided to say good-by to the proud world,
+sent regrets to Mlle. Guérin, and had a much more modest repast served in
+my room by the deft maid, whose husband got typhoid fever in the trenches
+and died at Epinal last year. Later the mistress of the house came up to
+know if we were comfortable, and told us her husband, too, had died of it
+in hospital at Toul. And then I read _Les Vieux Châteaux de la Vesouze_,
+a modern _Etude lorraine_, and _Promenades autour de Lunéville_, printed
+in 1838, to the accompaniment of rattling windows and the heavy boom of
+distant cannon. All else was quiet. Near my room is a device plastered
+on the wall, _Qui tient à sa tranquillité sait respecter celle des
+autres_. Isn’t it nice? It makes one steal in at night, get into slippers
+immediately, and ring gently in the morning.
+
+It is still raining, hailing, blowing—dreadfully discouraging weather to
+investigate the amours of the eighteenth century, and I have a couple of
+twentieth-century idyls right under my eyes, too. I had planned a stroll
+in the park to trace the steps of Léopold and Stanislas to the doors of
+the fairest of ladies, and Panpan and St.-Lambert and the Chevalier de
+Boufflers, and all the other _charmeurs_. I’ll either have to leave them
+out of the Journal or do them in some half-dream when I’m back in Paris
+and warm! What _they_ did in this sort of weather I don’t know, except
+that when they knocked at a door or tapped at a window they were sure of
+tender welcomes, they and the easy verses that accompanied them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A STROLL IN NANCY
+
+
+                                                           _October 15th._
+
+I spent yesterday a-wandering in the old streets of Nancy, between gusts
+of wind and rain and great bursts of sun. After much coaxing, _la Ford_
+was cajoled into taking the road at 9.30, but as we got to Nancy and into
+the Place Stanislas suddenly her front wheels spread apart. E. M. gave
+one glance, but not at all the glance of despair she would have given had
+it happened on the road, and then flew to seek her waiting bridegroom
+at the Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre, while I, less enthusiastically,
+sought the blond chauffeur of the coreless heart. He seemed quite human,
+as, unscrewing the bar in front, which crumbled softly like a piece of
+bread, he held up a piece and said, “_C’était fait pour vous casser le
+cou_.”
+
+Seeing the American flag flying from the ground-floor window of one of
+the beautiful old buildings of the Place Stanislas, I went in to find
+Mrs. Dawson installed in charge of the Nancy branch of the “American Fund
+for French Wounded.” It was another novelty for Stanislas to look upon
+out of his _right_ eye! He’s been kept busy, these past three years,
+looking about him. The large room was filled with furniture M. Mirman is
+collecting for refugees—wardrobes, tables, chairs, in and on which were
+piles of shirts, vests, sweaters, _cachenez_, handkerchiefs, all from
+over the ocean. And really, when one investigates the comfort-bags filled
+by too-generous American hands, one has a cupidous feeling. There is a
+lavishness in the matter of Colgate’s tooth-paste, for instance, which
+one can rarely get for love, and not at all for money, in Paris!
+
+I came away in a gray, slanting rain that made the Place Stanislas look
+as if Raffaello had done it over and framed it beautifully in gray. Great
+scratchings of rainfall, and soldiers and women hurrying through it.
+But _le geste_ is not like the days when Raffaello painted—there are no
+skirts to lift up, or, rather, none that need lifting.
+
+Then I crossed over to the Place de la Carrière, where _souvent en ces
+aimables lieux des héros et des demi-dieux_ had held their tournaments,
+and then into the church of St.-Epvre to get a Mass. The stained-glass
+windows, modern and very expensive-looking, were crisscrossed with broad
+stripes of paper on the side toward the railway, where the shocks from
+the frequent bombing of the station are especially felt. Everywhere in
+Nancy the windows are broken, or crisscrossed with paper, or both. The
+church was blue with military.
+
+Afterward I walked through the Grande Rue. The ducal palace of the
+early sixteenth century, begun by René II, has its door scaffolded and
+sandbagged. It is the celebrated _Musée Lorrain_, whose treasures are now
+removed further from the frontier. It is here that the body of Charles
+III lay in such magnificence that there arose the saying in the sixteenth
+century that the three most gorgeous ceremonies in the world were the
+consecration of a king of France at Reims, the crowning of an emperor of
+Germany at Frankfort, and the obsequies of a duke of Lorraine at Nancy.
+
+I continued down the Grande Rue between groups of _poilus_, officers, and
+the usual Sunday population coming from Mass, or getting in last dinner
+provisions, to the Porte de Graffe of the fourteenth century, beyond
+which is the Porte de la Citadelle, and then the garrison. As one walks
+along, the snatches of talk one overhears are “_Bombardé deux fois_,”
+“_Pas un vitre qui reste_,” “_Volant très-bas_,” etc.
+
+I came back through the park. In it is a modern iron bandstand,
+fortunately copied after the delicious designs of Jean Lamour—only _he_
+would have done something to relieve the heavy iron roof. And he quite
+certainly caught his inspiration musing about the park one autumn day,
+for everywhere I saw charming repetitions of his _grilles_ in that
+delicate tracery of yellow leaf against gray trunk and branch.
+
+Old houses give on the park, where one might dream dreams, and find the
+world—perhaps well lost. Many windows broken, and more crisscrossing with
+bands of paper.
+
+It was getting to be 12.30 when, having been as much of an angel as the
+three dimensions permit, I emerged on to the Place Stanislas to see E. M.
+approaching with a young blue-clad aviator, with something distinguished
+yet modest in his bearing, of whom I instantly thought he is one of those
+_qui cherche sa récompense plutôt dans les yeux de ses hommes que dans
+les notes de ses chefs_—and so it proved to be. He didn’t even wear the
+_brisquets_ of his years of service on his arm.
+
+“_Tout le monde sait que je n’ai pas été trois ans sans rien faire_,” he
+said, later, during lunch, which we took in the Café Stanislas, crowded
+with gallooned and decorated officers. Several red-and-white marked autos
+of the General Staff were waiting before the door, where Stanislas
+also could see them, and those beings, half human, half divine, of the
+sky-line, framed it all. Afterward I again removed my three dimensions,
+hunting for M. Pierre Boyé, the great authority on all things of
+Lorraine, M. Guérin having given me a letter to him. On arriving at the
+house, through quiet gray streets, there was no answer to my numerous
+ringings of the bell, so I came back, drawn irresistibly to the Place
+Stanislas. By this time it was aglow in the afternoon light; great masses
+of clouds even at 3.30 were tinted with yellow and orange, and every inch
+of gilding caught the light. I hailed an antique cab and drove out where
+I could look over rolling stretches of country, along the road to Toul.
+The brown and yellow fields were aglow, the bronzing forests, too; above
+were piled the high and splendid clouds of autumnal Lorraine, and I saw
+where Claude le Lorrain had got _his_ masses. The _cocher_ then proceeded
+to bring me back to town by a perfectly hideous road, called Quai Claude
+le Lorrain—on one side the blackened railway, on the other modern
+claptrappy houses with their windows shattered and their roofs damaged.
+
+I then told him to take me to the church of the Cordeliers, where I
+stepped suddenly, not only into its late afternoon dimness, but into the
+dimness of past ages. A shaft of light from a high window showed me a
+dull, rich bit of color on an ancient pillar, in a sort of chapel; and
+then my eye fell on what I had come to see, the tomb of the Duchesse
+Philippe de Gueldre, widow of René II, bearing the incomparable stamp of
+the genius of Ligier Richier.
+
+I tiptoed toward the stone slab where that great lady of another age
+is lying asleep, clad in the dark robe of the Poor Clares. Her hands,
+folded downward, are clasped at her waist. Under the cowl the pale head
+is turned gently, as if in sleep.[17] She is an enduring image of
+resignation, not alone for herself, but for all of us who live and die,
+we don’t quite know how or why, and who must “endure our going hence even
+as our coming hither.”
+
+The church was constructed by her husband, René II, Duke of Lorraine,
+to commemorate the deliverance of Nancy and the defeat of Charles the
+Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1477. Duke René himself had a glorious reign;
+for him the arts and letters were the ornament of victory. I discovered
+a commemorative monument of my friend Duke Léopold, flanked rather
+flamboyantly by unquiet, yet charming, statues of Faith and Hope! Also an
+elaborate statue of Katerina Opalinska, the consort of Stanislas, who,
+though he had been somewhat forgetful of her in life, had done really
+all that a wife could wish in the matter of the tomb. But some virtue
+more mystic than the decorative Faith and Hope of the eighteenth century
+exhaled from the quiet figure of Philippe de Gueldre.
+
+Near the high altar is the Chapelle Ronde begun by Charles III, the
+grandson of René, in 1607, intended as a sepulcher for the princes of
+Lorraine, and in a beautiful _grille_ are entwined the arms of Lorraine
+and Austria. Then the sacristan came in to light the candles of the
+high altar, the church got suddenly quite dark, from the organ came
+the strains of “_O quam suavis est, Domine_,” and people began to come
+in to Benediction. The blue and vermilion and gold of the mausoleum of
+René II faded and one saw only vague outlines of saints and angels, and
+a figure of the Eternal Father. It cried out of that other deliverance
+of Nancy; but when the world war is over will his widow, Philippe de
+Gueldre, _conjunx Piissimi_, still be sleeping quietly, her brown cowl
+over her head and her crown at her feet? Her soul “conducted to Paradise
+by angels, where martyrs received her and led her into the Holy City
+Jerusalem.” The church got quite full, the organist continued to play
+early Italian music, and the “Pietà, Signor” of Pergolese rose as I knelt
+by Philippe de Gueldre. The great cope of the priest shone, the smell of
+incense pervaded the dim spaces, the “_Tantum Ergo_” sounded, and I bowed
+my head....
+
+Then out into a world of fading light, found the _cocher_ in the exact
+attitude I had left him, and begged him to drive quickly (which was
+impossible) to the Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre, bethinking me of the
+5.30 train to Lunéville. As we went through the dim, charming streets I
+remembered an old verse I had found in one of M. Guérin’s books, by an
+unreservedly admiring individual, who said that if he had one foot in
+Paradise and the other in Nancy, he would withdraw the one in Paradise,
+that both might be in Nancy!
+
+I found waiting at the door of the hotel E. M., the _distingué_ young
+aviator, and Don Kelley, _en permission_ for twenty-four hours from
+Gondrecourt, strong and eager, since a week at Gondrecourt, since a month
+in France for the first time in his life.
+
+The young men took us to the station and deposited us in the train and
+made their adieux. For very special reasons at that moment I said to E.
+M.:
+
+“If you are going back to Lunéville on _my_ account, don’t!”
+
+The guard had closed the door of the compartment, had sounded his
+whistle, but I caught the look in her eye and out we jumped, returning
+to the hotel, where we gave what we hoped was a pleasant surprise
+party. _Dîner à quatre_ at seven o’clock. About a dozen Americans _en
+permission_ were dining among many Frenchmen, and we amused ourselves
+investigating the multicolored intricacies of the various uniforms,
+aviators, cavalry, infantry, artillery, and the many “grades.” Then again
+a dash for the station—Count de L. had to get to Paris, and Don Kelley to
+Gondrecourt. The latter said, as we stood in the dark, battered station:
+
+“I am where I would most want to be in the world, and, though I am an
+only son, I am where my parents would most wish me to be. When I get back
+to Gondrecourt and get into that long, dark shed and see the men rolled
+up, and if it is raining, the water dripping in, I shall know it is the
+real thing, and those of my generation who have known it and those who
+have not will be forever divided.”
+
+Permissions not being among things safely trifled with, we then saw them
+into their train, which was leaving first, and crossed the rails to where
+ours, dark, filled with returning officers, was waiting; and so out into
+the night with all curtains carefully drawn, the stars shining. It was
+a _nuit à boches_, one of the officers said, continuing, “It’s often
+an obsession with them—for a long time they won’t come near Nancy or
+Lunéville, and then every night when it is at all clear they appear.” The
+inhabitants can choose (in their minds) between good weather and _avions_
+or bad weather and safety.
+
+Trains from Nancy to Lunéville seem to have a way of hunting up stations,
+threading them up, and what one does easily in three-quarters of an hour
+in a motor takes an hour and a half to three, according to the stops. At
+Blainville we descended to show our _sauf-conduits_, the guard standing
+just behind a convenient puddle that every one splashed into and then
+stepped out of. Finally, Lunéville, night-enveloped, lighted only with
+flashes from electric pocket-lamps, like great fireflies. And coming
+through the night from Nancy, I kept thinking how France had done enough,
+more than enough, the impossible, and what a cold and dreadful grind the
+war had become, and of untried young Americans sleeping in dim villages
+so near. And many other things that it is bootless to record. _Nous
+sommes dedans._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+VITRIMONT IN AUTUMN
+
+
+Out of Lunéville over the muddy Vesouze, through the Place Brûlée, and
+onto a pasty road, E. M. driving, and, on the back seat, newly wedded
+love. As we left the town a dwarf made a face at us and then turned his
+back on us with a not over-elegant gesture, for all the world like the
+tales of the famous dwarf Bébé, during years the delight of the Court of
+Stanislas.
+
+Mustard and osier plantings became the intensest yellow or red, as the
+sun fell on them through rifts in dark clouds, and many women, old men,
+and children were working in wet beet-root fields, among little groupings
+of black crosses....
+
+We got into Vitrimont through streets deep in mud. Such a change! Before
+reaching it, instead of the skeleton outline of homes one now sees
+orderly rows of red roofs. The work that had seemed almost stationary,
+pursued with so much difficulty by Comtesse de B. (Miss Polk), had got
+suddenly to a point where it began to show, though the finished houses
+will be too damp for habitation this winter, and, like a lot of other
+things, must await the spring.
+
+Everywhere in the streets the busy work of reconstruction is proceeding.
+Soldiers billeted in Vitrimont are coming and going, helping with
+masonry, bringing in great wagons of beet-root, as if they had always
+lived there; not _en passant par la Lorraine_. It’s a very human
+document, this billeting of soldiers; though, as far as they are
+concerned, when they leave a village they only change their residence.
+For the women the thing is much more serious. _They_ get a change of
+regiment. However, I have no time to muse on this detail of the war.
+Things in Vitrimont were simply taking their inevitable course. Nothing
+is held back for long, with the generations pressing thick and fast.
+Black-aproned children with books on their backs, to whom E. M. gave
+little slabs of chocolate, were coming from the new school-house. Old men
+were hobbling about, and women bending over embroidery frames, in houses
+often half destroyed and hastily roofed over. In the old days Lorraine
+furnished beautiful damasks and gold galloons and laces to Paris and
+Versailles.
+
+We stopped by a window where a thin-faced woman was just taking from its
+frame a beautiful beaded bag such as one would buy very, very dear in the
+Rue de la Paix. Near her sat an old woman, her mother, the light falling
+on her pale, withered face, wearing a great black-bowed head-dress, a
+yellow cat in her lap. It was an _intérieur_ that would have done honor
+to any great museum.
+
+We visited Mlle. Antoine, living in a reconstructed street named after
+a Polish prince. She escaped to Lunéville with her servant on the day
+of the entry of the Germans into the village, August 23, 1914, fleeing
+through the ancient forest, but returned to her Lares and Penates a few
+days afterward with German passes. She represents culture in the village,
+and is clear-eyed, sweet-voiced, but with two red spots on her cheeks—she
+is fighting off consumption by living out of doors with her chickens and
+live stock, in sabots and apron and shawl. A beautiful old desk was in
+her living-room, and there was a discussion as to whether it was Louis
+XVI or Directoire, but under any name one would have loved to possess it.
+The windows looked out onto the inevitable dung-heap, but beyond were
+bronzing forests, and, in between, fields the color of semi-precious
+stones.
+
+[Illustration: MISS POLK’S WEDDING
+
+The Comtesse de Buyer (Miss Polk) on the arm of Monsieur Mirman, Prefect
+of the Meurthe et Moselle, after her wedding at Vitrimont, September,
+1917.]
+
+Hearing the sound of music as we passed the church, we went in and found
+some young girls were practising a “_Credo_,” clustered about the little
+organ, and wearing brooches with a device of thistle and double Lorraine
+cross that Madame de Buyer had given them on her wedding-day. I looked
+again upon the lovely old fifteenth-century vaulting, fully restored,
+shifting my eye hurriedly from the hideous but seemingly imperishable
+dado with its design of painted folds of cloth. At the door the little
+holy water fonts, formed of shells held upon two heads of seraphim, gave
+me a thrill of joy—and sadness, too, that beauty is so perishable.
+
+Then I turned to the cemetery. The little pathways were muddy beneath the
+leafless trees. Bead crosses and wreaths and a few stunted chrysanthemums
+decorated the wet graves. All seasons are the same to the dead. I stood
+by a breach in the wall near the grave of “_Charles Carron, musicien,
+souvenir d’un camarade, 31 août, 1914_,” looking out toward the forest of
+Vitrimont. Its autumn garb was soft, discreet, and lovely; more jasper
+and amethyst and Chrysoprase and cornelian fields rolled gently in
+between it and me. There was the band of yellow like a Greek border to a
+garment in the western sky—only that and nothing more, yet some beauty
+and sadness chained me to the spot. Quail and woodcock, gray pheasant
+and larks, were flying about, and some strongly marked black-and-white
+magpies were pecking at something in the nearest field. I asked myself
+again, “What is it that stamps Lorraine with such beauty?” General de
+Buyer told me that when Pierre Loti came to Vitrimont he said, “_C’est
+trop vert_,” and perhaps, after Stamboul and Egypt and the Grecian Isles,
+it would seem too green. But I saw, returning there in autumn, that the
+soul of Lorraine, _l’élégante et douleureuse_, is like unto tarnished
+silver, with its grays, yellows, browns, and purples; that soul that has
+suffered, hoped through the generations, whose abiding-places have been
+devastated and rebuilt through the centuries. And I knew that one must
+see it in autumn, beneath the wasteful splendors of gray clouds, with
+their hints of color, red, brown, yellow, and purple, or with sky and
+rain melting into one, curtaining the brown, mysterious earth—and, in
+between, the beat of the human heart.
+
+It all seemed to show itself through some dissolving light of ages.
+Those secular beeches, that I had first seen in their tenderest green,
+had become a brilliant yellow, and were turned to the south. The great
+bronze oaks looked to the north, obeying laws as inviolable as those
+of the human beings passing beneath them. In all these forests round
+about Vitrimont, Parroy, and Mondon the legendary lords of the country
+hunted; the roads of Gaul disappeared under the great Roman highways
+which traversed Lorraine from Langres to Trèves, from Toul to Metz, and
+again from Langres to Strasburg. The name Lunéville emerges out of the
+night of the tenth century in the person of Étienne, Bishop of Toul,
+successor of St.-Gérard, and Folmar I, Count of Lunéville, was married to
+Sparhilde, descended from Charlemagne. (To this day I notice that almost
+any one who respects himself in these parts talks quite casually of being
+descended from Charlemagne, or Charles the Bald, or René the Victorious,
+as a Boston man might of the Pilgrim Fathers.) Folmar’s hunting-lodge
+was by the muddy Vesouze, over which one passes to get from Lunéville to
+Vitrimont. In time it was transformed into a château, and around it grew
+a village, which in turn became a fortified town, then the capital of
+Léopold and Stanislas.
+
+I stood for a long time by that 1914 breach in the wall, and the grave
+of _Charles Carron, musicien_, looking out over the rolling fields in
+the late October afternoon, migrating birds passing against the amber
+sky, red vines floating from the yellowing branches of oaks and beeches;
+near me was a tangle of wild-plum bushes, stiffened blackberry-vines, and
+dried ramie. All except the deeds of men seemed sweet. Everything was
+in sinuous lines, inclosing the jasper, amethyst, chrysoprase, russet,
+jewels of the fields, through which flow the slow rivers, slipping
+between bushes of osier and plum, and somewhere there is a slower,
+nigrescent canal scarcely a-move between willows and poplars. And those
+men who are out there where that dull thunder is!...
+
+I thought how often in her history the men that hunted in her forests
+or tilled her fields had reddened them with their blood, or, buried in
+them, had increased the harvests, fighting now against one invader,
+now another, being continually thrown back from power to power like a
+ball, with nothing changeless save the changelessness of their changing
+destiny—and its unescapableness.
+
+And how, under Godefroy de Bouillon, a Lorraine prince, the Crusades
+began, and under a duke of Lorraine, Charles V, they ended. And of the
+holy glory of Jeanne d’Arc. And now, after the lapse of centuries, of the
+covenant of our own men.
+
+I realized that the beauty of Lorraine is not entirely of the natural
+world.
+
+As we drove back there was a sudden flaming up of that band of lemon. The
+western sky became a vast ocean of pink with great white clouds afloat
+in it. The red roofs of Lunéville were transfigured, a crimson glow
+was flung about the Pompadour towers of the church, outlined against
+a blue-white eastern sky. But only for a few minutes. The streets of
+Lunéville were already dim as we passed in through the battered suburbs.
+
+We stopped for tea at the house of Madame —— on the outskirts of the
+town. It had been occupied by the Germans that first August, and in
+one of the _salons_ was a large hole in the wall, stopped up, but not
+replastered or papered. “They” had rolled up her rugs and given them to
+her, and she and her four young daughters had lived in the upper stories
+during the occupation, and seen war very close from their windows. The
+only really valuable picture, a Claude Lorrain, I think, was missing. In
+the cellars and in the garden, whose walls are still breached and broken,
+dead and wounded, living and fighting, Germans and French, had lain.
+
+The usual conjunction of elderly officers and young aviators were there
+for tea. Then E. M. and I, closely linked, threaded the black streets to
+the Hôtel des Vosges. And there is great sadness in Lorraine in autumn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AT THE GUÉRINS’
+
+
+                                                           _October 16th._
+
+In the park of the château, sitting on an old stone bench under yellowing
+chest nut-trees.
+
+Soldiers are coming and going. The château has been for many years a
+barracks. One guardian of the park, of the now so-despised race of
+gendarmes, has walked by three times, for I have my little note-book in
+my lap and my pencil in my hand and I am plainly not of Lunéville. He is
+just passing me again, and I say
+
+“_C’est beau, le parc._”
+
+He answers, “Perhaps in summer,” evidently not stirred by autumnal
+Lorraine, and then, “_Madame est en visite?_”
+
+I answer, “Yes, with Miss Crocker.”
+
+That name being magic in these parts, he salutes and passes on.
+
+Of the lovely old bosquets where Stanislas combined his _jets d’eau_,
+his _grottes_, his Chinese pavilions, and his _parterres_, the long
+avenue and the great flat basin of the fountain, in which black swans are
+floating, are all that remain. From the end of this avenue can be seen
+the aviation field with its great hangars. The low terraces have borders
+of autumn flowers, dahlias, chrysanthemums, red vines, dead leaves,
+and moss-grown and charming statues of ancient love-making gods, who
+came into their own again in those amorous days. There is a statue to
+M. Guérin’s poet son born and dead between two invasions, but a lovely
+eighteenth-century statue of a veiled woman renders _mou_ and without
+accent the flat, white-marble shaft that commemorates his earthly span
+(1874-1908). The statue of Erckmann is also in the nineteenth-century
+manner. Is the human race as uncharming as modern sculptors would make
+it? One feels apologetic toward the ages to come, and one wants to cry
+out that we weren’t so bad, after all, and that seemingly soulless
+individual in a frock-coat and baggy trousers and top-hat, looking
+so unattractive in white marble, was really a delightful person, an
+imaginative lover, a perceptive intellectual, and witty to boot. He would
+have been the first to protest against his memorial; and how he would
+have hated the geraniums and begonias planted at his base, and the wire
+fencing!
+
+Beyond the park, where the trees have been cleared away, is the brown,
+reedy Vesouze, a little border of old houses on its banks. Beyond is the
+rolling stretch of forest-covered hills and russet and jasper and topaz
+fields, and above it all the sunless and gray, but strangely luminous,
+noonday heaven of autumnal Lorraine.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+Wandered about the town. Everywhere charming bits of _autrefois_ arrest
+the eye. Over one doorway, between two angels’ heads of pure Louis
+XV, was written, “_Fais bien, laisses dire_.” A little farther along,
+under a figureless niche, “_Si le cœur t’en dit un ave pour son âme_.”
+In the window of a pharmacy near by, occupying a good old house with
+flat, gray façade, is a big Lunéville porcelain jar bearing the words
+“_Theriaca celestis_,” interwoven among flowered scrolls, and I thought
+of eighteenth-century servants going in for herbs and various cures for
+masters and mistresses having “vapors.”
+
+The portal of the church reminds me, with its rich, wine-colored tones,
+of the _tezontle_ of the Mexican houses of the viceregal period. The
+words over the door are “_Au Dieu de Paix_,” the God that this torn
+borderland seldom receives, and still rarely keeps, and above is a figure
+of Chronos, or the Almighty, I don’t know which.
+
+A large black marble slab without name or date is near the door as one
+passes in; underneath lie the remains of Voltaire’s _divine Emilie_.[18]
+Having loved much, let us hope much was forgiven her. The choir, pulpit,
+and confessionals are very pure Louis XV. Over the organ-loft are the
+words “_Laudate Deum in chordis et organo_,” painted in among Pompadour
+knots which have been democratically colored red, white, and blue, near
+blue and gold fleurs-de-lys of another epoch.
+
+Against the wall of the façade is a marble urn that once contained the
+heart of Stanislas, who was very devout, and left no stone unturned,
+though he continued to love not alone the arts, to placate the final
+judge. He was very fond of music while dining, but on Friday never
+permitted any except that of the harp, considered less earthly than
+violin and clavecin. He never missed Mass; he was merciful to the poor
+and appreciative of the things of the mind. Not a bad showing; one hopes
+he’s happy somewhere.
+
+In one of the side altars is a Pietà and three long lists of those just
+dead for France, whose
+
+          graves are all too young as yet
+    To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned
+    Its charge to each;
+
+and then, as I sat quietly thinking upon the passing of heroes, Shelley’s
+immortal words kept sounding in my ears:
+
+        And if the seal is set,
+    Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,
+    Break it not thou!...
+        From the world’s bitter wind
+    Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.
+    What Adonaïs is, why fear we to become?
+
+Lunched at the Guérins’. _La Ford_ being the only means of locomotion
+in Lunéville, not even an old horse remaining to pull a cab, we had to
+give up the trip to Baccarat, and indeed any trip anywhere. Delighted to
+be able to _flâner_ in the old streets without my umbrella being turned
+wrong side out.
+
+Overhead the _avions_ were thick; we counted twelve at one time, some
+of them flying so low that we could hear words. Observation airplanes,
+bombarding airplanes, the swift _avions de chasse_, going in the
+direction of the forest of Parroy, where the Germans are intrenched since
+the retreat from Lunéville, September, 1914. Parroy and all that part of
+the country was completely laid waste in 1636 by Richelieu, who sent the
+cheerful report to Louis XIV that “Lorraine was reduced to nothing, and
+the inhabitants dead for the most part.”
+
+That conquest of the unsubstantial air seems the greatest of all man’s
+achievements. And as I walked along there was an almost perceptible
+flinging of my soul into the heavenly spaces and I thought not on battles
+and wrecks nor even of hungry children, but rather of the discoverers of
+nature’s secrets, the disciples of philosophers, the undiscourageable
+lovers of the arts, who everywhere are in the minority, and everywhere
+reach the heights, and everywhere in the end control the hosts, even of
+battle. And at the sudden dropping of the sun over the lovely Lorraine
+fields, become blue with scarcely a hint of the green and brown and
+amethyst of a moment ago, the band of yellow fringing the horizon—though
+with me walked the ghosts of men who at the word of command invaded or
+defended—I was not sad. A lean, brown, unexpectant urchin entered the
+town with me. I gave him a two-franc piece and a blessing, _Pax tibi_,
+which last, from the look in his eyes, some part of him understood. Then
+I turned into the beautiful old house of the mayor where _goûter_ and
+bridge had been arranged for us. I rapped with a large and very bright
+wrought-iron knocker bearing the date 1781, and, entering, found myself
+in a great hallway; to the left is the _escalier d’honneur_, with its
+beautiful wrought-iron balustrade. I mounted it, and passed through many
+rooms of noble yet thoroughly livable dimensions. They were filled with
+officers, some women came from their hospital service in nursing garb,
+groups of bright-eyed “_filles à marier_,” and a few young aviators.
+The large _salon_ has beautiful panelings, with heavy gilt _motifs_ of
+tambour, torch, helmet and shield in the corners. In it was signed the
+celebrated Traité de Lunéville, 1801, and it is all very seigneurial.
+
+I found myself seated at a table with the mayor, General —— and Mme.
+de C., in nursing garb. I investigated, during a couple of hours,
+the surprises of the erratic yet brilliant bridge of the _maire de
+Lunéville_, whose delight was to mystify his partner as well as the
+adversary, and who, without in the least deserving it, won every rubber.
+I had a few bad “distractions,” but who would not, under that roof so
+rich in memories?
+
+During the occupation in 1914 the German generals and high officers
+entering the town were lodged on the second floor of the old house. The
+same thing had happened in 1870.
+
+We came away in pitch darkness at 7.30, but I can now skip and bound
+about the dark streets, with the best of them, no more feeling around for
+curbs, which seem again to be placed where they are to be expected.
+
+Afterward, dinner at M. Guérin’s. General and Mme. de Buyer, General ——,
+M. Guérin’s two sons, one a mitrailleuse officer for the moment near by
+at Blainville la Grande, the other the student and lover of the arts
+of whom I spoke, and whose every instinct is remote from killing. I
+sometimes wonder at the stillness of men like that—except that there is
+nothing to be done about it. General de Buyer told us of _lances-flamme_,
+of _flamme-snappes_, of the _obus asphyxiants_, which burst without odor
+or smoke, but are deadly, all the same. Then the conversation turned on
+_le conflit historique entre la race germanique et la nation gauloise_
+which had begun before the Roman conquest. M. Guérin told us of places
+where still may be seen colossal walls and thick, crumbling towers,
+mysterious witness of those legendary conflicts, just as the Place des
+Carmes, or Place Brûlée, is witness of those of 1917.
+
+The younger Guérin son was preparing to go into diplomacy when the war
+broke out. I said, “Perhaps we will sometime be _en poste_ together,”
+and a strange look that the pleasant dinner scene did not allow me to
+interpret immediately came over his face.
+
+“_Peut-être_,” he answered, slowly.
+
+I knew a moment afterward that that young man who loves his life was
+thinking, “if I am alive.” He has seen so many fall. And suddenly came
+into my mind the lines of his poet brother, born and dead between two
+invasions:
+
+    _Nous sommes, ô mon Dieu, plusieurs dans la cité,_
+    _A porter haut le lys de la mysticité, ..._
+
+And for an infinitesimal moment, in spite of the pleasant evening meal,
+my thoughts, too, turned to invisibilities—his and my last end, and our
+veiled destinies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ACROSS LORRAINE
+
+
+                                       LUNÉVILLE, _Tuesday, October 16th_.
+
+One last look at the church, whose warm and lovely towers with their
+_motifs_ of urn and scroll and angel were shining pinkly in the morning
+light. Then through the door of the Hôtel de Ville, built on the site of
+the ancient abbey of St.-Rémy, founded in the last years of the tenth
+century by Folmar de Lunéville for the repose of his soul and of his
+wife’s, and completely done over in the eighteenth century. As I turned
+in at the passageway leading through to the other street, old houses on
+one side, and on the other plantings of holly against the church walls,
+I thought of the saying of the Middle Ages, “_Il fait bon vivre sous la
+crosse_” (“It is good to live under the bishops”), and how the peasants
+would come in from their hamlets, through the fields and forests, with
+their tithes. The monks generally springing from the people showed
+themselves more understanding of their wants and their miseries, and were
+less apt to overtax them, having fewer needs, than the lords with their
+wars, their ambitions, and their grandeurs.
+
+Then one finds oneself in the garden of the Hôtel de Ville, where one
+doesn’t think of the Middle Ages, for in it is a figure of a weeping
+woman, and on the statue’s base are inscribed the names of young men
+fallen in 1870. Life becomes suddenly without reason.
+
+At the station. _L’abri de bombardement pour permissionnaires_ is in an
+old convent having a deep cellar, across the railway. We carry our own
+luggage, resembling almost any _poilu_, and with grateful hearts think of
+what we left behind.
+
+Mont-sur-Meurthe. Flooding sun, many soldiers, no room in the train. The
+famous and now classic refrain, “_Faut pas s’en paire_,”[19] floats about
+and makes one think how those who wait also serve, and in waiting learn
+patience, this new virtue of the Gaul. In regard to virtues, the French
+seem to have all those we thought they had, in addition to others we
+never suspected them of having.
+
+A man completely bent with grief follows two men carrying a coffin. He
+himself carries a huge bead wreath, and his head is bared. Whatever his
+sorrow, it is gone out into the eternal, the immeasurable Wisdom, which I
+thought, in sudden fear, completely conceals that which it receives.
+
+Dombasle, with its busy station and its great munitions-factories.
+Columns of smoke, from purest white to darkest brown, were rising to the
+shining heavens, and women in trousers, mothers and mothers-to-be, were
+going to work in the factories.
+
+At Rosières immense camouflage works, and then the railway skirts the
+great canal. A thin, heavy-haired, very young girl is drawing a huge
+canal-boat. Her arms are crossed over her breast; above them is the broad
+band by which she tows that behemoth, a thousand times her size. In
+accord with some law of matter it is just possible. One thinks of the
+building of the Pyramids, and of the unborn.
+
+                                                            NANCY, _1.15_.
+
+Lunching at the Café Stanislas and eating my fifth macaroon, “for
+remembrance.” The gold guipure of the wrought-iron work makes the square
+seem to me like some lovely handkerchief thrown down as a challenge to
+memory. And I will _not_ forget.
+
+                                                                  _Later._
+
+At the station, waiting for the train to pull out. An old man attended to
+our luggage; he liked his tip and became talkative as he straightened our
+impedimenta in the racks. Three sons killed in the war. Two at Verdun,
+the last and youngest at the Chemin des Dames this summer. His toothless
+old mouth trembled, and I thought to myself in sudden horror, “God, is
+_this_ France?”
+
+                                                    LIVERDUN, _3 o’clock_.
+
+A vision of transfigured beauty in the afternoon light. Its high
+promontory aglow, every window a-dazzle. Its ancient walls, its old
+château, its church, all seemingly made of something pink, unsubstantial,
+shining. At the foot of the town flows the Moselle and there is a second
+shining moiré ribbon—the great canal leading from the Marne to the Rhine.
+
+Toul. The gorgeous towers of the cathedral are a-shine, too, above the
+outline of the great barrack buildings. The vast station is a sea of
+blue-clad washing in and out of trains.
+
+At Pagny we pick up the Meuse, _la Meuse aux lignes nonchalantes_.
+
+At Sorcy, wide, shallow expanses of inundation, and reeds and trees grow
+out of shining spaces, and meadow-bounded flat horizons stretch away,
+and suddenly it seems Oriental, Japanese, in the pink light—what you
+will—anything but a historic river of the European war, flowing through
+the elegant and sorrowful Lorraine.
+
+And then we find ourselves at Gondrecourt in the tip of the acute angle,
+for still, to go the straight road between Nancy and Châlons, we would
+have to pass Commercy, daily bombarded by big German guns.
+
+At Gondrecourt, about a dozen American soldiers standing on the platform,
+several seeming to have just left their mothers’ knees. We wanted to
+speak to the nearest one, but feared we might represent _l’autre danger_.
+Great packing-boxes piled everywhere with “U.S. Army” stamped on them—and
+how fateful a destination is this little Lorraine town!
+
+At Demanges-aux-Eaux more Americans. An old church, quite mauve, rises up
+seemingly from bronze waters, the houses of the surrounding village, blue
+and gray. Americans are billeted in these wide-doored Lorraine peasant
+houses, or in big stables whose entrances are high enough for great
+hay-wagons to pass through.
+
+A talkative military person in the compartment with us. I thought at
+first he was a secret agent, he seemed to know so little about the
+country; then I realized that he was only rather stupid. And he had an
+uncontrollable provincial curiosity about small things, and was quite
+_intrigué_ about his traveling companions, who seemed to know all the
+things he didn’t know. He was _en permission_, coming from the forest of
+Parroy, the other side of Lunéville, where the French and Germans sit
+within a few yards of each other. He was quite uninteresting about it
+all, but it wasn’t his fault, merely the way he was made. He showed me
+his map and the zigzagging German and French lines in the forest, and
+then I got suddenly bored and stood in the corridor, and watched the
+Meuse get pink and then purple and then a strange glinting black. Down
+the streets of little villages would come blue-clad men, smoking and
+talking, or getting water and stores for evening meals. And then the sun
+disappeared behind the yellow poplars, and a cold, clear night began to
+fall. Bridges were guarded by sentries with bayoneted rifles, and old
+men and women and children came in from dim beet-root fields, and more
+khaki-clad Americans were standing about village streets, or cycling in
+the dusk, behind reeds in water, and there were deepening forests, and
+black ridges against the last pale lemon glow, and then another little
+town, Laneuville, and two American patrols marching up and down with
+rifle on shoulder.
+
+And the talkative officer, who had bought newspapers at Gondrecourt,
+tells of the pretty spy dancer, Mata Hari, shot that morning in the
+prison of Vincennes with warning pomp and circumstance, and of Bolo Pasha
+and _l’affaire Turmel_, but as soon as he touches a subject it loses all
+vestige of human interest.
+
+“_Ce que nous avons vu d’Anglais parterre à Combes_,” or, “_Qu’il faisait
+froid la nuit où nous cédions la ligne aux Anglais_,” or, “_Je suis
+toujours là où on cède la ligne_, they say now the Americans will take
+the line at Parroy.”
+
+He has been through the whole war without a scratch—Verdun, the Somme,
+the Aisne—and now he spends cold, dark nights listening for Germans in
+the forest of Parroy, and it hasn’t helped a bit; and he is one that
+will get through, when so much of wise and fair will have been gathered
+to the Lord. In an unwonted pause I asked him what he was in civil life,
+and he answered, “_Fabricant de brosses à dent_.” I know it’s all right,
+and there must be tooth-brushes, but we had just come from gallooned
+generals, prefects, mayors, smart young aviators, and men living in the
+world of books.
+
+Blue mists came up from the meadows and slipped between the hills, and
+everywhere black trees grew out of gold water.
+
+                                                         LIGNY-EN-BARROIS.
+
+The end of our line at the north, and there is a Gothic church of the
+thirteenth century called Notre Dame des Vertus, and in it is the tomb of
+the Maréchale de Luxembourg, dead in 1695.
+
+                                                        NANÇOIS-TRONVILLE.
+
+More blue meadow mists along gold waters, and soft dark fringes of
+willows.
+
+                                                               LONGEVILLE.
+
+The evening star and spirals of smoke from little houses, and
+blue-clad men melting into the twilight, and the canal a golden band,
+with stampings of deepest purple where tree shadows cut across it.
+Two American soldiers standing at a road-crossing looking up at the
+sign-post. Everywhere the Lorraine twilight is shot with khaki-colored
+threads from over the seas—and the three gray sisters spin the inexorable
+web.
+
+Bar-le-Duc, looking sick and sorry for itself. Station full of broken
+glass, dirt, and piles of demolished masonry. The evening star hangs
+above the older town on the hill. No time to get out to see how the
+canteen work is going on; but two obliging station employees gave me
+news. A whole quarter of the town by the river, near the Hôtel du
+Commerce et de Metz, of unsanctified memory, was destroyed ten days ago,
+by an air raid.
+
+I asked if anything had happened to the church of St.-Peter, for I
+thought of the _chef-d’œuvre_ of Ligier Richier, René de Châlons,[20]
+standing in its dim space, holding his heart aloft in his left hand,
+eternal offering to his first wife, Louise of Lorraine. How his widow,
+Philippe de Gueldre, felt about this before she was laid out in the garb
+of the Poor Clares I don’t know.
+
+No longer any night work in the canteen, no lights being permitted.
+Our train unlighted, too. New and larger signs indicating cellars and
+shelters everywhere. Black moving shapes of _camions_ along the road, and
+the evening star following us along the top of the hill of Bar. A squad
+of Annamites quitting their work on the road.
+
+    _En ces armées singulières_
+    _Où l’Annam casse des pierres_
+    _Sur la route de Verdun._
+
+                                                                  REVIGNY.
+
+Portentous dark shapes of roofless houses and detachments of blue-clad
+men going down a winding road, one with the blue twilight. The station
+dim, the town completely dark, and the vine-planted hills only soft
+masses; the evening star still following us, though she is so close to
+the ridge that in a few minutes she will drop behind it. Oh, this passing
+of the evening star in a war—autumn behind French hills!
+
+                                                VITRY-LE-FRANÇOIS, _5.45_.
+
+Founded by François Premier near the old town which was burned with its
+church full of worshipers, in a fit of anger by Louis VII during his
+war with the Count of Champagne. To expiate this crime he undertook
+the Second Crusade. Much black ribbon of canal knotted about, one
+end of which leads from the heart of France to the Rhine. An endless
+train of troops going to the front, men pressed together, sardine- and
+herring-like, in each compartment—it made my soul sick—just human masses
+weighed down by accoutrement and literally wedged in. A lively dispute
+between a thick-set _poilu_ and one of the station employees on behalf
+of a slight, blond, very young soldier.
+
+“_Quoi, vous osez engueuler un poilu de quinze ans?_”
+
+And the following crescendo mounts to the broken panes of the station
+roof, “_Embusqué, cochon, salaud, vache!_”[21]
+
+There was no answer of protest from the official. And Vitry-le-François
+is where Napoleon almost took prisoner the Emperor of Russia, the King of
+Prussia, and the Austrian General Schwarzenberg in 1814, and in 1914 it
+was bombarded by the Germans, and now American troops pour through it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CHÂLONS CANTEEN
+
+
+           HÔTEL DE LA HAUTE MÈRE DIEU, CHÂLONS, _October 17th, 1.30 a.m._
+
+Lodged at last with the “High Mother of God.” On arriving, dined in a
+low-ceilinged, dingy, dowdy room, but the acetylene lights, the uniforms
+and decorations of the officers, made something brilliant, which half
+veiled the knowledge of the dark night outside, the approaching winter,
+the continuing war.
+
+Afterward, I slipped out with my little electric lamp, through the Place
+de la République, almost empty; low and splendid stars hung over the
+town. In the rue des Lombards, St.-Alpin was a dark mass, and from its
+tower the hour was striking a quarter to nine o’clock.
+
+I turned into the long, perfectly black rue de Marne. Not a single light,
+nor any passer-by. I flashed my little lamp to find the curb. There came
+a click of wooden-soled shoes from a side street, and a thick voice said,
+“_Ah, la dame, pourquoi si vite?_” I passed on like the wind, trembling,
+down the deserted street, but when I flashed the lamp to find another
+curb, something heavy and stumbling got nearer. And then I didn’t dare to
+turn the light on, and I took the wrong turning, and found myself in what
+seemed a wilderness of mud and trees, with the click of those following
+wooden-soled feet behind, and any woman who has been terrified, she
+scarcely knows why, will understand. Finally I stopped behind a dark
+mass of trees, with something sucking about in the mud, and mumbling
+half-suspected words, and finally retreating.
+
+At that moment a soldier appeared, a gigantic shadow of himself as he
+struck a match to light his cigarette, and I asked:
+
+“Is this the rue du Port de Marne?”
+
+He answers, “You have missed your way; you are by the canal,” and he puts
+me onto the road again, and then I turn and grope my way to the little
+house by the Marne.
+
+Neither Miss Nott nor Miss Mitchell is there, so I depart again, going
+over the great Marne bridge to the station. Though I can see nothing, I
+hear the regular practised tread of a marching squad, and when I flash my
+lamp to find the curb, a little detachment looms up unmeasurably big and
+distorted, and the horizon blue becomes that ghostly gray.
+
+In the canteen a thousand men at least. Am quite dazzled by the splendor
+of the installation. Warm welcome from Miss Nott and Miss Mitchell, with
+the light of a very understandable pride in their eyes. Go behind the
+long counter, then through the kitchen to the little dressing-room; take
+off my hat, put on a long apron, twist my pale-blue chiffon scarf about
+my head and am ready. As I look out over the big room I feel that in
+the whole world it is the only place to be. Around me surged those blue
+waves; the light caught helmets and drinking-cups; there was the mist of
+breath and smoke; the familiar sound of laughing, disputing, humming.
+That strange atmosphere of fatality hung over each and every one, yet
+with a merciless confusing of destinies in the extreme anonymity of it
+all.
+
+Came away at 11.30 enveloped in a strange sidereal light, the stars
+still more splendid as the night deepened. Even the memory of tropical
+constellations vaulting high altitudes was dimmed. The Great Bear lay
+over the left of the Marne bridge, and on the other horizon, over the
+Promenade du Jard, where I suddenly remembered that St.-Bernard had
+preached the crusade in presence of Pope Eugene and Charles VII, was
+Orion, so bright that he alone could have lighted the town of the
+Catalaunian fields, and Jupiter seemed like a distant sun, under the soft
+blur of the Pleiades. The river was mysterious, yet personal with its new
+mantle of history wrapping it sadly, yet tenderly, and with much glory.
+
+Then I was again in the still, dark, long street; no passers-by, no
+lights from any window, the clock of St.-Alpin striking midnight, and
+Orion concealed to his belt by the houses of the Place de la République.
+There was some deep stirring of my heart as I turned in at the door of La
+Haute Mère Dieu, leaving the gorgeous heavens to stretch over the wide
+plain of Châlons, where the hosts of Attila were defeated, where the
+great, misty, tragic, glorious history of Champagne and Lorraine rolls
+itself out. Now above it all is the whir of _aeros de chasse_, and a
+faint, very faint booming of cannon. The Châlons plain continues to give
+me the “creeps.” It is haunting and suggestive in the same way that the
+Roman Campagna is haunting and suggestive, though the great bare stretch,
+with its bald, chalky scarrings, its dull spots of pine woods, its dust
+or mud, has none of the material beauty of the Campagna. Doubtless I’m
+within the folds of the mantle of the concentrated, continuous human
+passions that cover it.
+
+I trod as lightly as I could through a resounding corridor, having a
+profound regard for all sleeping things, past many leather leggings and
+spurred boots outside of silent doors.
+
+When I left the canteen, the guard, in answer to my cry, “Sentinelle!”
+said, as he opened the gate, “_Ce n’est pas comme à Verdun, où l’on ne
+passe pas_”; and then, “_Bonsoir, Mees._” It was so easily and gracefully
+said in the inimitable French way.
+
+                                                 _October 17th, 7.30 a.m._
+
+Tea, a lukewarm pale-gray beverage, with some still crisp leaves afloat
+on the top. I would have been ungrateful if I had not thought of the
+Hôtel des Vosges. Mrs. Church, fresh and strong as the morning, though
+just back from night shift, boiled some water for me and I blessed
+her. The bleakness of this room is indescribable. Two lithographs of
+the “_Angelus_” and “_Les Glaneurs_” but add to the desolation. A
+red-and-yellow striped paper on the walls; on the floor a worn square
+of Brussels carpet; brown woolen curtains; shutters with slats askew; a
+large mahogany chest of drawers; a grayish dimity cover to the feather
+bed, with machine-stitched _motifs_ showing its ugly yellow case
+underneath; linen sheets, large, thick, and clean—and you have almost
+any room of La Haute Mère Dieu. Except Mrs. C.’s with its extraordinary
+bed, painted cream-color, having large “Empirish” corners formed by
+pale green and gilt Egyptian unduly voluptuous Sphinx-like figures, and
+a brownish-red plush baldaquin from which depend some yellowish-brown
+curtains; the brown carpet with purplish flowers is a protest between the
+two, and the rest of the room a riot of gilt mirrors. It’s a room one
+couldn’t forget, and why provincial hotels cling so to brown upholstery
+I don’t know. They give the effect of being old and dirty even when they
+are—_perhaps_—new.
+
+The corridor has been a sounding-board since dawn, and all during the
+night _camions_ were being driven over the cobblestones, and motor horns
+rent the darkness. My room looks out over an old garden. A tall, dead
+tree-trunk has immemorial ivy clinging to it, and there is an old round
+well, half covered, and beyond the gate, with ivy and moss-grown urns, is
+a street that would have been quiet except for the _camions_; and I can
+see a row of distinguished-looking, plain-façaded gray houses of another
+century, opposite.
+
+The German General Staff was lodged here before the battle of the Marne,
+the chambermaid told me, with a reminiscential gleam in her eyes.
+
+But you see how any one’s personal history, his little wants, his little
+habits, are ground out into something quite different by the war-machine.
+The only thing any one asks is strength to get through what he has
+to do. He doesn’t demand to get through in any special way—just get
+through—where so many don’t. Not to be so cold that you can’t use your
+hands or your mind, not to be so tired that you can’t stand, not to be so
+hungry that you are faint and useless, not to go without sleep till you
+don’t care what happens to anybody, especially yourself. Life is fairly
+simple, and somehow very satisfactory, on such a basis.
+
+                                                              _11.30 p.m._
+
+A long day, with the exception of luncheon at the house on the Marne
+and a talk in the garden, where Mrs. Corbin and I sat for a while under
+the yellow chestnut-tree, looking out on the brimming, jade-colored,
+slow-flowing Marne, talking of destinies, and the illusion of free will,
+by which, however, all these high deeds which we witness are done. And
+it seems to me the thing called Destiny resides somewhere. It isn’t a
+purely subjective affair, created out of the combination of qualities
+and opportunities of each, rather something definite and operative
+and immutable; but that may only be the way I feel about it now. I am
+overcome all the time by the relativity of everything, even of truth.
+
+The little white birch-tree has no leaves, the butterflies are gone, and
+winter is close upon the war-world. The gardener has been returned to his
+home. What of his sons, I wonder? He has a tender heart.
+
+Miss Stanton lives in the little yellow room with the niche and the
+emanations. Now she looks out on yellowing trees; yellow pumpkins lie in
+the little wet garden; there is a border of yellow and red nasturtiums
+and dahlias. It’s all like some stage-setting. When I said to her, “I
+hear you have the little room with the emanations,” she answered, “There
+must be something about it; for in spite of the fact that I am not
+comfortable, I don’t dislike it.”
+
+I wondered again what soul had inhabited within those four walls and if
+the niche had been an altar, and to what god, as I walked along in a
+sudden cold mist that began to envelope Châlons.
+
+                                                       _Since 10 o’clock._
+
+I have been swept about by varying tides of blue-clad men. Some thought
+the _cantine épatante_, others thought sadly and remarked loudly that so
+much money being spent on an installation meant that the war was going to
+last indefinitely. “_C’est trop long_” one thin, blond man, with deep-set
+eyes and bright spots on his cheeks, kept repeating, till one of his
+friends in unrepeatable _poilu_ terms told him to “leave the camp.”
+
+Concert in the afternoon, the usual number of extremely good _diseurs_.
+In the Salle de Récréation, where it was held, are reclining-chairs and
+writing-tables. When I told one not very young _poilu_ that there _was_
+such a heaven, he, too, answered, “_Alors la guerre va durer longtemps,
+si l’on fait tout cela pour ceux qui restent_.”
+
+Lieutenant Tonzin has converted those old railway sheds into something
+most artistic. The walls are painted cream with strips of pale blue;
+conventionalized fruit-filled baskets and designs of flowery wreaths
+decorate them at intervals. The great roof has drapings of white muslin,
+and square, engarlanded shades make the light shine softly on the
+blue-clad men coming and going, coming and going.
+
+On the counter are small green bushes. One homesick-eyed gardener _poilu_
+from Marseilles, having felt them, wondered what they would do if
+watered. “_Les pauvres! Chez nous sont grands comme ça_,” and he raised
+his hand toward the roof.
+
+“_Toi, grand serin_,” remarked his comrade; “_tu vois tout toujours dix
+fois grandeur naturelle_.”
+
+Whereupon they began the inevitable dispute. I heard the words
+“_gueuleton_,” “_qu’est-ce que t’as au bec_,” and the Marseillais finally
+calling out, as they retreated, that he thanked God _he_ hadn’t been born
+at Caen.
+
+All is so orderly and the jokes mostly relatable. Only when they are
+somewhat _allumés_ do they get on the subject of the eternal feminine,
+and then the dots are put on the i’s, regarding her rôle on the natural
+plane. But even then there is generally some _copain_ to say, “_Ferme
+ta gueule_,” or “_Que veux-tu que les mees sachent de tout cela?_” The
+legend being that the canteens are served almost exclusively by vestals.
+
+When holding out their “quarts,” they often ask, longingly, “_Pas de
+cogneau; pas de gniole?_”[22] When I answered once, “_Pas de pinard[23]
+ici_,” the _poilu_ cried back, “_Mais le ‘whisk’! Vous en avez toujours
+chez vous!_” Another delicate Anglo-Saxon reference.
+
+Late, in between one of the train rushes, two men came in, violently
+disputing as they stood at the counter:
+
+“_C’est une guerre diplomatique, je te dis, cochon, va._”
+
+“_Qu’est-ce que tu dis là, moi, je te dis, sale type, que c’est une
+guerre qui ne mène à rien!_”
+
+“_C’est la même chose, nom de—— —nom de—— —t’es bête, espèce
+d’acrobate_,” etc., etc.
+
+Another comes in saying, loudly:
+
+“_Cette sacrée guerre, cette sacrée guerre! Qu’est-ce que cela me fait
+que je sois boche ou Français? Suis de Roubaix, moi, il me faut manger du
+pain sec le reste de mes jours—moi et ma femme et mes cinq enfants._”
+
+When I gave him his cup of steaming _jus_ (coffee), he poured into it,
+from his _bidon_, a few drops of _gniole_, and by the time he got to the
+door he was singing the well-known refrain:
+
+    _Je fus vacciné,_
+      _Inoculé,_
+    _Quatr’ fois piqué ..._
+
+Then a train arrived, the great room was flooded again, and no time for
+anything except to ask, “_Avez-vous votre quart?_” (the tin cup) our
+bowls having given out during the rush; or, “_Prenez votre billet à la
+caisse_,” or, in order to relieve the congestion at _la caisse_, one
+takes their ten centimes and pours and pours and pours, or indicates the
+end of the counter, where the _repas complet_, consisting of soup, meat,
+vegetable, and salad, is served. _Boudin_ with potatoes (a hundred yards
+of this dark “blood-sausage,” curled up in boxes before being cooked, is
+an awful sight), or hash with potatoes, they love, but one and all hate
+macaroni with a deep hatred. Sometimes it is served when the potatoes
+give out, and they don’t conceal their distaste. They get too much cold
+macaroni in the trenches.
+
+It’s always the ones who speak English who have the worst manners. One
+rather nice-looking individual came up to the _repas complet_ counter,
+saying: “I’m in a ’urry. Got no waiters? Step live.’” No _un_corrupted
+Frenchman, even half-seas over, would dream of such a form of address!
+
+Lots of tiny, yellow Annamites in to-day, sounding just the way
+they look and looking just the way they sound. One brought back his
+salad-plate (accidents will happen in the best canteens) with a little
+worm a-move upon its edge, and he made some unintelligible sounds. When
+I thoughtlessly asked a _poilu_ what he was saying, the _poilu_, quite
+unembarrassed, proceeded to tell me, but _I_ can’t tell _you_! It must go
+no further.
+
+Lunched at the house by the Marne, where we talk American politics for a
+change, then back. One goes, one returns, and still they flood the vast
+room, and one continues the book of the _cantine_, bound in its horizon
+blue, with its blood-stained, tear-sealed pages.
+
+A quite peculiar warming of the heart when one’s own khaki-clad men
+come in. Early in the afternoon an American appeared at the counter,
+accompanied by a French corporal. He had completely forgotten the name
+of his town, was driving a _camion_, and said, with a distressed air,
+“If I could only find a certain spot in town, I _could_ get back”; and
+then added, with a grin, “I suppose you think I’m like the doctor that
+could cure fits; but I’ve got to get the fits before I can do anything
+else, and I’m late already,” he finished, anxiously. After giving various
+descriptions of various localities I hit on the Place de la République,
+“with a fountain with three women?” and as I explained to the
+under-officer, he said, “You’ve saved little Willie’s life,” and hurried
+out.
+
+The names seem the difficult part. One of them, when I asked where he was
+billeted, said:
+
+“That’s one on me; it’s got three names; but”—and he beckoned to a
+_poilu_ standing near—“this is a pal of mine. When I give him three
+knocks on the shoulder he gives the name.”
+
+The _poilu_ didn’t wait for even the first knock before he said,
+“Demanges-aux-Eaux,” and then the American treated him to chocolate
+and offered him a “Lucky Strike” cigarette and began some exotic
+pronunciation of Demanges-aux-Eaux.
+
+There’s always one special thing in every situation in life that comes
+hard. Now I must confess that whenever I have to take a damp, dark-brown
+cloth in my hand and mop up puddles of spilled chocolate and coffee
+from the tiled counter, I feel an invincible repugnance. To-day four
+Americans came in together. A nice, tall, evidently perceptive one said,
+unexpectedly:
+
+“Just give me that rag.”
+
+As I gratefully surrendered the clammy thing he continued:
+
+“I will be here all the afternoon and you’ll find me mopping any time you
+like.” He subsequently ordered four fried eggs apiece for himself and a
+_poilu_, and then took a whole box of the little sweet round biscuits
+that we were selling rather gingerly by twos and threes, came back from
+time to time for bowls of chocolate, when he would cheerfully mop the
+counter for me. Finally I said:
+
+“What is your name?”
+
+And he answered: “Smith. There’re a few of us,” he added, and then with a
+twinkle, “but I’m John. Now what do you say to a swap?”
+
+“I’m Mrs. O’Shaughnessy.”
+
+“I bet I spot you. I was in Mexico last summer. Say, wasn’t your husband
+mixed up with old Huerta?”
+
+I had to answer “yes” to this version of history.
+
+“I wasn’t much on dust when I was down there, but there’s too much water
+here. However,” he continued, cheerfully, “we’ve got to tin the Teut or
+he’ll tin us.” Then he added, in a confidential voice: “What do you think
+of the war? I get mixed sometimes.”
+
+I had noticed a small amethyst ring in the shape of a pansy on one of his
+large fingers as he was mopping, so, after disposing of his question in
+the briefest and most effective way by remarking that it was “up to us
+all” to do every bit we could to win the war, to which he agreed, I asked:
+
+“Are you engaged?”
+
+“To one beaut,” he answered, without an instant’s hesitation. “Met her in
+San Antonio last summer, but I guess she’s the kind that waits. Gee! they
+were around her like flies, but I shoo’d ’em all off.”
+
+And he pulled out the picture of a girl with large dark eyes half hidden
+in love-locks, and showing a lot of white teeth between pleasure-ready
+lips. What appeared of her person was clad in the most “peek-a-boo” of
+blouses, and there was a twist of white tulle about it all. I wondered if
+she was the “kind that waits.” I had a sudden affection for John Smith,
+thinking, however, as he passed out of the door, that his identification
+disk would be more definite than his name, and then, for an instant, I
+pondered on the supremely elemental thing he’s come for.
+
+Damp, cold night had fallen on Châlons, but the canteen was warm and
+cheery, and the men who knew little of warmth and cheer were sitting
+about in a moment’s comfort, and there came to mind a canteen I know
+(oh, far away!) which is presided over by a lady with a mustache like
+a majordomo, and there are no night hours in her canteen. She rings an
+inexorable bell at the chaste hour of 9.30, and, rainy or dry, warm or
+cold, out they go, the _poilus_. Some one with a compassionate heart
+remarked to one of the men on a pouring night, as the bell was ringing,
+“I am sorry you must go.” He answered, with a glance at the ringer and a
+twist of _his_ mustache: “It’s well to choose them that way. It quiets
+us.” And he went off singing, “_Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée_.” It
+was too funny....
+
+                                                   _Friday, October 19th._
+
+A tightening of the heart at leaving that flooding hall—going out again
+to pick up the personal life, inconsequential as it now seems. One is
+hypnotized by the stream of humanity, drawn into its vortex, finally
+rushing along with it, who knows whence or whither. I jerked myself back
+by saying, “This is not my bit,” and, “Each one to his own.” There are
+many ways of helping win the war.
+
+I saw for a moment General Goïgoux, just back from his _permission_, so
+solicitous for the welfare of his men, so pleased with the results of the
+canteen, smiling as he said to me:
+
+“_Eh bien, Madame, cela a fait des progrès depuis votre dernière visite._”
+
+There is a quite wonderful entente, and appreciation, on both sides in
+Châlons.
+
+I went back into the canteen, and found some _poilus_ in fits of laughter
+over a black cat. Now what a black cat evokes in the mind of the _poilu_
+I can only suspect; I don’t quite know. Anyway, it’s something that
+“makes to laugh”; and our black cat, strayed in weeks ago from who knows
+where, and perched near a devoted lady of unmistakable respectability,
+lately arrived to help “save France,” furthermore enveloped in a gray
+sweater (it’s cold and draughty where she sits behind the small aperture
+selling tickets for coffee, chocolate, and _repas complets_), and not in
+her nature playful, seems somehow suggestive to the _poilu_. Even when it
+perches on the counter by the coffee-jugs it’s the same. We don’t like
+to get rid of it; it’s supposed to bring good luck. However, enough, or
+perhaps too little, about the black cat.
+
+There is a _surveillant_ supposed to keep order. He is rarely needed, and
+if he does say anything, he gets an “_Embusqué!_” thrown at him, between
+the eyes. It’s not the day of the civilian employee. This one spends a
+good deal of time eating and not paying, and nobody loves him. There is
+a favorite story of the _poilu_ saluting a common or garden variety of
+policeman, thinking he was a corporal; and when telling of his mistake
+afterward he called it “_le plus malheureux jour de mavie_.”
+
+A hitch in the serving of the _complete repasts_. I looked into the
+kitchen to see if things couldn’t be hurried up. The group that
+met my eyes, of the cook and her assistant wrestling with yards of
+blood-sausage, could have been the female pendant to the Laocoön. It was
+awful. As I turned back to the counter I heard this bit of conversation
+between two _poilus_ waiting for their meal:
+
+“_Tu sais_, when a Canadian sees wood he goes wild. He’ll chop up
+anything from a roadside cross to a baby-carriage. They say it is because
+of his forests. At —— last spring they took the balusters out of the
+house where they were quartered, and that pretty Jeanne you’ve heard
+about—_un amour, je te dis_—fell down in the dark and was killed.”
+
+“Each one has his _manie_,” answered his friend, in perfect tolerance.
+“_Mais moi, je ne toucherais pas à une croix._” And he proceeded to
+cross himself at the bare thought.
+
+A colonel whose name I don’t remember took me into the garden to see the
+kiosks that I had so often indicated when the men asked for _pinard_ or
+_tabac_. The _guignol_ that I had seen at the camouflage grounds in July
+was in place; beyond was the huge bomb-proof shelter built by German
+prisoners to contain 2,000 men in case of _avion_ attack. We took a few
+steps into its black, moist intricacies. As I came up I found myself
+close to a group of some thirty German prisoners being marched past to
+work on a cement emplacement for a gun, the large P.G.[24] stamped on
+their backs, and wearing their small round caps with the red stripe, and
+any kind of clothes. I felt for a moment like an illustration for Cæsar’s
+_Commentaries_, or some sort of a Roman watching northern prisoners being
+marched by.
+
+The officer who showed me about was one of the twenty-seven men who
+escaped from the Fort de Vaux, and had lost his only child on Hill 304.
+
+“I was wounded, and I’m not yet worth much, which is why I am here.
+My boy was only twenty-one—_mais c’était une personne faite_—a leader
+of men. All, with those qualities, go; I am not alone, alas! in my
+_douleur_.”
+
+And that is one of the beautiful things of this sorrowful epoch. Each
+thinks upon the others’ grief.... And then I left it all.
+
+The jade-colored Marne is flat, eddyless, brimming over with its autumn
+rains, the reeds have disappeared, the trunks of the willows are hidden.
+Over the gray bridge flows, unabated, that other stream of war and life.
+_Camions_, ambulances, smart red-and-white-marked staff automobiles,
+soldiers in every conceivable state of soul and body, “enduring their
+going hence even as their coming hither.” English, Americans, Senegalese,
+Annamites—a dozen races swell this Gallic flood, and the Gray Sisters
+never so busy since the world began.
+
+                                               PARIS, _January 7th, 1918_.
+
+I am waiting to know from one of the most charming of the sons of Gaul,
+who has promised to be my intercessor before the powers that be, whether
+I am to go to my front—our front—now or not. If, as Amiel says, “_Être
+prêt, c’est partir_,” then I am already off.
+
+
+FINIS
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] Killed 10th November, 1915, at Zagora, at the head of his battalion.
+
+[2] Planted so that any vista represents the Roman numeral V.
+
+[3] Like porcelain dogs.
+
+[4] Verdun, the Virdunum of the Romans. In the third century a bishopric
+was founded there with Saint Saintin as first bishop; 843, the treaty
+of Verdun; after the battle of Fontanet the three sons of Louis the
+Debonair, Lothair, Louis of Bavaria, and Charles the Bald, divided the
+empire of Charlemagne, with the result that not only was France separated
+from Germania, but her natural boundaries, the Alps and the Rhine,
+were lost; 1792, the Prussians besieged it in force and it was obliged
+to capitulate after two days; 1870, a heroic defense lasting nearly
+three months ending in capitulation; 1916, _Ils n’ont pas passé, ils ne
+passeront pas_.
+
+[5] _Neuvième série._
+
+[6] Alan Seeger, _Letters and Diary_.
+
+[7] Regimental decoration in the form of a cord worn over the left
+shoulder, passing under the arm.
+
+[8] The _sauf-conduits_ for the army zones are in the form of little,
+red, paper-bound books.
+
+[9] “_La Pioggia nel Pineto._”—D’ANNUNZIO.
+
+[10] In _L’Horizon_ I found these lines from Verlaine, with a few added,
+concerning _le Cafard_, by “Bi Bi Bi”:
+
+    _Quelle est cette douleur_
+    _Qui pénètre mon cœur?_
+    _C’est bien la pire peine_
+    _De ne savoir pourquoi_
+    _Sans amour et sans haine_
+    _Mon cœur a tant de peine._
+    _En effet, cher Verlaine,_
+    _C’est bien la pire peine_
+    _Que ta fameuse peine_
+    _Et les poilus sans art_
+    _La nomment le Cafard._
+
+But _le Cafard_ differs from Verlaine’s _peine_ in that it is a very
+special kind of world-pain, and very complete; for those in its grip
+know _why_, as well as _not_ why, they suffer. The memory of loved and
+early things, very probably not to be known again, is part of it. The
+consciously unreasonable hope that all will be well in an extremely
+uncertain future is another part of it—and underlying it is crushing
+physical fatigue, sleeplessness, hunger, cold, heat, the whole smeared
+in the blood of brothers and foes, the dull reaction after killing, or
+escape from being killed—one can’t feel that there is anything vague
+about _le Cafard_.
+
+[11] Cook.
+
+[12] Gondrecourt, the first American encampment in Lorraine.
+
+[13] During the closing days of February, 1918, the air raids on Nancy
+were so continuous and so disastrous that Molitor had to be evacuated
+and the inmates, the aged and the children, were redistributed in other
+parts of France. These words are quite simple to write and to read. Their
+significance is beyond expression.
+
+                                                      March, 1918, E. O’S.
+
+[14] She received ten refusals for the dinner she was giving the next
+night; among them one from Talleyrand, which caused a permanent rupture
+in their relations.
+
+[15] Governor-General of Morocco.
+
+[16] The American Red Cross Asylum at Luxembourg (Toul), now under the
+very able management of Dr. Maynard Ladd, has accommodations for nearly a
+thousand children, well and ill, and a maternity hospital.
+
+The American forces hold the line to the northwest of Toul.
+
+[17] Her epitaph, written by herself, is to the effect that underneath
+lies a rotting worm, giving to death the tribute of nature, the earth her
+only covering, and begging her sisters, the Poor Clares, to say for her a
+_Requiescat in pace_.
+
+    _Ci-gist un ver tout en pourriture,_
+    _Donnant à mort le tribut de la nature._
+    _Sœur Philippe de Gueldre fust Royne du passé,_
+    _Terre soulat pour toute couverture._
+    _Sœurs, dites-lui une requiescat in pace._
+
+                                         _MDXLVII._
+
+[18] Madame du Châtelet, around whose death-bed three men met in
+fraternal tolerance, Voltaire, St.-Lambert, and her husband, was buried
+here September 11, 1749. In 1793 the tomb was profaned, the lead coffin
+stolen, the bones scattered. In 1858 they were gathered up and put in a
+modern coffin in which they now repose. She said of herself: “_J’ai reçu
+de Dieu une de ces âmes tendres et immuables qui ne savent ni déguiser
+ni modérer leurs passions; qui ne connaissent ni l’affaiblissement ni le
+dégoût, et dont la ténacité sait résister à tout, même à la certitude de
+n’être pas aimée.... Mais un cœur aussi tendre, peut-il être rempli par
+un sentiment aussi paisible et aussi faible que l’amitié?_”
+
+[19] “_Faut pas s’en faire_” is one of the most famous phrases of the
+French army, and has been described as a combination of two slang
+expressions, “To keep your hair on, _de ne pas se faire des cheveux_,”
+and “not to hurt your digestion by undue worry, _de ne pas se faire de la
+bile_.”
+
+[20] René de Châlons, Prince of Orange, killed in 1544, at the siege of
+St.-Dizier. The genius of Ligier Richier has represented him according to
+his wish, as his body might have appeared three years _after_ death.
+
+[21] Slacker, pig, dirty-one, cow!
+
+[22] Cognac.
+
+[23] wine.
+
+[24] _Prisonnier de Guerre._
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75744 ***
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+
+.titlepage {
+    text-align: center;
+    margin-top: 3em;
+    text-indent: 0em;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker img {
+    max-width: 100%;
+    width: auto;
+    height: auto;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker .poetry {
+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 1.5em;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker .blockquote {
+    margin: auto 5%;
+}
+
+/* Illustration classes */
+.illowp100 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp48 {width: 48%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp48 {width: 100%;}
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+.x-ebookmaker .illowp53 {width: 100%;}
+.illowp56 {width: 56%;}
+.x-ebookmaker .illowp56 {width: 100%;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75744 ***</div>
+
+<h1>MY LORRAINE JOURNAL</h1>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="deco1" style="max-width: 4.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/deco1.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Books by</span><br>
+EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="max-width: 20em;">
+
+<ul class="allsmcap">
+<li>A DIPLOMAT’S WIFE IN MEXICO. Illustrated.</li>
+<li>DIPLOMATIC DAYS. Illustrated.</li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, NEW YORK<br>
+[<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span>]</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus01" style="max-width: 28.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus01.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>DUCAL PALACE, NANCY</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">MY LORRAINE<br>
+JOURNAL</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>by</i><br>
+EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY<br>
+<span class="smaller allsmcap">[MRS. NELSON O’SHAUGHNESSY]</span><br>
+<span class="smaller"><span class="allsmcap">AUTHOR OF</span><br>
+<i>“A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico”<br>
+and “Diplomatic Days”</i></span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">ILLUSTRATED</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp56" id="deco2" style="max-width: 9.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/deco2.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="titlepage">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br>
+<span class="smaller">NEW YORK AND LONDON</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller"><span class="smcap">My Lorraine Journal</span></p>
+
+<p class="center smaller">Copyright, 1918, by Harper &amp; Brothers<br>
+Printed in the United States of America<br>
+Published September, 1918</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p class="center"><i>To<br>
+Mrs. William H. Crocker</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>In memory of a lost battle<br>
+and in appreciation of<br>
+her work in Lorraine</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Ducal Palace, Nancy</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg" colspan="2"><a href="#illus01"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Verdun and Vicinity</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2"><i>Facing p.</i></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus02">4</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Place Stanislas, Nancy</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus03">12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Author at Vitrimont</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus04">30</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Cemetery, Vitrimont</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus05">30</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Bridge at Lunéville</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus06">30</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Fountain of Amphitrite by Jean Lamour, Place Stanislas, Nancy</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus07">38</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Souvenir Menu of Luncheon at Verdun, June 17, 1917</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus08">46</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Our Party on the Battle-field at Verdun, June 17, 1917</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus09">50</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">In the Boyaux, Verdun, June 17, 1917</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus10">50</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Sister Julie</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus11">124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Bas-relief of the Refugees</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus12">124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Miss Polk’s Wedding</span></td>
+    <td class="tdc2">”</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus13">162</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Foreword</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FOREWORD">xi</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3">PART I</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAP.</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">How One May Happen to Go to the Front</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_I">3</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Nancy</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_II">12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Lunéville</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_III">18</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Vitrimont</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_IV">22</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Lunéville Again</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_V">28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Gerbéviller and La Sœur Julie</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_VI">33</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Bar-le-Duc</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_VII">37</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Verdun</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII">42</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Châlons.—Château de Jean d’Heurs.—Revigny, the
+    “Lining” of the Front</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_IX">60</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">X.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Mont Frenet.—La Champagne Pouilleuse.—The Return</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_I_CHAPTER_X">64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3">PART II</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">By the Marne</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_II_CHAPTER_I">77</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Canteen at Bar-le-Duc</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_II_CHAPTER_II">87</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Theatricals and Camouflage</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_II_CHAPTER_III">97</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Burial of Père Cafard</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_II_CHAPTER_IV">108</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">A Providential Ford</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_II_CHAPTER_V">112</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdc" colspan="3">PART III<br>LORRAINE IN AUTUMN<br>“<i>L’élégante
+    et mélancolique Lorraine</i>”</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Nancy and Molitor</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_I">121</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Eighteenth-century Emanations</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_II">131</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Toul</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_III">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">A Stroll in Nancy</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_IV">153</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Vitrimont in Autumn</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_V">161</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">At the Guérins’</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_VI">167</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Across Lorraine</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_VII">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Châlons Canteen</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PART_III_CHAPTER_VIII">182</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It will be seen, by the first chapter, how fortuitous
+though inevitable was the writing of this little book,
+begun before the American troops came to France; yet
+it happens to concern that part of the war zone wherein
+our men are preparing themselves for battle, and which
+will be quickened with their blood.</p>
+
+<p>The time has scarcely come to write of the world war;
+indeed, it is only between wars that one can write of
+them, when wisdom, with accompanying imagination,
+looks down the great perspectives; now men’s utmost
+energies are concentrated upon deeds of passion performed
+in hope or in despair.</p>
+
+<p>Oliver’s <i>Ordeal by Battle</i> of 1915 remains the most
+scholarly and philosophic of the war books; Masefield’s
+<i>Gallipoli</i> the most artistic. But even these, and the
+many, many others, give not so much a sense of inadequacy
+as of impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>Letters from strong souls undergoing supreme emotions
+have emanated from the trenches or the air. We
+have mourned young perished singers: Rupert Brooke,
+Alan Seeger. But for the most part, and so it must be,
+war books are limited to the relation of personal deeds
+and sufferings, and descriptions of localities where they
+have taken place, colored more or less by the temperament
+of each—even as I, “<i>en passant par la Lorraine</i>,”
+wrote these pages.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edith Coues O’Shaughnessy.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging"><span class="smcap">33 rue de l’Université, Paris</span>,<br>
+<i>January 19, 1918</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I">PART I</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br>
+<span class="smaller">HOW ONE MAY HAPPEN TO GO TO THE FRONT</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>Thursday, June 7, 1917</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Even personal events have their outriders, and this
+is how an unexpectant lady, still fiancée to Mexico,
+received from Destiny various indications that she was
+to go there where men, ten thousand upon ten thousand,
+lay down their lives <i>pro patria</i>. Like everything, it was
+simple when it had happened.</p>
+
+<p>At the Foire Saint-Sulpice, where I was serving at the
+tea-stall, I met E. M. C., whom I thought in California.
+After greetings (we had not seen each other since the
+fatal month of October, 1916) she said to me:</p>
+
+<p>“You must come down to Lunéville where I have a
+house, and visit the village of Vitrimont, that mother is
+rebuilding.”</p>
+
+<p>I answered: “My dear, I’m still tied to Mexico, and
+I can see my publishers frowning all the way across the
+ocean if the second much-promised, long-delayed book
+doesn’t arrive. I oughtn’t even to peep at anything else
+for the moment.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, tea victims beginning to crowd in, “business as
+usual” engaged us and we parted.</p>
+
+<p>When I got home I found that Joseph Reinach, met<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+but once—Polybe of the delightful <i>Commentaires</i>—had
+sent me his brochure, <i>Le Village Reconstitué</i>. I still
+didn’t hear the outriders galloping down the street.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I dined <i>chez Laurent</i> with Mr. C.,
+known in Mexico. When I got there I found that his
+sister, Madame Saint-R. T., Présidente de La Renaissance
+des Foyers, was going into Lorraine, to Lunéville
+itself, the next day; conversation was almost entirely of
+the practical work to be done in the devastated districts,
+and the deeply engaging <i>philosophie de la guerre</i>, of how
+one had not only to rebuild villages, but to remake souls
+and lives.</p>
+
+<p><i>A quoi bon donner des chemises?</i> Give tools and implements,
+or a brace of rabbits, that nature may take
+its course and the peasant can say, “Soon I will have a
+dozen rabbits, and twenty-five francs that I have
+earned.”</p>
+
+<p>Some one observed that it really would be the rabbits,
+however—it is any living, productive thing that is
+of account, beyond all else, in the dead and silent places
+of devastation, and gifts of twelve chickens and one
+cock are demanded rather even than shoes.</p>
+
+<p>As we were pleasantly dining in the garden, and
+philosophizing sometimes with tears, sometimes smiles,
+a terrific thunder-storm broke over Paris, and we all
+crowded into the big central room, with piles of hastily
+torn-off, muddy table-linen. We sat talking, however,
+till they turned both ourselves and the lights out. As
+we parted, Madame Saint-R. T.’s last words were,
+“But try to come down to Lunéville.”</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself that night, “Things are getting
+hot.” I believe in signs from heaven, and signs from
+heaven are not to be neglected.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus02" style="max-width: 75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus02.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>VERDUN AND VICINITY</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>On Saturday, when E. M. stopped by for me to go
+again to the Foire, I said:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I believe I <i>will</i> go to Lunéville. What does one do
+about papers?”</p>
+
+<p>We straightway went to the Rue François Premier,
+not being in the <i>mañana</i> class, either of us, and found
+there a charming specimen of <i>jeunesse dorée</i>, intellectual,
+“sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” but doing
+his bit. Shears for the cutting of red tape were
+liberally applied, and my papers were promised in an
+unprecedented three days.</p>
+
+<p>As we “swept” out I said to E. M., “You don’t
+think we were <i>too</i> strenuous?”</p>
+
+<p>She said, “Oh, they are used to us now, though it was
+a thrilling moment when you ripped your photograph
+(such a photograph!) from the duplicate of your passport!”</p>
+
+<p>The aforementioned charming specimen, M. de P.,
+had said a photograph was essential; it was Saturday
+afternoon, the next day was Sunday, and for some unexplained
+reason photographers don’t seem to work in
+France on Mondays, at least not in war-time.</p>
+
+<p>It was about this time that E. M. said, in a <i>dégagé</i>
+way: “I am going down to Verdun with a friend. It’s
+awfully difficult, and the women who have been there
+can be counted on one’s fingers. I wish <i>you</i> could go,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>I said, “That’s out of the question.” But I thought
+to myself, “We will see what Fate decides.” It’s a great
+thing to keep astride of her, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>On account of Sunday coming in between, my papers
+could not be ready in time for me to leave with her on
+Tuesday (they have to be sent to the <i>Quartier-Général</i>
+to be stamped), but they were promised for Wednesday
+that I might start for Lunéville on Thursday. I went
+to see E. M. at her aunt’s, the Princess P.’s, on Monday
+night for a few last words and injunctions. I found<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
+her after passing through some lovely dove-gray rooms
+with priceless old portraits of Polish great, hanging on
+silvery walls, and rare bibelots and porcelains discreetly
+scattered on charming tables rising from gray carpetings.
+She greeted me by saying, “It’s all arranged for you to
+go to Verdun, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Verdun!” I cried. “Glory and sorrow of France!”</p>
+
+<p>I didn’t ask how, but thought of the harmonious
+working of chance that brings as many gifts as blows
+in its train.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Thursday, June 14th, 10.30 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>We slipped out of the station, flooded with waves of
+blue-clad men, at eight o’clock, and since then there
+has been a constant stopping of the train in green, glade-like
+places to let troop-trains pass. A while ago I found
+myself looking out on a river, and a shiver went over
+me. It was the jade-colored, slow-flowing Marne.</p>
+
+<p>White morning-glories are thick on every hedge, and
+wild roses such as grow in New England lanes, and there
+are many thistles, soft and magenta-colored; lindens,
+acacias, and poplars abound and hang delicately over
+the banks of the river.</p>
+
+<p>Lying open on my lap is the <i>Revue de Paris</i> of June
+1st, but I can’t read even the beautiful “<i>Lettres d’un
+Officier Italien</i>”—(Giosué Borsi<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>), breathing a deep
+spirit of conformity to the will of God and showing the
+evolution that many an <i>intellectuel catholique</i> of his
+generation has gone through in Italy. In his dugout
+were Dante, Homer, Ariosto, the Gospels, St. Augustine,
+Pascal, and <i>Le Manuel du Parfait Caporal et les Secours
+d’Urgence</i>. And he loved his mother and let her know it.</p>
+
+<p>All along the route are villages and peaceful country
+houses, near the train, bowered in acacia and linden;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
+elder-bushes are in full bloom, too, and we pass many
+green kitchen gardens. Women are shaking blankets
+out of windows, and looking at the train going to the
+front, thinking, who shall say what thoughts?</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Big movement of troops is delaying us, and it has been
+a morning spent among emerald-green hills, pale, like
+Guatemalan or Bolivian emeralds, not like the deep-colored
+gems of the Rue de la Paix. Everywhere are
+patches of blue-clad men, marching down white roads
+between green fields melting into the blue sky at the
+point of the eyes’ vision. Still others are bathing in the
+pale, warm Marne or resting on its banks. Trains go
+past loaded with battered autos, <i>camions</i> and guns
+coming from the front, or others with neatly covered,
+newly repaired machines of death, going out.</p>
+
+<p>All were silent in the train at first. “<i>Méfiez-vous, les
+oreilles ennemies vous écoutent</i>” is the device placarded
+everywhere. In my coupé some one feeling slightly,
+very slightly, facetious, had rubbed out the first two
+letters of <i>oreilles</i>, changed the first “<i>e</i>” into an “<i>f</i>,” so
+that it read, “<i>Méfiez-vous, les filles ennemies vous écoutent</i>.”
+The ruling passion strong in death!</p>
+
+<p>We pass Epernay, whose little vine-planted hills had
+run red, before the treading out of its 1914 wine, with the
+blood of English and French heroes.</p>
+
+<p>At last we began to talk, a dark-eyed colonel of infantry
+with the <i>Grand’ Croix de la Légion d’Honneur</i>
+having reached down my bag for me.</p>
+
+<p>It is a historic date for France and for ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The night before, General Pershing arrived in Paris,
+with his guerdon of help, mayhap salvation. All the
+newspapers had pictures of him and his staff, their
+reception at the station, the crowd before the Hôtel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+Crillon. One officer told the story of the woman in the
+crowd who was so little that there wasn’t the slightest
+chance of her seeing anything or anybody. When asked
+why she was there she answered, “<i>Mais j’aurai assisté</i>,”
+and that, it seems to me, is the epitome and epitaph of
+the generation whose fate it is to see with their eyes
+the world war.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">In the Station, Châlons-sur-Marne</span>, <i>2.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Extreme heat. Train four hours late on account of
+the movement of troops. Wave after wave of horizon
+blue undulates through the station. They are lying
+about, standing about, sitting about—the <i>poilus</i>. Half
+hidden by their equipment, their countless bundles tied
+around their waists, slung on their shoulders, under their
+arms, they seem indescribably weary and dusty, turned
+toward the blazing front where the best they can hope is
+<i>la bonne blessure</i>—theirs not to reason why. Sometimes
+30,000 pass through Châlons in a day.</p>
+
+<p>Now it comes to me that our men—our fresh, eager,
+beautiful young men, such as I saw disembark at Vera
+Cruz—will pass through this same station to that same
+blazing front....</p>
+
+<p>By my window, on the siding, is passing an endless
+train of box-cars, with four horses in the ends of each
+car. Between the horses’ forefeet, pale-blue groups of
+men are crowded; no room to lie, scarcely to sit—cramped,
+hot, with their eternal accoutrement. One
+bent group was playing cards, the horses’ heads above
+them. But mostly they are looking out at people who
+are not called upon to die.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Pangs of hunger began to assail me as the train pulled
+out. I went into the dining-car and had a modest,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+belated repast of <i>œufs sur le plat</i>, cheese and fruit.
+At the tables were groups of uniformed men talking in
+low voices of what had been and what might have been.
+As I looked out of the window, while waiting, my eyes
+fell upon the first band of prisoners I had seen—tall,
+stalwart men, wearing the round white cap with its
+band of red—at work on the roads, those veins and arteries
+of France.</p>
+
+<p>An officer, once the most civilian of civilians, looking
+like the pictures of Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> on the
+covers of cheap editions of <i>La Dame aux Camélias</i>, with
+bushy hair parted on one side, mustache, and stubby
+Napoleon, broad face and twinkling eyes, pointed out
+Sermaize, the first of the devastated villages we passed,
+which has been rebuilt by the English Society of Friends.
+“Conscientious objectors” don’t intend to let the sons
+of Mars do everything, but they can’t keep pace with
+the destruction. In <i>Le Village Reconstitué</i> M. Reinach
+speaks of the ugliness of the models proposed to the
+victims, which pass understanding, and says that even
+the vocabulary of Huysmans would not suffice to give
+the least idea of them. What the peasant wants is
+“<i>mon village</i>,” which doesn’t at all resemble what the
+<i>commis voyageur en laideur</i> proposes.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Revigny</span>, <i>4.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have seen the first black crosses in a green field
+bounded by clumps of poplar against the clear sky.
+Revigny is a mass of ruins, roofless houses, heaps of mortar,
+and endless quantities of blue-clad, heavily laden
+men coming and going in the station—the eternal waiting,
+waiting for transit. Revigny is on the road to
+Verdun, Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> told me. He gets out at
+Bar-le-Duc, which is now the point of departure to the
+fateful fortress. Groups of yellow Annamites are working<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+at the roads. They are imported for that purpose,
+being of little use when the cannon sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Awhile ago two young Breton under-officers, colonials,
+came into the compartment. They had been at school
+together and had not met for ten years until just now
+on the train. They watched together the shifting scenery;
+one was coming from a young wife, the other from
+a fiancée.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Gondrecourt.</span></p>
+
+<p>Two symmetrical fifteenth-century towers pierce a
+pale-blue sky. One of the young Bretons tells me that
+for some time the train has been making a great détour,
+as the straight line to Nancy would take it through
+Commercy, daily bombarded by the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Pagny</span>, <i>5.30 o’clock p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Here we pick up the Meuse—and there still follows
+us the pink-and-gray ribbon of willow-fringed canal that
+links the Marne to the Rhine, and which all day long
+has looked like the marble the Italians call <i>cipollino</i>.
+But I remember that its greenness has been but lately
+colored with a crimson dye.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Toul</span> (<i>where we thread up the Moselle</i>), <i>5.50</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We have just passed Toul. Great barracks are near
+the station, and on the opposite hill is the fortress, high
+against the sky, bound to Verdun by an uninterrupted
+series of forts. It is a <i>place de guerre de première classe</i>.
+The Romans had an encampment here, and Vauban
+made the fortifications of his time.</p>
+
+<p>And because the mind is not always held to the
+thing in view, even though it be of great moment, I
+thought how Toul was the town where Hilaire Belloc
+did his military service, “was in arms for his sins”;
+from here it was that he set out upon the “path to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+Rome” in fulfilment of his vow. Other things laid long
+away in memory came to mind, and I was only jerked
+back as my eye was caught by a group of German
+prisoners being marched past the station, one soldier,
+with a pointed bayonet, in front of them and another
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>And at Nancy we are to knit up the river Meurthe.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br>
+<span class="smaller">NANCY</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Nancy, a dream of the eighteenth century, with the
+réveillé of twentieth-century guns.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived at Nancy five hours late, at seven o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>No sign of E. M., no sign of anything familiar. Fortunately
+I was flanked by Brittany, and a stout heart
+did the rest. When we found that the next train for
+Lunéville would leave at nine o’clock, I asked them to
+dine with me and take a little walk about the town.
+Our luggage—we were all traveling light, I with a hand-bag
+and flat straw valise, they with two iron helmets—was
+given to the <i>consigne</i> and, after my <i>sauf-conduit</i> had
+been stamped in three separate places, we departed.</p>
+
+<p>The square before the station was surging with the
+usual pale-blue waves, and as we crossed it the odor
+of leather and tired feet and hot men was a good deal
+stronger than the linden scent. We passed a very banal
+statue of Thiers, <i>Libérateur du Territoire</i>, and some horrors
+of <i>art nouveau</i>. A construction with colored-glass
+windows and unnatural cupolas and gilding and mushy
+outlines protruded from a corner, and its name, for its
+sins, was Hôtel Excelsior. But we were searching for
+the celebrated Place Stanislas. After asking a passer-by,
+we were directed to a street whose name I have forgotten,
+and we started down its rather distinguished
+length of gray, well-built houses of another century,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+many of them having the double Lorraine cross in red
+to indicate cellar accommodations, with the number they
+could shelter.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus03" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus03.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>When, suddenly, we stepped into the Place Stanislas,
+I almost swooned with joy. I was in full eighteenth
+century, in the midst of one of its most perfect creations,
+with the low boom of the twentieth-century guns in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly my spirit was ravished from the world of
+combat into the still, calm, beautiful world of art, within
+the enchantments of the <i>grilles</i> of Jean Lamour. A
+sensation sweet, satisfying, unfelt since the beginning of
+the war, invaded me. I gazed entranced upon that delicate
+tracery of wrought iron, like some rich guipure, at the
+four corners of the square of buildings, its lovely gilding
+reflecting a soft light; and, outlined against a heaven
+colored especially for them—pale blue, with threads of
+palest pink, and a hint of gray and yellow—were urns
+and torches and figures, half human, half divine, supporting
+them. The beautiful fountains in the corners
+were banked with sand-bags, but their contours were in
+harmony with the other <i>grilles</i>, and one was surmounted
+by an Amphitrite, the other by a Neptune. It was all
+a symbol of a state of mind, a flowering of feeling, to
+which had been vouchsafed a perfection of expression.</p>
+
+<p>There is an Arc de Triomphe, put up by Stanislas at
+one end, in honor of his kingly son-in-law, in front of
+the Hôtel de Ville, and a statue of Stanislas himself in
+the middle, bearing the name “Stanislas,” the date
+of 1831, and “<i>La Lorraine Reconnaissante</i>.” In looking
+about, my eye fell on the Restaurant Stanislas, <i>dans la
+note</i>, certainly, and I decided to dine there. We found
+that we had time to investigate a little further, and
+turned down by the café into a most lovely linden-scented
+square called Place de la Carrière. Through the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
+double lines of trees between the fountains at the farther
+end was visible an old palace, and the square was flanked
+by houses that courtiers only could have lived in. It
+all cried out, “Stay with me awhile.” An old park was
+at one side, with trees planted <i>en quinconce</i><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>—chestnuts,
+ash, trembling poplars—and everywhere was the
+penetrating fragrance of the lindens. It was so sweet
+and loosening under the shade, after the long hot day
+in the train, that the young officers began to talk, one
+of his fiancée waiting in <i>Les Landes</i>, the other of his
+wife of a year, seen only twice seven days. And then
+again we were silent, and under the flowering trees I
+was seized with a great longing for the beautiful and
+calm, for the arts and ways of Peace. It seemed to me
+I could not longer think of this, that, or the other “offensive,”
+but that I must see before my eyes, hear with
+my ears, feel with my touch, the lovely, the melodic,
+the benign. <i>O bon Jésus!</i> Not of the battle-fields, not
+of <i>réformés</i>, of limbless, sightless men, not of starving,
+frightened children, not of black-robed women, not of
+lonely deaths, not of munition-factories. What is this
+world we are in?</p>
+
+<p>I don’t know how long we were silent, but at last one
+of the young men said, “We must think of the hour.”
+Then came a glancing at wrist watches, rattling of
+identity disks, and we went back to the café and got a
+table by the window, where we could look out on the
+lovely, calm <i>ensemble</i> and the fading sky. The menu
+was brought; it was a meatless day, but with a snap of
+the eye the waiter recommended <i>œufs à la gelée</i>. We
+understood later, when we found, concealed in the bottom
+of each little dish under the egg, a thick, round
+piece of ham. Fried perch, new potatoes, salad, strawberries
+and cream, with the celebrated macarons of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+Nancy—<i>des Sœurs Macarons</i>, as the little piece of paper
+underneath each says—made a delicious menu. A certain
+<i>petit vin gris du pays</i> had been recommended us
+with another snap of the eye.</p>
+
+<p>As we sat waiting, one of the officers exclaimed at a
+giant, lonely, priestly figure passing through the Place:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Le voilà, l’aumônier du 52ème.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>I said, “Do run after him and ask him for dinner,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>He came back with the young man and we had a
+most enjoyable repast. The chaplain knew all the
+things about Nancy that we didn’t. He was a huge,
+bearded man, who might have been with the hosts of
+Charlemagne, and was a native of Commercy, where
+Stanislas used to go with his court. The two Bretons
+were very Catholic and very royalist; when I remarked
+upon it, they said, simply, “Oh, we are all that way, <i>par
+là</i>,” and they spoke names of great men born in Brittany,
+and the <i>aumônier</i> told tales of near yesterdays surpassing
+those of the heroic age. The gayest of the Bretons, he who
+had not just left his young wife and his child unborn,
+began to sing, “<i>Voici un sône tout nouveau</i>,” and suddenly
+it was a quarter before nine and we had time only
+for a dash to the station <i>d’une bonne allure militaire</i>,
+which left me breathless. The nine-o’clock train didn’t,
+however, leave till ten, as it was waiting for the Paris
+train, which didn’t arrive at all. Finally, in a strange
+heat, vagaries of lightning without thunder or rain—the
+thunder we <i>did</i> hear wasn’t the old-time, pleasant,
+celestial sort, but something with an easily traceable,
+regular, decisive sound—we pulled out of the station,
+I not knowing where I was going—no address in the
+town of Lunéville.</p>
+
+<p>A thick, heavy, soft, enveloping night was about us.</p>
+
+<p>Groups of soldiers were lying, sitting, standing in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+little stations. We stopped every few minutes, and I
+could distinguish them by the light of cigarette or
+lantern on their guns and equipment, waiting for motors
+to take them to the trenches. At one place I had to
+descend to show my <i>sauf-conduit</i>; it was inspected and
+stamped by the flickering light of a blue-veiled lantern,
+and I climbed in again. I was beginning to feel a bit
+tired, and the end was <i>not</i> in sight.</p>
+
+<p>We descended at Lunéville in complete darkness, a
+motley crowd of military and civilians. My companions
+were due at different points at dawn—Baccarat
+and the Forest of Parroy. As I write, they are in the
+trenches. They put me into the hands of a <i>commissaire</i>
+who said he lived opposite E. M.’s. I waited, standing
+by the door, while he locked up the station, looking
+out on the silhouette of a gutted, roofless house, showing
+dimly against the soft night sky. At last there was a
+sound of rattling of keys and the <i>commissaire</i> picked me
+and my luggage up. We started forth, the only human
+beings visible, in what seemed a deserted town—no
+lights in streets or houses.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed a wide open space the scent of flowering
+lindens enveloped me, and with me walked the ghosts
+of lovely and too-amiable ladies, of witty rulers loving
+the arts as well as women—Duke Léopold and Madame
+de Craon, King Stanislas and Madame de Boufflers, and
+Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet.</p>
+
+<p>We walked seemingly through the entire town toward
+a freshness of parks, and in darkness we arrived before
+a garden gate; silence, and the bell nowhere to be
+found. After looking for it in the light of various
+matches—vainly, of course—the <i>commissaire</i> had the
+brilliant idea of going to the house next door, <i>la maison
+de M. le Maire</i>, the celebrated M. Keller. A woman
+came out and showed the bell where nobody would ever<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+have thought of looking for it, and, furthermore, masked
+by vines. The door was finally opened by a tall, slender,
+white-robed figure with two black braids showing over
+her shoulders and a floating scarf. I thought it a vision
+of Isolde, but it proved to be Miss P., who cried:</p>
+
+<p>“We had given you up! We waited at Nancy till
+the train came in, and then had to motor back as quickly
+as possible on account of the lights.”</p>
+
+<p>I went in, to find E. M. in a most becoming, slinky,
+pale-blue satin <i>négligé</i>, also with braids on her shoulders.
+I’d rather have found them both in <i>paniers</i>, shaking the
+powder out of their hair. However, I can’t complain;
+it was all pretty good as regards the stage-setting. We
+embraced. I explained that various zealous guardians
+of the gates of Nancy had stamped my <i>sauf-conduit</i>,
+and, as I was certainly the only one of my species arriving
+by that train, they should have given news of me
+when asked concerning <i>une Américaine</i>. Then, as the
+only healthy rooms in Lunéville in 1917 are on the
+ground floor, I departed to one that had been retained
+for me at the Hôtel des Vosges. Again through the
+soft-scented night, guided by my <i>commissaire</i>, to a room
+of extreme cleanliness and a most comfortable bed.</p>
+
+<p>It is 2 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> I am too tired to sleep. My mind is
+jacked up by all the twists and turns of the day. I
+have been reading the <i>Cour de Lunéville</i>, by Gaston
+Maugras, found in my room, belonging to E. M.</p>
+
+<p>Three o’clock. Soft, very soft booming of cannon,
+and a deep-toned bell. But no “poppy throws around
+<i>my</i> bed its lulling charities.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br>
+<span class="smaller">LUNÉVILLE</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Lunéville, a dream of fair women of old and new
+times, linden scents, and circling Taubes and little
+white puffs of shrapnel against blue skies.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hôtel des Vosges</span>, <i>June 15th, 8 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Have just breakfasted to the gentle accompaniment
+of firing on a Taube.</p>
+
+<p>Dear old village life began at an early hour, but of
+course the Taube put the cocks and the carts and the
+geese and all the other usual auroral sounds quite in
+the background.</p>
+
+<p>My breakfast service is decorated with the same
+double cross of Lorraine that I saw on various houses
+in Nancy indicating comfortable cellar accommodation.
+The cross with the <i>chardon lorrain</i> (Lorraine thistle) is
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Popping and cannonading going on at a lively rate,
+and whir of aero wheels; a beautiful day. Some little
+white puffs of shrapnel visible from my window; I
+must get dressed and investigate.</p>
+
+<p>Cannonading just stopped. I don’t know whether he
+got off or was got.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel is discreet and clean, <i>avec un petit air</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a good house of the good epoch, and over<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+each window are diverse and charming eighteenth-century
+<i>motifs</i> in gray stone.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>6.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Just home from Vitrimont in a blinding blaze of
+sun, in a motor driven by E. M., and bearing in
+large letters the words “Commission Californienne pour
+la Reconstruction des Villages Dévastés,” a sort of
+“open sesame,” and everywhere bayonets were lowered
+to let us pass. Nerves a-quiver with another day’s impressions.
+Tried lying down, but it didn’t go, so I am
+in an arm-chair looking out of my Lorraine window in
+full eighteenth century as regards setting, but with a
+very definite tide of twentieth-century warfare sweeping
+through it all. Meant to go to church, where there
+are special prayers to be offered up, at Benediction, for
+the needs of Lorraine, but, though the spirit was willing,
+the rest of me was like lead after the hot, full day and
+two hours in one spot too tempting.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, before I was dressed, E. M. and
+Mrs. C. P., also staying in the hotel, appeared, so I
+hastily harnessed up for the day and sallied forth with
+them. We went first to the charming old house of
+Mlle. Guérin, and, going in through a wide hallway,
+stepped out into a large garden, where, under some
+trees, several ladies were sitting, one of them Madame
+Saint-R. T. We embraced cordially, in the very evident
+fulfilment of destiny. Madame Saint-R. T. was
+reading Pierre Boyé’s <i>Cour de Lunéville</i>, which I matched
+with Gaston Maugras’s, and then I looked about me.</p>
+
+<p>The house, gray and long and low, was, until a hundred
+years ago, a Capuchin monastery, when it came
+into the hands of Mlle. Guérin’s family. There are old
+linden-trees in the garden, and some tall cedars and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+roses not doing very well; and masses of canterbury-bells
+and geraniums. At one end of the garden, against
+the wall, is an ancient statue of the Virgin, dark, moss-grown,
+against still darker walls; we placed the flowers
+we had gathered on her breast and in the hands of the
+Child. <i>Avions</i> were humming above in the perfect sky,
+and against the faultless blue was a very white crescent
+moon just discernible.</p>
+
+<p>After accepting an invitation for dinner that night,
+we walked out through the town toward the Château,
+once the haunt of witty rulers, philosophers, and of the
+fair and evidently too-amiable ladies beloved by them.
+However, when we got into the great square of the
+palace I forgot about them, for, looking up at the statue
+of Lasalle, born in Metz, 1775, and fallen at the battle
+of Wagram, 1807, were two Senegalese whom <i>we</i> looked
+at as the Lunéville populace might once have looked at
+the camels the young Duke Léopold brought back with
+him from his wars with the Turks. The juxtaposition
+was as strange. One of the Senegalese had on a
+blue cap, the other a red. We gave each one a franc
+for cigarettes, received large-mouthed, white-toothed
+smiles, and proceeded to look at the remains of a German
+<i>avion</i> which had fallen beside the statue the day before,
+the most complete wreck possible. The aviator had
+been killed and his broken wings were being removed to
+the Museum. It made me quite still—there was something
+so complete about it all, the great Château in the
+background, the statue of Lasalle, the two Senegalese,
+the shattered Taube!</p>
+
+<p>We walked on rather quietly over the bridge of the
+Vesouze to the Place des Carmes—the Place Brûlée, as
+it is now called. The big Carmelite convent which
+formed the square had been used as a barracks for a
+generation or so, and one side had been burned with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+incendiary bombs when the Germans left, while the
+other side was untouched. In the middle was the statue
+of L’Abbé Grégoire (who made the mistake of being
+ahead of his time), and on the pedestal are the words,
+“<i>J’ai vécu sans lâcheté, je veux mourir sans remords</i>.”
+We stopped only a moment at the church—eighteenth
+century, of course; fine old choir, delicate baroque designs
+on the great wooden doors, and dominating towers
+in a lovely reddish stone, with charming <i>motifs</i> of urn
+and scroll, and flying angels against the sky, or rather
+<i>in</i> it.</p>
+
+<p>We began to have that “gone” feeling about this
+time, and turned back through the town to E.M.’s
+house, where we were to lunch. It was cool and charming
+as we stepped in out of the sun-flooded garden,
+stripped of the mystery of the night before, but quite
+lovely. In old Lunéville china vases were masses of
+pink and purple canterbury-bells. It had been hastily
+but charmingly got ready for occupancy with old furniture
+that nice people in the provinces can put at the
+disposition of their friends, and I saw again Miss P.,
+the Isolde of the dim, scented garden of the night
+before. After lunch we sat in an arbor jutting into a
+corner of the ancient park, drinking our coffee, and
+eating some Mirror candies just out from New York—all
+to the continued hum of <i>avions</i> and the rather soft
+crack of guns. Then the motor was announced, or,
+to be faithful to reality, somebody said, “We’d better
+be off.” We put on our veils, got into the motor, which
+E.M. cranked herself, and started off to Vitrimont without
+any male assistance of any kind.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br>
+<span class="smaller">VITRIMONT</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>A merciless blaze of sun as we passed out through
+the town, badly battered at the end, through the
+Place Brûlée, leading to the road to Vitrimont, some
+three kilometers distant, running through green fields
+with their little groups of black crosses. All is softly
+green and gently rolling. Vitrimont, and around about
+it, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of that
+first August of the war, and Vitrimont itself was taken
+and lost at the point of the bayonet seven times in one
+day as gray German floods kept rolling in over the green
+eastern hills. The village is charmingly placed on a little
+eminence; sloping down from it are very fertile
+meadows, then other thickly wooded hills slope up
+against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through encumbered streets of devastated,
+roofless houses, going first to Miss P.’s little dwelling,
+that she has lived in during all these months of the
+superintending of the reconstruction work. It consists
+mostly of one perfectly charming room done up in yellow
+chintz with a square pattern of pink roses, and
+some good bits of old furniture, books, and flowers.
+She took down from the wall a violin made by a convalescing
+soldier out of a cigar-box and drew from it a
+few soft and lovely tones. The rest of the house, where
+she has installed herself with a woman servant, is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+typical of the Lorraine peasant houses: a very wide
+door to let the harvest-wagons in, a narrow one for human
+beings, a narrow hall leading into a kitchen, then
+the bigger living-room giving into it, now so charming
+in its yellow chintz. From the kitchen some steep stairs
+lead up into an attic which Miss P. has converted into
+a medical dispensary.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, across the street, is a little pergola effect
+made of boarding, where one can sit and look out across
+the softly rolling, wooded hills. In it are a table and a
+few chairs and some pots of flowers. We deposited our
+tea-things there, and were starting out to make the
+tour of the village, when the mayor, in shirt sleeves,
+loose suspenders, and slipping trousers (his wife was
+killed in the 1915 bombardment of Lunéville and his
+son fell in the 1914 fighting in Vitrimont), came to welcome
+us and do the inevitable stamping of our safe-conducts.</p>
+
+<p>We then proceeded to the old church, one of the first
+things to be restored, so that its delicious fifteenth-century
+vaultings and window-tracings would be beyond
+further damage from exposure to the weather. One of
+the things <i>not</i> hurt was the dado running around the
+interior in the form of painted cloth folds by a misguided
+nineteenth-century <i>curé</i>. War, with its usual
+discriminating touch, had left <i>that</i>. In the vestibule
+are some small, perfect Louis XV holy-water fonts in
+the form of shells upheld on angels’ heads. A celebrated
+baptismal font was removed to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>We then went to the <i>maison forte</i>, as the peasants
+call what had been a sort of château, the dwelling of the
+“first family” of the place. Its medieval tower was
+battered beyond repair, and the house itself pretty well
+damaged, while some of the rooms still had charming
+bits of paneling, and the locks and latches of the doors<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
+were perfect examples of eighteenth-century wrought-iron
+work. In one of the large rooms, whose ceiling was
+broken in by a shell, was a lovely old fireback under a
+marble mantel with the arms of the Counts of Vitrimont.
+By a north window was sitting a woman
+working at an embroidery screen with a brilliant
+green and silver design; an old man with palsied head
+was near.</p>
+
+<p>The school also has been rebuilt. A rosy-faced young
+schoolmistress received us, and two little boys kept
+to do their <i>pensums</i> told us the name of the President
+of the United States, and showed us Washington <i>and</i>
+San Francisco on the map hanging in the room. This
+having been satisfactorily gone through with, the
+punished little boys, with the usual luck of the wicked,
+were given chocolates by E. M. and dismissed; then we
+walked out into the little cemetery, approached by a
+narrow pathway of arching sycamores. It looks out
+toward the ancient forest of Vitrimont; in between are
+more green, undulating fields ripening with the 1917
+harvest. The walls of the cemetery are battered and
+broken and monuments and gravestones are overturned.
+There was furious hand-to-hand fighting there, and in
+those first August days the long dead again mingled
+with the living. I passed down by broken, sun-baked
+walls, reading the names on the crosses as I went, and
+these are some of them:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p><i>Lieut. Jeannot, 26ème Infanterie, aspirant—Un soldat
+inconnu—</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Haye, Louis, Sergent—28 soldats—</i></p>
+
+<p><i>A notre fils, Charles Diebolt, mort pour la Patrie 1895-1914,
+26ème Infanterie—</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Carron, Musicien; Souvenir d’un camarade,
+mort au Champ d’Honneur 31 août 1914—</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p>
+
+<p>A rude wooden cross bears the words:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ci-gît Edouard Durand, fusillé le 25 août 1914 par
+des lâches.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>As one goes out is the tomb of a young girl; “<i>Hélène
+Midon, 18 ans, victime du 1er septembre 1915—une
+prière—la plus jolie fille du village</i>.” A white and virginal
+rose has been planted where she lies. In this
+cemetery lie, too, the wife and son of the mayor.</p>
+
+<p>The first upspringing of early flowers is everywhere—asters,
+goldenrod, wild roses—and the hot sun extracted
+from each its soft, peculiar perfume. I picked
+a seemingly perfect rose from the grave of <i>un soldat
+inconnu</i>. Its petals immediately fell to the ground.
+Everything grows with an almost ironical luxuriousness
+on the shallow, hastily dug graves. All over Lorraine
+is this same flowering; it has been and will be, but there
+was no time to ponder on the fate of frontier lands, for
+we were next to call on the officer commanding the
+detachment quartered at Vitrimont, who was housed
+in a reconstructed building and who had been waked
+from slumber to receive us. When I gave him my
+boxes of cigarettes for his men he said that he had
+received some before for the soldiers who had the Croix
+de Guerre. I promptly told him mine were for the
+soldiers who had <i>not</i> got it. Mrs. C. P. brought bundles
+of illustrated papers and postal cards.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers are everywhere helping to get in the hay;
+sweet odors of freshly cut grass float about on the
+warm air to the sound of distant cannonading. However,
+in spite of everything, it is already <i>l’après-guerre</i>
+here, and the delivered population is breathing again,
+but it all gives the sensation of something prostrate that
+needs the help of strong, fresh hands before it can arise.
+Mrs. Crocker’s work is on such a generous, imaginative,
+sliding scale, and Miss P., untiring and executive, is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+of immense tact in dealing with the Lorraine peasant,
+a peculiar type demanding peculiar handling. There
+are numberless psychological situations needing adjustment
+in the human as well as material affairs of devastated
+villages. Miss P. meets all difficulties with
+understanding plus determination. Some are content,
+some not, with what is done for them. One woman
+whose house was completed, and who was evidently
+dazzled by the result, said, “It isn’t a house to live in,
+but to rent.”</p>
+
+<p>Another, however, when we went into the grange
+behind her house, pointing to the posts sustaining the
+hay-lofts, said: “Will they hold? The old ones were
+twice the size.”</p>
+
+<p>Sanitary improvements have been worked out as far
+as possible, but when you try to tamper with a peasant’s
+pile of <i>fumier</i>, it’s like tampering with his purse—and
+<i>that’s</i> impossible. Quite a good deal of live stock has
+been put into Vitrimont.</p>
+
+<p>A soldier stationed with the Vitrimont detachment
+cranked the motor for us. His home was near by, and
+he told us with shining eyes that he had just bought
+for ninety francs two pigs. Somebody observed it was
+the <i>premier pig qui coûte</i>. However that may be, the
+purchase marked the remaking of his home.</p>
+
+<p>One is appalled at the time and energy and money
+necessary for the rebuilding of this single village—a
+million francs is the cost estimated—and materials and
+workmen are increasingly difficult to get. One thinks
+of the hundreds that <i>aren’t</i> being rebuilt. Vitrimont
+has certainly been smiled on by heaven <i>and</i> Mrs. C.</p>
+
+<p>As we drove home, fleecy, delicately tinted clouds
+were pinned together with mother-of-pearl cross-shaped
+brooches. It is in the air alone that there is any “war
+beauty.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></p>
+
+<p>Soldiers are passing under my window, some in the
+blue trench-helmets, with their equipment; some in their
+fatigue caps, swinging their arms, free of their eternal
+burdens; and there are officers afoot or on horseback,
+and colonials—marines, we call them—in many kinds of
+uniforms.</p>
+
+<p>The poster on the old garden wall opposite says:
+<i>Alice Raveau viendra jouer “Werther,” dimanche, le 17
+juin, 1917, en matinée</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte might have lived in the house behind the
+wall on which it is pasted, a gray, smooth-façaded house
+with a good eighteenth-century door, and a chestnut
+and a linden in full bloom. At the café on the corner
+soldiers are sitting, laughing and talking, humming, drinking
+their <i>bocks</i>, reading their papers, or throwing words to
+women who pass by, and I thought of the men who pass
+through these villages, leaving to women an inexorable
+burden and an untransmittable joy. Many swallows are
+flying about, and above it all, in the colorful afternoon
+air, <i>avions</i> are humming. On the wings of the French
+airplanes are stamped a great circle of color like an eye
+with red pupil, white retina, and a blue outer rim. After
+the hot day, something lovely and cool begins to come
+in at the window, and I know soldiers all over Lorraine
+are resting after the heat and burden of the day, though
+in the distance the dull, muffled sound of cannon continues.
+Now I must “dress”—that is, put on my other
+dress—for the eight-o’clock dinner at Mlle. Guérin’s.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br>
+<span class="smaller">MONSIEUR KELLER</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lunéville</span>, <i>Saturday, 16th June, 8 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>As I put out my light and opened wide my window
+last night a rush of warm, linden-scented air came
+in, also the thick, soft, meridional voice of some soldier
+singing “<i>En passant par la Lorraine</i>.” I, too, was passing
+through Lorraine, and I got the sleep I didn’t get
+the night before.</p>
+
+<p>This morning more whirring of aeroplanes, but peaceful.
+The Taube got off yesterday; all the events of
+Friday were accompanied by that constant low-flying
+of aeroplanes, making one feel one was being looked after.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner at Monsieur Guérin’s. Monsieur Keller, the
+celebrated mayor of Lunéville, whose tact, courage, and
+good sense saved Lunéville many tragedies at the time
+of the German entry, took me out. He has a lively, perceptive
+eye, and, all in all, life seems not to have been
+unkind to him, though he has been invaded, and his
+parents before him. He received the Germans and said
+adieu to them all in that month of August. His fine
+old dwelling, where the treaty of peace was signed in
+1801 between France and Austria, is next to E. M.’s,
+and housed at one time one hundred German soldiers,
+and the general and his staff were quartered in it. He
+was, of course, the bright particular hostage during the
+occupation, and was followed about by two officers and
+four soldiers wherever he went.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I kept them moving,” he added, with a snap of his
+perceptive eye.</p>
+
+<p>At Lunéville one hundred and thirty houses were destroyed
+and there was much loss of life among civilians.
+The mayor has, or rather had, a property near Vitrimont,
+called Léomont, on a hill where there was formerly
+a Roman temple to the moon, and from this
+Lunéville is supposed to take its name. The great farm
+and its ancient buildings were destroyed during the
+bombardments of Lunéville and Vitrimont.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s only a war monument now,” he added, philosophically.</p>
+
+<p>It’s the atmosphere of Lunéville that’s so charming
+to me—this drop into full eighteenth century, with the
+boom of twentieth-century cannon in the distance. In
+spite of the sound of guns, there is some peace they
+can’t destroy. I knew nothing about the French provinces
+till I got to Lunéville, and I suppose it’s their
+immemorial and quite special atmosphere that I have
+received. Here the war seems to be a thing of the past;
+they think of their <i>secteur</i> only, and of themselves as
+<i>libérés</i>, and talk of the war in the past tense, and it
+might be 1814 just as well as 1914.</p>
+
+<p>A heavenly evening. We walked in the dim old garden
+smelling of linden. No lights anywhere, of course,
+and, though the stars were beautiful, they didn’t seem
+to light up anything terrestrial; the only things blacker
+than the night were the giant cedars. At dinner was a
+youngish, much-decorated general, coming back for a
+night from the front; though born in Lunéville it was the
+first time he had been here since the war—always fighting
+in other parts of France. Besides the general there
+were Madame Saint-R. T., E. M., and Miss P., who
+appeared in some sort of dull-red tunic that she ought
+always to wear; the mayor and his wife (she is Gasconne,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+and very animated, though she said twenty years of
+Lunéville had somewhat calmed her); two or three
+women with husbands at the front bringing daughters;
+several young officers; and M. Guérin and his daughter—the
+usual war-time composition of dinner-parties in
+the provinces, I imagine. Excellent and very lavish
+repast, <i>maigre</i>, of course, but everything else except
+meat in profusion. I didn’t get to bed till after eleven.
+M. Guérin walked back to the hotel with us, and, while
+he and Mrs. C. P. talked, again I was accosted by ghosts
+of dead rulers and lovely ladies and philosophers as we
+crossed the vast, dim Place Léopold. They, too, had
+crossed it and been amorous and witty, pleased or having
+<i>vapeurs</i>, enveloped by linden scent, and the changeless
+stars had controlled their destinies.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>This morning we visited the military hospital in one
+of the most charming edifices I have ever seen, an
+eighteenth-century convent-building. The first entry
+on the tableau in the hallway giving the names of the
+benefactors was 1761; the last, 1913. It is a two-storied,
+cloistered, rambling edifice, with several wide
+courtyards planted with trees and flowers, a fountain in
+the middle of one; in another a statue of the Virgin;
+beyond it a sun-baked vegetable garden; and still
+farther, behind a hedge, the inevitable little cemetery.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus04" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus04.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>AUTHOR AT VITRIMONT</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus05" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus05.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>CEMETERY, VITRIMONT</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus06" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus06.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>THE BRIDGE AT LUNÉVILLE</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>We went through the wards of the hospital, high-ceilinged,
+spotless, airy, with the <i>médecin-chef</i>, talking
+with the wounded and distributing cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>One of the doctors, also mayor of Gerbéviller, said to
+us, when we told him we were going there in the afternoon,
+“But don’t you want to see the young German
+aviator?”</p>
+
+<p>Thinking it quite “in the note,” we went up-stairs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+again. He unlocked the door of a large corner room.
+At a table by a window looking out on another little
+tree-planted court was the young eaglet with fractured
+“wing”—arm and shoulder—in plaster. He got up
+with the military salute as we came in. I begged permission
+to address him in German, and when I asked
+him where he was <i>zu Hause</i>, he answered, “Posen,”
+and that it was far. He said he was very comfortable,
+but, with a longing glance at the patch of sky, added
+that he was dreadfully bored. I suppose he was, after
+being a bird in the blue ether and breaking into secular
+silences. He had been there a month, but was still very
+thin under the cheek-bones and dark about the eyes,
+and very young. He turned to the doctor with an entirely
+different expression—a sort of shutting down of
+iron shutters over the youthful look—on being asked
+in German if he had all he needed.</p>
+
+<p>“Why have I had no answer to the post-cards I have
+written my mother?” he asked, adding, “we also have
+mothers.”</p>
+
+<p>The <i>médecin-chef</i> said: “You know you can only write
+once a month; but write another, all the same, and I
+will see it is sent off.”</p>
+
+<p>He had a worn French grammar on the table and had
+been diligently studying verbs when we entered. The
+doctor was <i>so</i> nice with him.</p>
+
+<p>There is no bitterness at the front; the more one sees
+of it the more one realizes that bitterness is the special
+prerogative of non-combatants far from the field. I
+heard an American woman say to an officer just back
+from the front, so newly back that “the look” was
+still in his eyes:</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like to see you at Cologne, destroying the cathedral.
+It would serve the Boches right.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her and made answer: “<i>Ce n’est pas<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+comme ça, madame</i>. Enough has been destroyed in the
+world. Think rather of reconstruction.”</p>
+
+<p>Ah! <i>les civils!</i></p>
+
+<p>Coming out, we met Mlle. des Garets and went with
+her to her evacuation hospital near the station, which
+was a triumph of turning heterogeneous spaces into a
+single purpose. Two old railway sheds had been converted
+into receiving-rooms, douche-rooms, refectories,
+and several eighteenth-century cellars had been so arranged
+that in case of bombardment they could stow
+away fifteen hundred wounded. This seems a simple
+enough statement, but just think what stowing away,
+<i>suddenly</i>, fifteen hundred wounded means! Mlle, des
+Garets, a daughter of General des Garets, has been marvelous
+in her devotion and practicality since the beginning
+of the war.</p>
+
+<p>I hear the motor-horn....</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br>
+<span class="smaller">GERBÉVILLER AND LA SŒUR JULIE</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>We started out for Gerbéviller in a blinding sun,
+over a road leading through pleasant green
+meadows. That is one of the strange things of Lorraine—everywhere
+destroyed villages and everywhere
+well-planted fields, almost as if planted by the ghostly
+throngs of heroes who lie within. For in nearly every
+field there are the little clusters of black crosses, hung
+with flowers or the tricolor badge, or quite bare—with
+the number of men who lie within, or a date, scarcely
+ever a name.</p>
+
+<p>We went into the village, very ancient, that owes
+its name, Ville des Gerbes, to a miracle performed there
+by St.-Mansuy, past the completely destroyed château
+of the Lambertye family, and, going up a winding street,
+reached the house of Sister Julie, the heroine of August,
+1914. On every side were gutted houses and piles of
+mortar and stones; one enterprising individual of the
+fair sex had installed against a resisting wall Le Café
+des Ruines, and some soldiers and civilians were sitting
+on bits of stone and masonry, drinking their <i>bocks</i> and
+reading newspapers. The convent-building is in the
+principal street, and it was unharmed save for a little
+peppering of rifle-fire and a bit of cornice knocked off—<i>par
+la grâce de Dieu</i>, as Sister Julie afterward told us.
+Up three steps, and one finds oneself in a narrow, ancient<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+stone hallway. Turning to the right, one enters
+a cool, peaceful room of the convent-parlor type—a
+large crucifix, lithographs of the last three popes, horsehair
+furniture, white crocheted doilies, everything spotless.
+In a moment Sister Julie came in. Her flashing
+eyes, her determined jaw, show her always to have been a
+woman of parts, and yet her whole life is really crowded
+into those few eventful days of the latter part of August,
+when “they” entered the town. For the rest, the quiet,
+useful routine of the nursing and teaching order of St.
+Charles de Nancy, which had been <i>chassé</i> at the time of
+the French Revolution; a few nuns managed to remain
+hidden, and the order has been preserved. She is evidently
+a responsive soul, for she immediately began to
+enact the story of the arrival of the Germans, with a
+certain art in the presentment of the tragedy of the
+little town, gained, no doubt, by many recitals.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans came into the town on the 27th of
+August, after the heroic defense of the bridge over the
+Mortagne by a detachment of fifty-four men of the
+2d Chasseurs from sunrise to sunset, who held up during
+hours the brigade of the Bavarian General Clauss.
+Finally, at five o’clock the gray hosts got through and
+passed in with a great sound of tramping feet and ringing
+hoof, and, after the manner of invaders, <i>mettant le
+feu et le sang dans le village</i>. Sister Julie thought her
+hour also had come. In the room where we were sitting
+she had placed her thirteen wounded men, brought in
+at intervals during the day. “<i>Mes petits</i>,” she called
+them, and her eyes shone softly at the memory. She
+sent the other sisters up to the attic, and remained alone
+to face the enemy and to beg that the house be spared.
+She went out on the little step, not knowing what fate
+awaited her, and found four immense officers on horseback,
+with their horses’ heads facing her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>“They thought they were Charlemagnes, immense
+men, with light hair and light-blue eyes and arched
+noses and gallooned uniforms. I was like a dwarf in
+comparison, and I am not small.” To tell the truth,
+she is indeed a “muscular Christian.”</p>
+
+<p>Then began the interrogatory, the ranking officer
+demanding of her:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Sie sprechen Deutsch?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>She said to us, with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>“I did speak it in my youth, but it wasn’t the moment
+to recall my studies, and I didn’t answer, and we
+remained for a few seconds looking at each other <i>comme
+des chiens de faïence</i>.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> I so little on the house-step,
+and they so tall on their big horses, and with poignards
+drawn from their breast pockets, <i>pas le beau geste de
+tirer l’épée du côté</i>,” she finished, disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the silence was broken by the ranking officer,
+whose next words were in French: “<i>Nous ne sommes pas
+des barbares</i>; you have soldiers and weapons concealed
+in your house. Lead the way.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the four officers dismounted and, with pistols
+in one hand and poignards in the other, followed Sister
+Julie into the little room where the thirteen wounded
+men were lying. Their helmets touched the ceiling as
+they looked about them. Standing by the first bed
+nearest the door, an officer pulled down the covers.</p>
+
+<p>“You have arms concealed.”</p>
+
+<p>“We have nothing. You will find only men lying in
+their blood.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time Sister Julie was not only talking, but
+acting the scene, indicating where the beds were, where
+she had stood, where the four <i>chefs</i> had entered, and
+how the eyes of the wounded men followed her. The
+officers made the rounds of the beds, pulling down each<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+stained cover, Sister Julie following to re-cover the men,
+who were expecting, as was she, the order to burn the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>She continued: “They were Bavarians, and when I
+said: ‘You see, we have nothing. Leave me my
+wounded, in the name of Mary most Holy,’ the commanding
+officer began to look at the point of his shoe
+as men do when they are embarrassed. I have seen
+surgeons do just that when they are in doubt about an
+operation,” she added. “Then he suddenly turned without
+a word and went out, followed by the other three,
+pistols and poignards in hand. They passed up the
+street with their detachment, ‘<i>mettant le feu et le sang au
+village; et moi, restée avec mes petits, à remercier le bon
+Dieu—et de leur donner à boire</i>.’”</p>
+
+<p>We gave our little offerings into her generous hands,
+and sniffed the scent of freshly baked bread that permeated
+the corridor. E. M. photographed her standing on
+her historic steps, and we went out into the hot, cobble-stoned
+street, to the completely ruined Lambertye
+château, standing in the midst of a park whose gardens
+were designed by Louis de Nesle. Two large and very
+beautiful porphyry basins near the house were untouched—not
+a nick or a scratch. On the great marble fireplace
+of what had been the big central hall, now uncovered
+to the day, we could still read the words:</p>
+
+<p class="center">Charles de Montmorency<br>
+Duc de . . . . mbourg,<br>
+Maréchal de France.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward E. M. took some more photographs, and
+we sped homeward to pack our belongings and dash
+into Nancy to get the eight-o’clock train from there for
+Bar-le-Duc, to be ready for the high adventure of
+Verdun early the next morning.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br>
+<span class="smaller">BAR-LE-DUC</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Bar-le-Duc</span>, <i>Sunday, June 17th, 2 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Scribbling in an indescribable brown-upholstered
+room, where one lies on the outside of a
+dark and menacing bed covered by one’s own coat, a
+strong odor of stable coming in at the window and a
+horrid black cat wandering about. It’s no night to
+sleep. Two o’clock has just softly sounded from some
+old bell. I didn’t hear one o’clock, I am thankful to
+say. I was in a sort of trance of fatigue when we got
+here at eleven.</p>
+
+<p>Miss P. motored us into Nancy, straight into the
+setting sun. My eyes were so tired that I didn’t try
+to pierce the hot glaze, but there’s a memory of running
+through green fields, with black crosses, saline installations
+(Rosières aux Salines), manufacturing towns (Dombasle-sur-Meurthe),
+and Gothic towers (St. Nicholas du
+Port), and a dash through the new factory suburbs of
+Nancy into the delicate and perfect loveliness of the
+Place Stanislas. Neither E. M. nor I had a permit to
+go to Bar-le-Duc, the point of departure for Verdun,
+but Mrs. P. had, so she was deputed to order dinner at
+the Café Stanislas, while we went to the Hôtel de Ville
+to try to find the <i>Secrétaire Général</i>, Mr. Martin, a special
+friend of E. M.’s, and do what I call “cutting barbed
+wire.” It seemed at one time as if the high adventure<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span>
+of Verdun might have to be abandoned, as the <i>Secrétaire
+Général</i>, who alone could give us the necessary permission,
+had been called to Pont-à-Mousson to investigate
+the results of a raid of German <i>avions</i> there and
+at Pompey that morning. However, when fate has
+made up its mind that things shall happen, any deadlock
+is cleared up by the puppets themselves, literally
+on a string this time, for as we were standing there in
+the room with the impotent substitute of the <i>Secrétaire
+Général</i>, the telephone rang, and who was it but the
+so desired gentleman calling up about something on the
+long-distance wire. E. M. literally grabbed the receiver,
+explained the situation, and he gave the necessary
+authority to his substitute, and we in turn gave the
+oft-repeated story of our lives from the cradle to the
+present moment, and finally could depart with papers
+in order for dinner at the Café Stanislas. Again as we
+walked across the lovely Place my soul was stirred with
+memories of peace, love, and the arts of peace. I
+seemed to understand anew those words, “The arts of
+peace,” and in a half-dream I looked up at the heavens.
+Again pale, charming faded tints of blues and grays and
+pinks were the background for the urns and figures of
+the sky-line of the pure and lovely buildings that surround
+it, and a crescent moon with something untouched
+and virginal flung a last charm about it all.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus07" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus07.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>FOUNTAIN OF AMPHITRITE BY JEAN LAMOUR,
+  PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>We found Mrs. C. P. waiting at the same table at
+which I had sat two nights before with the sons of Mars
+and the man of God. We were just beginning our dinner
+when, looking out of the window, we saw something
+strange and for a moment unclassifiable, in an almost
+impossible juxtaposition of ideas. No one’s mind would
+be sufficiently mobile to grasp what it was without blinking
+a bit. The great, portentous black cross on its wings
+was what started the mind working properly. It was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+the Taube brought down at Pont-à-Mousson that
+morning, being drawn on a <i>camion</i> through the delicious,
+delicate tracery of Jean Lamour’s wrought-iron gate!</p>
+
+<p>1755-1917!</p>
+
+<p>We dashed out; a crowd was already gathering. A
+young French aviator with a curious look in his eyes
+was watching it being set up. Having espied the wings
+on his uniform, we asked “what and where and how”
+and are “they” dead or prisoners? Some one said,
+“<i>C’est lui</i>,” indicating the young man, who did not
+answer our questions, but continued to stand quite still
+in some sort of dream or <i>détente</i> of nerves. But a man in
+the crowd said:</p>
+
+<p>“He brought it down at Pont-à-Mousson, and <i>they</i> are
+prisoners.” We were standing by the statue of <i>Stanislas
+le Bienfaisant, Stanislas le Bon</i>, his reign <i>le règne des
+talents, des arts et des vertus</i> (these last not as we know
+them in 1917), and he <i>was</i> looking on strange things!
+We went back to the café, consumed in haste and distraction
+the very nice little dinner, topped off by strawberries
+and cream and the celebrated <i>macarons des
+Sœurs Macarons</i>, and again I found myself dashing to
+the station, which one thinks is near and isn’t, accompanied
+by my two fair friends, all going at the same <i>allure
+militaire</i> that I had taken forty-eight hours before with
+the two Breton officers and the Chaplain of the 52d.</p>
+
+<p>Wild dash at the station for our hand-luggage; and
+stampings of safe-conduct, then a hunt for the porter,
+who, with an excess of zeal (and hope), had reserved a
+coupé for us and put up the fateful words <i>dames seules</i>.
+Now there is no such thing as <i>dames seules</i> at the front.
+Many officers were standing in the corridor, one on
+crutches, so we tore the forbidding words from the windows,
+and the compartment automatically, though
+courteously, filled.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p>
+
+<p>Among them two immense, dark-bearded men from
+the Midi, with accents to defeat the enemy, and a pale
+officer from near the Swiss frontier, as we afterward
+discovered. He smiled when I said to the dark one
+sitting by me, after the greetings and thanks:</p>
+
+<p>“You come from Marseilles?” (He came from a little
+place five miles from there.)</p>
+
+<p>The officer on crutches stretched his leg with a contraction
+of the face and a sigh of relief. They were all
+<i>en route</i> for home, from the same regiment, the seven
+precious days of <i>permission</i> counting from the hour
+they reach their homes till the hour they leave them,
+after months in the field. They had fought in Belgium,
+on the dunes, these men of the south, those first eighteen
+months, up to their waists in water, often for weeks at
+a time. They found the Lorraine landscape that so
+soothed my soul only fairly pretty, and spoke soft
+praises of <i>le Midi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>They all had the strange, bold, hard, shining look about
+the eyes, with a deeper suggestion of sadness, that men
+just returning from action have. It is the warrior look—one
+kills or one is killed, one conquers or is conquered;
+there is no <i>via media</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The pale officer from Savoy said: “There should never
+be any war; <i>c’est trop terrible</i>; but, once given the fact
+that war exists, all means to victory are justifiable.”
+And the bright, hard look deepening on his face made
+me suddenly think of Charles Martel and Charlemagne,
+and I knew it was the way French warriors have looked
+through the ages, but, oh! France. “<i>Oh doux pays!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>At Bar-le-Duc, dating from the Merovingians, at
+least, we descended (our bags passed out of the windows
+by the officers), and went through a dark, silent, linden-scented
+town, obliged to drag our own belongings through
+an interminable street, over a bridge across tree-bordered<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>
+black water, till we got to this abode, known to men
+by the name of Hôtel de Metz et du Commerce. What
+the devils call it I don’t know; I have just chased the
+black cat out, and if I don’t get some sleep I shall not
+get to Verdun. There’s no linden scent coming in at
+my window here.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Bar-le-Duc</span>, <i>eight o’clock a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Waiting in the sandy-floored dining-room of the hotel.
+All three of us very cross. At dawn not only the light,
+but the sounds of chopping of wood, emptying of pails,
+and invectives of various sorts came in at the dreadful
+windows. At seven the maid mounted to know if we
+wanted the water in the tea or the tea in the water.
+That tea “threw” them. Not a sign of the famous
+Bar-le-Duc jellies that one has eaten all one’s life, even
+<i>outre-mer</i>. We compared notes of furry, rumpled sheets,
+dented pillows, dark coverlets, dreadful scents, and
+unmistakable sounds. We are now somewhat restored
+by hot and very good <i>café au lait</i>, and Mrs. C. P. is looking
+out of the door for signs of Mr. de Sinçay, who
+has just stepped out of his motor.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br>
+<span class="smaller">VERDUN</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Verdun! The sound is like a clarion call. Verdun!
+It is shorty but gravely harmonious. It is satisfying
+to the ear, it is quickening to the soul. Verdun! It is for
+France the word of words; in it lies the whole beauty of
+her language and of her martial glory as well.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Who shall say it is but a fortuitous collection of letters,
+this word Verdun, beautiful as a chalice, that holds the dearest
+blood of France? It would not have been the same
+mystically, perhaps not actually, had it been Toul or Epinal
+or even that other melodic sound, Belfort. Verdun! It is
+the call through red days and nights, and everywhere the
+sons of France rallying to it with great hurryings lest mayhap
+one be there before the other, to dye with deeper color
+the crimson of high deeds. Verdun, ear and tongue relinquish
+you regretfully.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Verdun, glory and sorrow of France, I salute you,
+Verdun! Verdun!</i></p>
+
+<p>Night, silence, and memory turning over the events
+of the day.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped writing this morning as a gentleman of
+supreme personal distinction entered the little sandy-floored
+café, a gentleman who should always be arriving
+in a dark-red, sixty-horse-power Panhard, or receiving<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+on a terrace with a castle behind him, or sitting
+in a library of first editions only, in soft but gorgeous
+bindings. It was M. de S., and we shortly all got into
+the big auto, we three women on the broad back seat,
+M. de S. in front with the military chauffeur. Even
+the bend of his long back was <i>l’élégance suprême</i>. He
+said the motor had seen three years of war-service, but
+certainly there was something unfatigued about it as
+it started out through the ancient streets of Bar-le-Duc,
+on the white road to the fateful fortress. The arrow on
+the first Verdun sign-post gave a feeling of having shot
+itself into one’s heart, as well as pointing the way.</p>
+
+<p>Almost immediately we met a long convoy bringing
+men back from the front, ourselves and everything else
+enveloped in a white plaster-of-Paris-like cloud of dust.
+It seemed an endless line, with their camouflaged canvas
+tops and sides, painted in great splashes of green and
+brown. In some of them the men were singing the
+<i>chansons de route</i> that soldiers so love, and many of
+them had green branches stuck in the sides as a slight
+protection against the sun and the shifting white dust.
+The grass and flowers of the wayside were as if dipped
+in whitewash, but the road, like all the roads of France—those
+veins of her body of death <i>and</i> life—was in
+excellent condition. Next we met a great line of Red
+Cross convoys, and all the time we were swinging
+through ruined villages.</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance to X. the guard stopped us with his
+bayonet. Our papers being in <i>archi</i> condition, we
+passed through the little village of the <i>Quartier-Général</i>
+without further hindrance. In front of the Mairie there
+is a quaint old fountain with its statue of three women
+holding up a <i>motif</i> of flowers in a basket; near by there
+is an old hostelry, <i>Le Raisin Blanc</i>, in front of which
+soldiers were sitting, drinking their <i>bocks</i> and reading<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+newspapers. Turning out again on the white road,
+we pass settlements of Red Cross barracks and munition
+parks, looking for all the world like mining camps in
+Western towns at home.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived at Dugny at ten o’clock and descended
+to look about for a suitable place for the installing of a
+canteen, which was partly our reason for being where
+we were. There is an old country house in the middle
+of the little town, with a coat of arms above the
+door and lions crouching on its gates; behind is a lovely
+ancient park with linden and elder trees in full blossom,
+and under them quiet, shady walks. It is used as an
+ambulance station, and convalescing men were sitting
+or lying about on the ground. We met the <i>médecin-chef</i>,
+who, however, like all doctors, didn’t care twopence
+for well soldiers, and was but platonically interested
+in the canteen matter—just as the military count
+out the sick and wounded soldiers. It’s all in the point
+of view.</p>
+
+<p>As we stood talking a German aeroplane flew high
+above Dugny outlined in a perfect sky. Little white
+clouds of shrapnel from the vertical guns began to
+burst about it in the clear blue, and there was a louder
+sound of cannonading as the <i>avion</i> disappeared in some
+far and upper ether. E. M.’s brother had been once
+stationed here for months, and she told the story of his
+meeting unexpectedly his cousin Casimir. They were
+going different ways with different detachments, and
+they “held up the war” while they embraced! Smart
+officers, ahorse and afoot, convoys going to the trenches
+with rations, great carts full of bread, and ambulating
+soup-kitchens filled the little street. Verdun was but
+seven kilometers distant, and the road lay straight before
+us as we left Dugny. On the horizon the outline
+of the citadel and the towers of the cathedral showed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>
+against the sky. Another endless convoy of ambulances
+and <i>camions</i> enveloped us in a choking white dust.
+This is the lining of the front, and it is quite easy to
+see where the war billions go.</p>
+
+<p>We passed into Verdun under the Porte de France,
+and then went immediately up to the citadel through
+the old drawbridge, all dating from the days of Louis
+XIV and Vauban, and it was at Verdun that the sons
+of Louis the Debonair met to divide the empire of
+Charlemagne.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>We got out by the demolished barracks, and M. de
+S. went to pay his respects to the colonel, who was expecting
+him. As I descended I saw at my feet a beautiful
+tiny bird’s nest, which I picked up with a clutching
+at the heart. The birds went away that first terrible
+spring of 1916, the colonel afterward told me, but they
+had come back in great numbers in 1917, and were
+everywhere building their nests, in spite of the continual
+bombardments. The citadel was a desolate mass
+of mortar, stones, rusty barbed-wire entanglements,
+blackened and broken tree stumps, but everywhere, too,
+were quantities of undiscourageable new green.</p>
+
+<p>We met a young doctor coming across the Place, and
+fell into conversation with him. He had been at the
+front since the beginning, and he was sad-eyed in spite
+of his youth. When I spoke of the near-by tenth-century
+tower toppling and half-demolished, all that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+was left of the ancient church, and the celebrated abbey
+of Saint-Vannes, and said what a pity it was that the
+beautiful things of the old days had to go, he answered,
+with a gesture of complete indifference:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Qu’est-ce que celà fait? A nous qui restons de faire
+de nouvelles choses, et mieux, que n’en out fait nos aïeux.</i>
+All the comrades I loved in the beginning are gone—and
+what remains, or perishes, of brick and mortar
+is of little account beside the sum of living things that
+is lost.”</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment M. de S. appeared with the
+colonel, and the young philosopher touched his cap.
+We were then introduced to Colonel Dehaye, a brilliant
+officer and delightful <i>homme du monde</i>, loving the arts
+of peace, as I afterward discovered, as well as practising
+those of war. In his hands now lie the destinies of Verdun.
+He presented us each then and there with the
+famous medal of Verdun and an accompanying paper
+with his signature, and furthermore gave us an invitation
+to lunch, which we accepted with delight after
+delicate references to sandwiches and wine in the motor.
+We spent half an hour walking about the citadel, and
+he showed us the most recent damage—of yesterday—when
+a very especially precise aim of the Germans had
+destroyed nearly everything that had been left.</p>
+
+<p>Then we descended really into the bowels of the
+earth, cemented, white-tiled, electric-lighted, artificially
+aired bowels, to the very depths of the great fortress.
+To get to the mess-room of the colonel and his staff we
+had to pass through a long room where perhaps a hundred
+officers were sitting at dinner. There was something
+deeply impressive about the dim, long, low length
+of it, and those groups of men prepared for battle.
+Thoughts of Knights Templar and Crusaders came to
+me, and there seemed something of consecration about
+it all. Behind the tables on the walls were hung helmets
+and arms.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus08" style="max-width: 28.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus08.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus08b" style="max-width: 28.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus08b.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span></p>
+
+<p>A young officer said to me once, “We don’t tell <i>all</i>
+our stories there and we don’t often laugh very loud.”
+From it we got into the small, well-lighted mess-room,
+where kings and presidents and premiers and
+generalissime, too, have dined in the past few months.</p>
+
+<p>The staff and Paul Renouard, the painter, were waiting,
+and we sat down immediately to an excellent dinner,
+though the colonel said it was entirely <i>à l’improviste</i>.
+There were flowers on the table, too, but these I did
+suspect were specially for us. The colonel remarked,
+with the <i>hors-d’œuvre</i>, that he would take us to the
+battle-field after dinner, to the famous Fort de Souville,
+and the repast, instead of a meal, became the prelude
+to a supreme climax. The arrival of General Pershing
+was the first subject of conversation, accompanied by
+the most courteous and appreciative remarks; one of the
+officers told of the first day when the Stars and Stripes
+had appeared in the field with the other flags, and of the
+cheers that went up. And they drank to the United
+States, and we drank to France; they praised the work
+of women, and spoke of the immense moral and practical
+aid of the entry into the war of the United States.
+Whether it would shorten the conflict was another question.
+To the captain sitting opposite I said:</p>
+
+<p>“If the soul of the war has a special dwelling-place it
+is Verdun,” and told him how the thought of America
+turned about it those days of February and March of
+1916. “But,” I added, “there was a time when I
+thought they might get through.”</p>
+
+<p>The commandant answered quickly from the other
+end of the table: “Ah, madame, there was a time when
+we thought they might get through, <i>mais ‘ils n’ont pas
+passé—ils ne passeront pas.’</i>”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span></p>
+
+<p>And then I quoted the beautiful phrase of the <i>Commentaires
+de Polybe</i>:<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Et Verdun y en ruines, avec ses soldats, debouts, toujours
+dans la tempête, comme il n’y en a jamais eu de plus
+beaux ... avec Nivelle, et avec Pétain, avec l’image de
+Raynal qui vient roder la nuit dans les décombres de
+Vaux et avec le paraphe de Castelnau sur cet autre Couronné....</i>”</p>
+
+<p>We ended a most pleasant repast, with its great under
+throb, by coffee and tilleul and a little glass of cassis
+(black-currant cordial), the native liqueur.</p>
+
+<p>Then, on into a room where we pulled up our coat-collars
+so no white would show, slung the bags containing
+the gas-masks across our chests, left our flowers,
+parasols, and other impedimenta, and went out through
+the long, dim now empty hall to get into the autos. We
+waited half an hour for ours, which had performed the
+seemingly impossible feat of getting lost in Verdun.
+The officers began to get impatient, and M. de S. to
+make bitter remarks about his chauffeur; the colonel to
+walk up and down. The commandant said, “<i>Du calme</i>,”
+and the colonel answered that only sous-lieutenants
+<i>savent avoir du calme</i>. “<i>Ils sont étonnants</i>,” said another
+officer with four stripes on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>Finally our man appeared, with a story no one listened
+to, Colonel Dehaye getting in with us, the other
+officers leading the way in his auto.</p>
+
+<p>It was two o’clock, and a white, burning sun was
+shining on a white, burning earth as we drove through
+the crumbling streets, through houses in every stage of
+ruin, to the great plain of La Woèvre, toward the dreadful,
+scarred battle-field, where the chariot of God rides
+the ridges.</p>
+
+<p>Verdun is built to reinforce the natural rampart of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+the Côtes de Meuse, to bar the passage of the river’s
+valley, and cover the Argonne.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed out of the town on one side was a cemetery
+where sleep four thousand, on another side sleep
+twenty thousand—and these are but a handful to the
+numbers that lie everywhere in the white, scarred
+earth around Verdun. The colonel named various battered
+places as we passed—Fleury, Tavannes, etc., and
+finally we climbed a steep hillside near the celebrated
+Fort de Souville, where we left the motors. The abomination
+of desolation over which we passed once had
+been a green, smiling, wooded, gently rolling hillside.
+The village of Tavannes was but a spot of white horror,
+even with the ground. The hills of Douaumont and
+Thiaumont had on their blanched sides only a few
+blackened stumps of trees that will not leaf again. To
+the left as we looked about were the fateful summits of
+Le Mort Homme and Hill 304 with a white ribbon of
+road running between. We walked along, stumbling
+over heaps of water-bottles, haversacks, helmets, cartridge-belts,
+belonging alike to the invader and the
+invaded—bones, skulls, rusty rolls of barbed wire, remains
+of <i>obus</i>, and mixed with what lies in the earth
+of fair and brave and dear are myriads of unexploded
+shells. The country round Verdun, despite the rich
+blood that could render it so fertile, can’t be cultivated
+for years on account of the vast quantities of shells
+buried in it. A man pulls a piece of wire, and he loses
+his hand, another tries to clear away bits of something
+round, and his head is blown off. One of the
+officers told us of societies for the demineralization of
+battle-fields, but the work is slow and costly.</p>
+
+<p>Yet a winter’s snows had lain upon it all and spring
+had breathed over it since the first awful combats of
+February, 1916. I knew suddenly some complete<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+“heartbreak over fallen things” as I stumbled, and,
+looking down, saw at my feet a helmet, and by it a
+skull with insects crawling in and out the eyes, and a
+broken gun-stock.</p>
+
+<p>Great and gorgeous patches of scarlet poppies in a
+profusion never seen before splash themselves like something
+else red against the white earth, or fill great
+shell hollows and spill and slop over the fields....</p>
+
+<p>The Germans had been shelling a near-by 75 battery
+that very morning, and fresh bits of <i>warm</i> shrapnel
+were lying all about as we twisted in and out of the
+<i>boyaux</i>. I brought away but a small bit with me, having
+early discovered that a small piece is as good a
+reminder as a big bit, and much easier to carry. We
+passed the grave of a soldier buried where he had fallen,
+a few hours before. His shallow grave, with its little
+cross, was running <i>red</i>, but he was mayhap already in
+his Father’s house of many mansions.</p>
+
+<p>In many places under the feet scarcely buried bodies
+gave an elastic sensation....</p>
+
+<p>We first visited the emplacement of a great gun
+worked by the most complicated electric machinery,
+something that seemed built as strongly as the Pyramids,
+revolving on its great axis, at a touch fulfilling
+that which it was cast into being to perform. When
+we came out, we climbed some last white scarred heights
+that the colonel called “<i>Les Pyrénées</i>,” and there,
+stretched out, was the whole great and fateful panorama
+of Verdun—“<i>par où ils n’ont pas passé</i>.” I thought of the
+men I had known who had been engaged in those dreadful
+attacks, whose mothers and wives had looked upon
+them again, and of others still whose wives and mothers
+would behold them no more. And I had again a breaking
+of the heart over the vast tangle, and cried within
+myself, “Shall all the world be a valley of dry bones?”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus09" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus09.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>OUR PARTY ON THE BATTLE-FIELD AT VERDUN,
+  JUNE 17, 1917</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus10" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus10.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>IN THE BOYAUX, VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then we hid ourselves in some <i>boyaux</i> well out of
+sight, for we were nearing a camouflaged battery, two
+of whose guns had been silenced that very morning.
+In dark woods over beyond Tavannes the Germans
+were intrenched, and their shells were also falling thickly
+over Douaumont and Thiaumont. It was the front
+indeed. It was at Tavannes that in a dreadful moment,
+in a moment such as can happen anywhere, artillery
+fire had been trained on thousands of men who were
+rushing to the top in a great charge. And yet I kept
+thinking of the words of a dead hero, “Nothing but good
+can befall the soldier, so he plays his part well.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>At that moment the enemy began to send an unwonted
+number of shells, which were exploding just
+behind Thiaumont, so the colonel told the captain of
+artillery—who had joined our party at the gun emplacement—to
+answer, and he climbed down a steep
+decline to his masked battery. In a few minutes, as we
+lay hidden in the <i>boyau</i>, twenty discharges sounded;
+but shells that go up, come down, and on the other
+side of the hill we were watching, who shall say what
+agony? I am so constituted that I cannot think of the
+passage of any soul into the next life other than with
+awe.</p>
+
+<p>We then descended into the Fort of Souville, down
+850 feet, where men live and breathe and have their
+being in dimly lighted, damp, narrow spaces. But it
+seemed temporarily like heaven to be out of the glare
+and the heat. Preceded by lanterns, an officer in front
+of each one of us, we crept or felt our way up and down,
+stumbling through vault-like passages, where we would
+come upon men lying asleep in damp, dim places, or
+writing by the light of lanterns, or preparing meals in
+their kitchen, or waiting at the little dispensary, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+then we stumbled up again into the heat, reverberating
+from the white hills.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back we passed a little chapel installed
+in an old cemented dugout. On the altar were many
+flowers. I bent and peered into the dimness, and, as
+I knelt, it seemed to me that never had I so understood
+the words <i>Introibo ad Altare Dei</i>. I thought of the
+Lamb of God, and martyrs new and old, and the catacombs
+and the primitive Church.... Again men in
+stress were worshiping in the bowels of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>We were photographed against a particularly sinister
+group of blackened trees, and we picked up some helmets
+and bits of <i>obus</i>. As I write, the <i>couronne</i> of one,
+quite evenly exploded, lies on the little table by my side.</p>
+
+<p>Just before getting into town the colonel ordered the
+motor to stop, and we got out, and, walking through a
+field of deep, waving grass, found ourselves in the largest
+of the cemeteries with its long, even lines of broad graves
+where lie, in a last co-mingling, the brothers of France,
+and I repeated to myself in a quiver of feeling, “<i>Scio
+quod Redemptor meus vivit et in novissime die resurrecturus
+sum et in carne mea videbo Deum Salvatorum meum</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>All was in beautiful order. The crosses bore sometimes
+a name, but oftener a number only: <i>140 soldats</i>,
+or <i>85 soldats</i>. The round tricolor badge hung from
+every cross. There were a few graves of officers who
+could be identified, their bodies having been brought
+in by friends or faithful orderlies. How anything could
+live on those fire-swept hills is the wonder, not that
+any one died. Suddenly, again, a great sadness fell upon
+me, and as the colonel pointed out the grave of an especially
+dear comrade—Colonel Dubois, I think his
+name was—dead in some heroic manner, I could look
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>We finally got back into the green freshness of Verdun,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
+whose normal state, I see, is to be vine-bowered,
+tree-shaded, grass-carpeted. After the scarred and
+blazing battle-field, and in spite of the ruined streets,
+the roofless houses, I had a feeling of refreshment, coming
+from those heights where “all the round world is
+indeed a sepulcher” ... and near the station is the
+monument to the heroes fallen at Verdun, in 1870.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Cercle Militaire on the right bank of the Meuse
+little is left except the walls, but it is no loss architecturally,
+and <i>messieurs les officiers</i> are otherwise engaged.
+The banks of the Meuse are a pitiful sight. The old
+houses that reach over the water are roofless, bits of
+mattress hang from broken windows, and heaps of mortar
+are falling into the river. The great Porte Chaussée
+of the fifteenth century, with its two huge gray towers,
+is unharmed. We stopped at the theater for a moment.
+A big shell last month had made a sort of pudding of
+it. We crept in through a large aperture, to find the
+orchestra stalls precipitated onto the stage, and the
+loges sagging, ready to fall. We then went up into the
+old, high part of the town, and Colonel Dehaye, a true
+lover of the arts, in sadness showed us the cathedral and
+the charming old buildings that surround it. The huge
+church constructed according to Germanic traditions
+has two equal transepts, with high and beautiful vaulting,
+which is now so damaged that the roof at any
+time may fall. Inside were masses of débris, and
+nothing was left of the famous stained-glass windows
+except powdery bits of color on the floor. The colonel
+had rescued some old Spanish Stations of the Cross,
+and had put in safety a few other portable things of
+value. We passed out through the sacristy, which was
+a scene of disorder, bits of vestment, torn altar-cloths,
+and books lying about on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” I said, “the Germans didn’t get here?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” answered one of the officers, with a smile,
+“<i>ce sont nos bons français</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Then we descended into the crypt, the remains of the
+church that Pope Eugene III built in the twelfth century.
+Leading down to it is an old winding stair, with
+a delicious eighteenth-century wrought-iron railing. An
+artist in a white blouse, sent to restore some frescoes
+dating from the twelfth century, was rescuing from too
+complete destruction a beautiful figure of Christ with
+something stern and immutable in His look, reminding
+me of the Christ in the church of San Cosmo and San
+Damiano in the Roman Forum. We then went into
+the cloisters, with lovely and diverse <i>motifs</i> on their
+vaultings, very much damaged in parts, a big shell
+having landed in the courtyard which they inclose.
+M. Renouard had stationed himself there with his
+easel, before a beautiful arrangement of trees and grass
+and enchanting old statues on mossy pedestals. In
+front of him was a great heap of fallen masonry, and a
+beautiful bit of toppling vaulting that the colonel had
+had propped up by beams, though he said: “<i>Demain ou
+après-demain cela ne sera plus</i>—it’s all at the mercy of
+a shot.” A sculptured Holy Family, somewhat the
+worse for <i>war</i>, is plastered into one side, dating from the
+fourteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>From there we passed into what had been a seminary
+until 1914, and one of the rooms with rows of <i>lavabos</i>
+(not of the eighteenth century, as the colonel observed)
+looked out on the great plain of La Woèvre, and again
+the fateful panorama was unrolled before us. In what
+had been a council-room there was an old choir high up
+over the door, with a little balcony giving a Spanish
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>Coming out, at the north side of the church, an ancient
+Romanesque statue of Adam and Eve on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+outer hemicycle of the apse and some little windows,
+also of pure Romanesque, were pointed out to us. In
+the ground underneath the statue of Adam and Eve
+a great shell had opened up a Roman foundation and
+walls, formed of immense square blocks of stone, hidden
+during ages.</p>
+
+<p>Near the church is the great Cour d’Honneur, once
+the house of the bishop, a very perfect example of Louis
+XIV, making me think of Versailles; but it, too, has
+received many a blow in its lovely heart. One longed
+so to bandage up all those wounds of war, preserve in
+being those lovelinesses of another age.</p>
+
+<p>We then visited the house of Pope Julius II (I forget
+what he was doing at Verdun), which, fortunately, has
+not suffered much up to now, though it, too, is at the
+mercy of a shot—to-night, to-morrow, or the next day.
+It would make a perfect museum, with its beautiful
+old door, bearing inscription and date, through which
+one passes into a tiny V-shaped court with a flowering
+linden-tree, and there are two romantic winding stone
+stairways, with something Boccaccioesque about them,
+leading to the upper stories.</p>
+
+<p>Though it wasn’t an occasion in which to think how
+one felt, the flesh <i>was</i> weary by this time, and we went
+gladly back to the colonel’s mess-room, where we had
+tea, or rather, to be exact, some ice-cold champagne
+<i>coupé d’eau</i>, and some sort of madeleine, a specialty
+of Verdun, which gave us the little flip-up that we needed.
+Another specialty of Verdun is the <i>dragées</i> (hard,
+sugared almonds), but the factory, so one of the officers
+said, had been destroyed the year before in one of the
+bombardments. Generations of tourists having broken
+their teeth on them, however, we wasted no regrets.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel begged us to stay for dinner, and the
+cinematograph representation after, but we were obliged<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>
+to regretfully decline, as we had to pay our respects
+to the general at Y——, to whose courtesy M. de S.
+owed the safe-conducts to Verdun. As we passed by
+we looked into the long, narrow hall where the representations
+are given, the sight of which the colonel
+offered as further inducement. It would have ennobled
+for me forever that most boresome of modern things,
+had I assisted at one underneath the citadel of Verdun.
+The hall was hung with flags of the Allies. With sudden
+tears I saluted, ours waving among them.</p>
+
+<p>We thanked a thousand times the colonel and his
+group of officers standing by the auto at the entrance to
+the subterranean passage, and though I had a consciousness
+of the uncertainty of their lives, I thought
+again “Nothing but good can befall the soldier, so he
+plays his part well.”</p>
+
+<p>Now comes to mind a conversation I had before I
+ever dreamed of going to Verdun, when I talked for three
+hours of battles and scars with a young hero wounded
+on Hill 304, June 9, 1916. He is a flashing-eyed, straight-featured,
+tall, slim-waisted young hero who knows what
+it is to have made, and with astounding ease, the sacrifice
+of the life that he loves so, and drinks in full
+bumpers. And this is part of what we said, one of a
+thousand, of ten thousand, of a hundred thousand
+happenings, of which Verdun is the golden frame:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>De G.—“There was something hanging about Verdun;
+‘<i>Ils ne passeront pas, et ils ne sont pas passés</i>.’ If
+the enemy could have but known how thinly, poorly, in
+so many places it was defended! It was seemingly the
+will of Heaven rather than the strength of mortals that
+they were not to pass, not man, not artillery, but the
+high destiny of nations.</p>
+
+<p>“When I lay during those hours at the <i>poste d’observation</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+on Hill 304, in front of the French army, signaling
+‘shell square 17,’ or 16, or whatever it might be, I could
+see clearly the havoc in the German ranks as the shells
+would fall. Great groups of men would be blown to
+atoms and new formations would press in to take their
+place. The whole horror was there before me, mapped
+out in numbered squares.</p>
+
+<p>“I dismissed all my men except my orderly of the
+fourth Zouaves, who wouldn’t have gone, anyway. It
+was a work I could do alone, lying with a sand-bag
+against my head, my field-glasses in my hand, and before
+me my field map held down by four sticks. We
+lay there just under the crest of the hill from two o’clock
+in the morning until the next afternoon, watching seven
+attacks. Toward three o’clock I was wounded, and
+I knew it was only a question of time and chance
+when I would lie like the dead man at my side, that
+Dueso had been pressing his feet against, and whose
+place I had been sent to take. Almost at the same moment
+I caught sight of Dueso spinning around, holding
+his elbows to his side, and crying out: ‘<i>Nom de Dieu!
+Nom de Dieu!</i> I’ve got it in the arm!’—but trying
+with the other hand to undo his <i>cravate</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“Two jets of blood were now spurting like two
+faucets from my leg, the big artery was cut. <i>Ça y est.</i>
+In five minutes I’ll be dead, I thought, and there came
+a fainting away and a thinking not on God, but on still
+untasted joys of the flesh and life—not even on my
+mother’s grief; and waking up after years, it seemed,
+and calling for water, and Dueso bending over me,
+after a frantic twisting at his <i>cravate</i>, and a frantic
+pulling and tightening of it about my leg, with one
+hand and his teeth, and then a pleasant, happy fainting
+away. A delicious sensation of ease invaded me, and
+I said to myself, ‘<i>Ce n’est que ça, mourir?</i>’ (‘Is death<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+only this?’) I have seen so many men die, and whatever
+their agonies, if long or short, minutes or hours or
+days, as it may happen, just before dying something
+gentle and simple takes place.”</p>
+
+<p>E. O’S.—“The inevitable dust to dust, the natural
+law fulfilling itself?”</p>
+
+<p>De G.—“It may be. This <i>rictus de la mort</i>, I haven’t
+seen it, though I have heard men screaming and cursing
+and praying in the trenches as they got their blow, and
+watched their agonies, but before death something else,
+softer, always happens. Unless it comes too suddenly.
+I remember once being on the dunes in Belgium, and
+against the yellow sand men were sitting in red trousers
+and <i>chechias</i>, and one was telling a tale of laughter
+when a shell burst. In a moment the blood of his
+brains was flowing red upon the yellow sand, and then
+it got blue, and then it sank and was no more, like the
+laughing man himself from whom it flowed, and his tale
+of laughter.... About nine o’clock we were brought in.
+Dueso had been lying with his head under my armpit,
+and his feet still on the dead man, and we would both
+come out of a faint from time to time and ask for water.</p>
+
+<p>“Dueso! ah, Dueso! for a human being <i>il est plus
+chic que moi</i>. He had been in jail for various reasons
+not very <i>chic</i>, and I was warned against him when I
+took him for my orderly, but to him I owe my life.
+Now he is in Salonique, <i>cité à l’armée</i>, knows how to live
+in those regions, hard as nails, originally from Tunis; a
+dark man, with dark mustache and very big white teeth.”</p>
+
+<p>E. O’S.—“One thinks so often how little the common
+soldier, defending honors and riches that he doesn’t
+share, has to gain. There is nothing for him, in fact,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+except to step out into anonymous death; at a given
+moment to make the sacrifice of his life, or his eyes or
+his limbs, knowing nothing of war except its horror,
+rarely any glory, sometimes a mention or a medal,
+oftener not. But,” I continued, after we had sat silent
+for a while, “who will carry it all on? Few like yourself
+are left, and it is not enough. France is bleeding white—France,
+whose sons are heroes, not fathers!”</p>
+
+<p>De G.—“What does it matter if we do go? There
+are the little ones coming on. It will be like something
+out of which a whole piece has been cut and the ends
+must be sewed together. The very old, and the very
+young, the children, are these ends. We shall have done
+what we were born to do. This is the immortal history
+of France that we have made, her <i>chant du cygne</i>, too,
+the most beautiful of her epics and it is enough to have
+lived for that. To others the carrying on of the generations....”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A pale rose light begins to come in at the window,
+but sleep cometh not. Fortunately, if need be, I can
+do without it, but I must close my eyes now. He, too,
+watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps....</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br>
+<span class="smaller">CHÂLONS.—CHÂTEAU DE JEAN D’HEURS.—REVIGNY, THE “LINING” OF THE FRONT</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Each, on comparing notes, was found to have spent
+the night on the outside of the bed. One of the
+party, who naturally wishes to remain anonymous,
+found a <i>cafard</i>, the classic cockroach, in her ear toward
+dawn, and Aurora was welcomed by no hymn of praise
+from her.</p>
+
+<p>Now we are sitting drinking lemonade on the pavement
+in front of the abode of iniquity. We have been
+twice through the hot town, which consists of a modern
+town around the station, and a picturesque old one on
+a hill at the back, to find the proper authorities for the
+stamping of our papers with the military <i>permis</i> to go
+to the château of Jean d’Heurs, belonging to Madame
+Achille Fould, for luncheon. We caught the major by
+a hair’s breadth; he was disappearing around the corner
+by the military <i>commandature</i> on his bicycle. Then to the
+<i>préfecture</i> for permission to telephone to Châlons for
+rooms that night; on returning, found Miss M. and
+Miss N. awaiting us. They have been working at the
+“Foyer des Alliés” near the station. They want now to
+get a much-needed canteen in shape at Châlons, and are
+asking us to help. The word from the colonel of Verdun
+is an “open sesame,” and we will investigate <i>en
+route</i> to Paris.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Châlons-sur-Marne</span>, <i>10 o’clock p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>It’s been as long as to Tipperary since the scrawl at
+Bar-le-Duc.</p>
+
+<p>At 11.30 we got into the comfortable motor Madame
+Fould sent to bring us to Jean d’Heurs’ for lunch. It’s
+a beautiful old château of the eighteenth century, given
+by Napoleon to the Maréchal Oudinot, and in the Fould
+family since those days, though not lived in until the
+war by the present generation. It made us feel quite
+like “folks” as a side-whiskered, highly respectable,
+rather aged majordomo received us and led us up a
+broad stairway and showed us into a big library where
+Madame Fould, her seven <i>infirmières</i>, and a young officer
+were waiting. After that, a perfect lunch in the way of
+each thing being of the freshest and most delicate and
+tasting of itself. The young officer was recovering from
+a wound received at Verdun last September, followed by
+a trepanning, evidently highly successful, as, in addition
+to all his senses, he had a thick mat of hair.</p>
+
+<p>The library, to which we returned for coffee, was
+lined with the most precious books in the most precious
+bindings, one whole side containing first editions only
+from Voltaire and J.-J. Rousseau to Châteaubriand and
+Taine. And I ran my fingers with such a friendly feeling
+over some soft and lustrous bindings.</p>
+
+<p>The vast spaces of the château are now made into
+wards, and relays of several hundred men are cared for
+in them. White hospital beds are pushed against
+elaborately frescoed walls and Empire gildings. Everything
+in spotless order. Afterward we went out into
+the beautiful old park, where convalescent men were
+sitting or lying about under the great trees. The park
+is now closed to visitors, the fair sex from neighboring
+villages having been too generous in their offerings on
+the altar of Priapus. It’s a lovely spot, and Madame<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+Fould has had her hospital going since the beginning of
+the war.</p>
+
+<p>At two o’clock we motored into Revigny, accompanied
+by the handsome young trepanned officer, who
+deposited us at the military headquarters for the stamping
+of our safe-conducts. Mrs. C. P., who can put her
+head through a stone wall, without injuring it, as neatly
+as any one I ever saw, proceeded to perform the feat,
+with the result that the major in command gave us all
+permission for the next <i>étape</i>, Châlons. Then Mrs.
+C. P.’s young son, serving with the American Ambulance,
+met us, motoring over from Z——; a friend came
+with him, originally from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania,
+rather discouraged at the quiet of the <i>secteur</i> in which
+he was stationed. But all he has to do is to wait.
+Everybody at the front eventually gets what’s “coming
+to him.” Mrs. C. P.’s boy had on his <i>Croix de Guerre</i>,
+got for fearless ambulance work at Verdun during one
+of the big attacks.</p>
+
+<p>Revigny seen from the inside is a hole of holes—but
+through it defile continually the blue-clad men of
+France. Twelve thousand had already passed through
+that day. In the <i>carrefour</i> of the road by the station is a
+ceaseless line of convoys coming from or going to Verdun.
+This once banal little village has come to have something
+symbolic about it, though looking, as one passes by, like
+dozens of other destroyed villages. But inside it is the
+lining of the war—that thing of dust, fatigue, thirst,
+hunger, sadness, fear, despondence, hopelessness, running
+up and down the gamut of spiritual and physical
+miseries. “Theirs not to reason why.” ...</p>
+
+<p>The English canteen is the only bright spot in the
+whole place. Those sad-eyed men, like us, love and
+regret, and are beloved and regretted; women have let
+them go in fear and dread; and all over Europe it is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+the same, east, west, north, and south—all they love
+they lay down at the word of command. I watched for
+an hour the blue stream of heavily laden men as they
+passed in, coming up to the counter with their battered
+quart cups, drinking their coffee standing, in haste, that
+the comrade following might be sure to get his drink,
+the sweat dripping from their faces. Fifteen minutes
+later a great thunder-storm broke, and thousands of
+sad-eyed men were huddled together, shelterless, like
+sheep, suddenly soaked; the hateful dust became the
+still more hateful mud. I left it all in complete desolation
+of spirit, and wondering, Is God in His heaven?</p>
+
+<p>Revigny was worse to my spiritual sense almost than
+the battle-field—there all was consummated. Here the
+men are still passing up to sacrifice.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br>
+<span class="smaller">MONT FRENET.—LA CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE.—THE RETURN</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Châlons</span>, <i>10 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>We dashed into the train at Revigny during the
+hail-storm, an infernal kind that didn’t cool the
+air, and arrived at Châlons at six o’clock. No cabs, at
+least none for us, so we begged two Quaker women with
+the red-and-white star in the little black triangle on
+their sleeves, who were getting into the only visible
+conveyance, to take our luggage and deposit it for us
+at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, whose name so
+appealed to me. We paid our share of the cab, and all
+and everything departed, we on foot. Châlons seems
+quite without character as one passes through the streets,
+though I caught sight of several old churches and, alone,
+would have lingered on the busy bridge that spans the
+Marne. We got to the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu
+and interviewed the female keeper of that special paradise,
+who said she had nothing for us, had received no
+telephone message from the <i>préfet</i> at Bar-le-Duc or any
+other <i>préfet</i> from any other place. Then Mrs. C. P.—the
+Verdun day and the Bar-le-Duc nights having somewhat
+stretched our nerves—began to get annoyed; the
+desk-lady finally asked us, did we belong to the Westinghouse
+Commission, which we didn’t. We then betook
+ourselves to the streets. Nothing at the Hôtel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+d’Angleterre, nothing at the Hôtel-Restaurant du
+Renard. We finally asked a large, beady-eyed, determined-looking
+female, standing at a door, if she had
+accommodations or knew of any one who had. She
+proved to be the <i>sage-femme</i> of the quarter and eyed us
+askance.</p>
+
+<p>Just then appeared a very <i>comme il faut</i>, pretty young
+woman with an expression at once so charming and so
+modest that we did not hesitate to accost her and tell
+her of our plight—that it looked as if we should be
+passing the night <i>à la belle étoile</i> if some one didn’t do
+something for us. She hesitated, looked at us, hesitated
+again. Smashed down on her head at a smart
+angle was the identical hat that Mrs. C. P. was wearing,
+blue with a twisting of gray, from Reboux. I think
+that hat crystallized things, for she ended by saying,
+sweetly:</p>
+
+<p>“I have a room that I sometimes offer to friends;
+only,” she added, “there is a horrible stairway leading
+to it.”</p>
+
+<p>We turned our backs on the <i>sage-femme</i>, doubtless
+naturally good, but soured by the constant witnessing
+of the arrival on the scene of apparently superfluous
+human beings (I say “apparently,” for who shall decide
+which souls are precious?), and followed those neatly
+clad, small feet and slim ankles up a winding stairway
+that might have been of any epoch—except the nineteenth
+or twentieth century, and found ourselves in a
+charming little interior, spotlessly clean. “<i>C’est à votre
+disposition</i>,” she said, and then a servant appeared, a
+refugee from Tahure, as we afterward learned, a garrulous
+refugee. I beat my breast later on when I heard
+the loud bassoon, telling Mrs. C. P. that I even hated
+refugees and that that one would have, if possible, to
+contain her tale till I had had a night’s sleep. At the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>
+moment I hated her with all the unreasoning hatred of
+the beneficiary for the benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>Well, to make a long story short, closets were opened,
+the freshest of embroidered linen sheets, the largest of
+towels, were got out, and were left to us in the handsomest
+of ways <i>with</i> the refugee, the owner departing
+to her country house. The refugee managed to get in
+part of the story of her life and she brought hot water;
+she was from Tahure and left on the run with an aged
+husband, just before the entry of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Then we looked about the pleasant room. The first
+object I espied was a pair of manly brown kid gloves,
+the next a blue gas-mask bag, and a cigarette-case, with
+a crest, lying near a volume of Alfred de Vigny. (Can’t
+you see them reading it together?) And there was such
+a comfortable <i>chaise-longue</i> for him to rest on, and an
+expensive, very “comfy” rug and many cushions. As
+the refugee from Tahure proceeded to make up the bed
+and sofa she interspersed the story of <i>her</i> life with remarks
+concerning her mistress, like: “<i>Allez, elles ne
+sont pas toutes comme cela, elle a un cœur d’or</i>”; “<i>Moi,
+qui vous le dis, elle n’a pas une mauvaise pensée</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture we delicately asked, But where does
+she <i>live</i>? “Oh, he has given her a little château in the
+environs.” This was a convenient town apartment with
+the one big room giving on the Place de la République;
+at the back a dining-room and little kitchen. Having
+removed the dust of travel, hot water being produced
+in a jiffy from the gas-stove on the kitchen range, we
+descended to take dinner at one of the restaurants near
+by. We were so tired about this time that the decalogue
+wasn’t much to us, neither the Law nor the Prophets,
+but be it remembered of us, we <i>did</i> love our neighbor
+as ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>When we came back after supper the sofa was spread<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+with large, crisp, spotless linen sheets, the bed the same,
+the refugee gone, and here we are in this clean, low-ceilinged
+room with eighteenth-century wood-panelings
+and charming door-handles of the same period. There
+is a crayon of the present tenant reflecting her sweet
+and candid expression over the mantelpiece, on which
+are two Dresden-china figures and a small white-marble
+“Young Bacchus”; furthermore an etching by Hellu
+of the Duchess of Marlborough, which made one feel
+quite poised. In fact, there is nothing <i>demi</i> about it.</p>
+
+<p>The Place de la République is full of soldiers coming
+and going, and there are several ambulances of the
+Scottish Ambulance Corps drawn up by a big fountain
+representing three women (typifying the Marne, the
+Moselle, and the Agne). Over the soft, warm night is
+borne the low boom of cannon. The guard has just
+called out: “<i>Faites attention! Lumière au troisième
+étage</i>”—so I must stop.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Tuesday, 9.30 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sitting in the Place de la République on chairs borrowed
+from a little lace-shop, and waiting for the cab
+to come to take us to General Goïgoux, to whom
+Madame Fould had given us a letter of introduction.
+Just opposite is the inhospitable Hôtel de la Haute
+Mère Dieu, and I have been telling Mrs. C. P., who has
+gone to buy some fruit, of the story of Voltaire and
+Madame du Châtelet passing through Châlons <i>en route</i>
+from Versailles to Lunéville. At Châlons Madame du
+Châtelet thought she’d like to have a bouillon at the
+Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or, where they stopped to change
+horses. (It still exists and is the only one we didn’t
+try last night.) It was brought them to their carriage
+by the <i>aubergiste</i> herself, who had learned from the indiscreet
+postilion the identity of the illustrious travelers.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+When Longchamp, the valet of Voltaire, asks to pay,
+she firmly demands a louis d’or for the bouillon. “La
+divine Emilie” protests, the woman insists that at her
+hotel the “price of an egg, a bouillon, or a dinner is a
+louis”; then Voltaire gets out and tries by amiable processes
+to explain that in no country in the world did a
+bouillon ever cost a louis; more cries and reproaches; a
+crowd gathers; Voltaire, strong in his right, doesn’t
+want to give way. Madame du Châtelet points out the
+gathering crowd, now quite noisy. Finally they pay,
+Voltaire commending to all the devils the hospitable
+town of Châlons-sur-Marne; they depart to the accompaniment
+of the gibes of the amiable inhabitants.
+It may be <i>autre temps</i>, but not <i>autres mœurs</i>; it’s just
+like the woman at the desk at the Hôtel de la Haute
+Mère Dieu, who wouldn’t take us in, in any sense, last
+night.</p>
+
+<p>The most awful-looking cab has just drawn up in
+front of “our” house, and a smart American ambulance
+officer is trying to get in.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">In the Train en Route for Paris.</span></p>
+
+<p>The first quiet breath I have drawn, and very comfortable
+it is to sink into the broad seats, out of the
+glare of the setting sun, and feel there is nothing to inspect
+save the flying aspect of nature for the next three
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>The handsome officer this morning proved to be Mr.
+B., and he didn’t get that cab, which, however, we
+promised to send back to him once we were deposited
+at the general’s headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>General Goïgoux is most agreeable. When he asked
+us where we were lodged, we threw a stone at the Hôtel
+de la Haute Mère Dieu and told him of our Good Samaritan.
+He gave a grin, if generals are supposed to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+grin, when we said that we had not disturbed her to any
+great extent, as she had, in addition, a country place
+where she really lived. We then told him of our meeting
+with Miss N. and Miss M., who had asked us to
+investigate the canteen prospects on our way back to
+Paris. The installing of one has long been the idea of
+General Goïgoux, who loves his <i>poilus</i>, and he immediately
+rang the bell on his table—among his books was a
+German Baedeker of eastern France—and in a moment
+a captain with a sad face and a black band on his arm
+appeared, and we departed in a huge military auto to
+the station to investigate the great railway shed that
+the general has requisitioned for canteen purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Going through the streets, we were held up for a
+moment by a detachment of prisoners in various uniforms
+and from various regiments, but all with P.G.
+(<i>prisonnier de guerre</i>) marked in large letters on their
+backs. A tall, upstanding set with ringing tread,
+not at all unhappy-looking, despite a something set
+about their expression, seemingly in very good physical
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>Statues of the top-hatted, frock-coated political men
+of nineteenth-century France have banalized the public
+places of every town in the <i>doux pays</i>. They simply
+can’t compete with the saints and kings and warriors of
+the artistic periods—it’s too bad they have tried.</p>
+
+<p>At 12.30 we got back to our pleasant quarters, to
+find our hostess there, in a very smart dark-blue serge
+dress from Jeanne Hallé. In addition to the château,
+the shop down-stairs, called “Aux Alliés,” where all
+sorts of edible delicacies are sold, belongs to her together
+with a tall and beautiful red-haired Frenchwoman.
+This is her up-stairs resting-place during the day. We
+sank on bed and sofa, exhausted by the heat, the visit
+to the station to inspect the canteen facilities, which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
+seemed most promising, visits to two churches, and
+luncheon in the crowded Restaurant du Renard. In the
+church of St.-Alpin white-bloused experts were busy
+removing the beautiful sixteenth-century stained-glass
+windows. “If ’twere done, ’twere well ’twere done
+quickly.” That continued booming of guns made one
+realize at once their fragility and their beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after, a handsome young officer came in, a
+gentleman, and speaking beautiful English. It wasn’t
+“he,” however, but a friend of his, and we did a little
+“society” talk—the weather, the necessity of learning
+the languages young, the theater, that Réjane was getting
+old, and “<i>L’Elévation</i>” was bad for the morals,
+and fashions, if the skirts <i>could</i> get shorter—but nothing
+of the war.</p>
+
+<p>At two o’clock another military auto was announced,
+which the general had sent with a doctor to take us to
+Mont Frenet, four kilometers from Suippes and six
+from the German lines. The young officer departed;
+we veiled and gloved ourselves and descended, and got
+into the motor, where we found a large, dark, military
+man inclining to <i>embonpoint</i>, who thought he was good-looking,
+and started out. The first thing we met as we
+got out of town on the dusty, blazing highroad was a
+little funeral cortége, preceded by a priest. The body
+of the soldier was draped in the tricolor, and following
+to his last rest, close behind, was his <i>camarade</i>, with head
+bared. He had doubtless expired in the big hospital
+near by, one of those lonely hospital deaths that hundreds
+of thousands have suffered before transfiguration.</p>
+
+<p>We were in the great plain of the Champagne Pouilleuse
+that leads to Suippes, Sainte-Ménehould, and
+stretches out to Reims—a plain with great, white,
+chalky scars of quarries, interspersed with fields and
+dark patches of pine woods. I asked the doctor about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+the site of the ancient camp of Attila and the battle
+of the Catalonian fields, but his knowledge of the matter
+was vague and his interest perfunctory. I thought
+afterward he might have had a more personal afternoon
+planned than that of taking two objective-minded ladies
+to Mont Frenet. There was once a great Roman road
+from Bar-le-Duc to Reims, and all about are little
+churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, mostly
+touched up in the eighteenth.</p>
+
+<p>After three-quarters of an hour we found ourselves
+nearing what might have been a modern mining settlement.
+It is the great front hospital of Mont Frenet.
+A model establishment organized and conducted by a
+man of heart and brain, Doctor Poutrain. Young,
+<i>élancé</i>, alert, he took us the rounds of his little world,
+from the door where the ambulances deposit their
+wounded, their dying, and oft their dead, where they
+are sorted out, through the numberless wards, even to
+the model wash-houses and the places where the garments
+of those brought in are scientifically separated
+from their inevitable and deadly live stock.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed through one of the wards, I saw the
+doctor’s eye change, and, following it, I perceived, as
+he quickly went to the bedside, a face with the death
+look already on it; and in a moment, with a slight sigh,
+a soul had breathed itself out—<i>en route</i> to the heaven
+of those who die <i>pro patria</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And I thought in great awe, “All I know or ever
+will know of that human being is his supreme hour.”
+And so fortuitous, so sudden was it all that I had not
+even time to breathe a word of prayer, nor even to
+reach out for his hand. And I, come from so far, so
+unrelated to him, was thus the destined witness of his
+passing. I can’t get it out of my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Poutrain loves his broken men, and he said,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+“I want no man who has been severely wounded or
+mutilated to leave my hospital without his decoration.”
+He had tears in his eyes as he stood by a bed where a
+bright-eyed, thin-faced boy was lying with a hip fracture.
+“He brought a comrade in, under fire, who was
+shot off his back as he was carrying him in.”</p>
+
+<p>In one of the beds an aviator was lying, brought in
+three days before; the eyes, the mouth, the whole face
+had still the peculiar look of strain. Indeed, three faces
+stand out in one’s mind—the captivity face, the hard,
+shining face and eyes of unwounded men just from the
+combat, and the faces of wounded aviators. About
+this time I noticed the gloomy look deepening on the
+face of our accompanying Esculapius, and it suddenly
+occurred to me “he is one of those who support with
+difficulty the praises of another.” For we <i>had</i> been
+very explicit in praise of Doctor Poutrain’s wonderful
+installation.</p>
+
+<p>It was a slack day, and according to the record in the
+antechamber there had only been 517 brought in that
+day.</p>
+
+<p>We have tea with the <i>directrice</i> of the <i>gardes-malades</i>
+(ten or twelve women only), a friend of Madame Fould’s.
+As we sat there talking I discovered that the eager
+<i>médecin-chef</i> had had, before the war, as hobby, archeology
+and ethnology, especially of the prehistoric races
+of Mexico; that he also possessed one of the few Aztec
+codices existing—all of which we discussed to the sound
+of the German guns and the whirring of their airplanes.</p>
+
+<p>We finally made our adieux, came home over the hot,
+unspeakably dusty road of the Champagne Pouilleuse,
+unreasonably disappointed that nobody would give us
+permission to make a little détour by Suippes, then
+under fire. We got back to our headquarters, packed
+our belongings, and diffidently brought up the subject<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+of remuneration, which the <i>belle châtelaine</i> firmly refused.
+I was traveling light, without a single thing
+approaching the superfluous, but Mrs. P. had a breakfast-cap
+and her tortoise-shell toilet things and trees
+for her shoes, and she also found among her belongings
+a lovely amber box, which she presented in
+token of our gratitude. We <i>could</i> make the garrulous
+refugee from Tahure not only happy, but speechless,
+which was more to the point; and here we are, looking
+out on a darkening world, and there are soldiers bathing
+in the river, near stacked guns, and everywhere little
+detachments are marching down dim roads, and there
+are the eternal troop- and equipment-trains going to
+the front—and I feel an immense regret at leaving it
+all....</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris.</span></p>
+
+<p>As we were sitting in the dining-car, idly wondering
+how on earth we were going to get from the station to
+our respective abodes once the train had deposited us
+at the Gare de l’Est, or planning to spend the night
+there, the Marquis de M. passed through the car. His
+motor was to meet him, and he gallantly offered transit,
+that can be above rubies and pearls <i>par le temps qui
+court</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When we got to Paris at 10.30 we saw in the dim
+light, as we stepped into the big motor, <i>voyagers</i> departing
+with luggage on their backs, or, preparing to
+await the dawn, sitting on it. We got into the motor
+with Comte de ——, the Marquis himself sitting outside,
+“for the air,” as he said, and also because there
+was no more room inside.</p>
+
+<p>As we rolled along through the dimly lighted streets,
+the air dense and hot, a terrific hail- and thunder-storm
+suddenly deluged the town, and especially the generous
+Marquis outside, well punished (as usual) for his kind<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+act. When, slipping and skidding, we finally pulled
+up at my hotel, a very wet gentleman, but remembering
+his manners, said, “<i>Au plaisir de vous revoir, madame</i>.”
+(He must really have wished me to all the devils, where
+he would never meet me a second time, hoping it was
+a last as well as a first meeting.) I had to laugh, also
+he, the pleasure was so evidently doubtful. It ended
+by his betaking his soaking person into the auto, and I
+came up-stairs to find my lamps trimmed and burning
+and my beloved mother awaiting me to hear “all about
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>So may one go to the front and return....</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II">PART II</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br>
+<span class="smaller">BY THE MARNE</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Gare de l’Est</span>, <i>Wednesday, July 25th</i>.</p>
+
+<p>No, it isn’t possible, even for one whose business is
+not that of stopping bullets, to go toward the combat
+a second time without a thrill.</p>
+
+<p>Few soldiers in the station; they are mostly at the
+front, at Craonne and Le Chemin des Dames and other
+sacrificial places, and in a week or two the empty beds
+in the hospitals will be full again. Some officers are
+hastening back from their <i>permissions</i> with pasteboard
+boxes and other unwar-like accoutrements. One is sitting
+by me, a straight-featured young man with dark-ringed
+eyes, his <i>Croix de Guerre</i> and <i>fourragère</i>,<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> reading
+<i>Brin de Lilas</i>. In forty-eight hours he may be dead.
+Another officer is reading <i>Cœur d’Orpheline</i>, and <i>Le Pays</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Miss N., with something of serene yet brooding in
+her being, plus a sense of humor, arrives with a telegraphic
+pass from army headquarters at Châlons, which
+may or may not “pass” the train conductor.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Chelles, where the arts of peace in the form of a vermicelli-factory
+testify to the arts of war by having every
+pane of glass broken; and once there was a celebrated
+abbey at Chelles which was destroyed, with a tidy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+amount of other things beautiful, at the time of the
+French Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Farther along much thinning out of the woods, the
+beautiful warmth-giving, shade-giving forests of France.
+In one place there is a planting of young, slender trees,
+and I thought on those other children of France who
+must grow to manhood, remake her soul, transmit her
+immortality. The first harvest is stacked and yellow,
+and nature is densely, deeply green where it had been
+pale and expectant. Even the Marne, which we caught
+up here, has a deeper color than in June, as it reflects
+the lush green.</p>
+
+<p>Meaux, with its cathedral rising from the center of
+the town, untouched except by time. Meaux has now
+come to be a sort of joke (“<i>de deux maux choisir le
+moindre</i>”) which few can resist—I’ve even heard it at
+the Théâtre Français—and it’s supposed to be the heart’s
+desire of the <i>embusqué</i>, far enough from the front not
+to get hurt, and far enough from Paris to be out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Château Thierry, with its first vintage of white grapes,
+and I bethought me how the whole of France is one
+vast wine-press—“He is trampling out the vintage
+where the grapes of wrath are stored.”</p>
+
+<p>Epernay, with its peculiar church tower. The great
+building of the champagne Mercier firm near the station
+has every window-pane broken, and part of it is serving
+as a Red Cross station. The wave of invasion pressed
+hard through Epernay that August of 1914.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-car we sat at a table with two officers—an
+airman, tall, deep-eyed, some sort of <i>tic nerveux</i> disturbing
+his face, with the <i>Grand’ Croix de la Légion
+d’Honneur</i> among other decorations; and a captain of
+infantry, who had been months at Arras, and at Verdun
+the terrible March of 1916.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span></p>
+
+<p>About the time that the cross-eyed waiter (it was
+easy, poor soul, to see why he wasn’t wanted in the
+trenches) threw the last set of plates with a deafening
+crash down the line of diners (the captain of infantry
+said it was just like the first-line trenches), the airman,
+whose nerves couldn’t stand it, pursued, rather
+irritably:</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t even read the <i>communiqués</i> any more, I
+wager. <i>Oh, les civils!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t truthfully say I do, always,” I answered,
+feeling called on to defend the <i>sacrés civils</i>. “After three
+years of it we are fatigued and bewildered by the spectacularness
+of it, the great, dazzling, hideous mass of it,
+and you who perish on the battle-field but perform an
+act that all must some day perform, only different in
+that it is far better done—<i>dulce et decorum</i>—but, after all,
+the same act that we must perform against our will, at
+the mercy of some accidental combination. It’s the
+same outcome, ‘and one’s a long time dead.’”</p>
+
+<p>After a pause and a deep look, perhaps it is the look
+men have when alone in the secular spaces, he answered:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Choisir et aimer sa mort, c’est un peu comme choisir
+sa bien-aimée</i>,” and suddenly a flash illuminated my
+soul, showing me something of the <i>dulce</i> as well as the
+<i>decorum</i> of dying for country.</p>
+
+<p>And then we looked out of the window, and there
+came into my mind a completely commonplace event
+that caught my attention in the first wonderment and
+horror of the world war. Accompanied by her daughter,
+an elderly woman, one August evening of 1914, took
+the Fifth Avenue motor-bus to get some fresh air, and
+they placed themselves on top. At that epoch, instead
+of going straight up the Avenue, which was being repaved
+around about Thirty-fifth Street, the omnibus took a
+turn into Madison Avenue and reappeared again at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
+the north side of Altman’s. Now the roof of the <i>porte-cochère</i>
+of Altman’s has a <i>motif</i> of bronzework. The
+omnibus lurched just at this point; the head and hair
+of the old lady were caught in it; she was lifted up from
+the top of the omnibus, remained suspended in air for
+an instant of time, then dropped to the pavement,
+where she breathed out her soul. Doubtless there
+are those who will understand why this completely
+unimportant matter has remained in my mind—even
+why I thought of it at that moment.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Châlons-sur-Marne, 36 rue du Port de Marne.</span></p>
+
+<p>An 1860 house requisitioned by the military authorities
+for the <i>Dames de la Cantine</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>6.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sitting in a little glass-inclosed veranda even with
+the ground. The side against the house, in between
+the doors and windows, is painted in a crisscross pattern
+of dark green against light green, and the woodwork
+is that favorite but uninspiring shallow brown;
+a large, empty, double-decker cage for birds is in a
+corner. The veranda leads into two low-ceilinged rooms
+with parquet flooring and little squares of Brussels carpet.
+In the first is a writing-table, some arm-chairs,
+and a horsehair sofa is across a corner; brown wallpaper
+ornamented with the inevitable oil-paintings of
+“near” Corots, and “farther” Guido Renis—everything
+distinctly early Victorian, and something soothing in its
+atmosphere after three lustrums of <i>art nouveau</i>. After
+all we’ve been through in art lately, early Victorian
+isn’t as bad as we once thought.</p>
+
+<p>I looked for a moment into the walnut bookcase and
+found bound volumes of <i>La Semaine des Familles</i>, 1850-60;
+<i>Le Musée des Familles</i> of the same dates: <i>Le<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>
+Magasin d’Education</i>, of the eighties; and the curious
+part is that here beside the Marne it doesn’t seem of
+any special country, but of a special period.</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen leads out of the dining-room (which
+latter is the spiritual twin of the <i>salon</i>), and has an
+old, unused fireplace with a high masonried shelf above
+it and a beautiful ancient fireback with coat of arms.
+Near the high window is a little range and the inevitable
+gas-stove. I put my valise in the sitting-room
+and went out into the old garden, untouched since the
+winter’s sleep and the spring’s awakening. It looks
+out on the road; beyond is a raised walk along the
+river, and across the stream, just opposite, is the station
+and the evacuation hospital.</p>
+
+<p>But I was feeling uneasy as I looked about, for I was
+separated from my <i>carnet rouge</i>,<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> which has been unnecessarily
+reft from me by a too-zealous station individual.
+Miss Mitchell had met us, smiling and
+waving, which ought to have been a patent of respectability,
+from the other side of a bayonet, the side we
+wanted to be on; but the man had a dullish eye and
+didn’t see that we were birds of a feather, and, anyway,
+had just been put in authority and was enjoying
+his full powers, after the usual manner of the unaccustomed.</p>
+
+<p>So I departed, and got sopping wet in my only suit
+(am traveling lighter even than the first time), and my
+garments were furthermore ravaged by falling pollen
+from a linden-tree under which I had confidingly stood
+during the downpour. I was a sight, but I <i>had</i> to get
+that <i>carnet rouge</i>. Any one who has been in <i>la zone des
+armées</i> and has been separated from it will understand
+the orphaned and anxious feeling that possessed me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>A pale brightening of the western sky after the
+heavy rain. Two <i>avions de chasse</i> passing swiftly to
+the northeast. I wandered out of the garden, past some
+modern houses (this part of Châlons, for some reason,
+is called Madagascar), taking the little raised earth-walk
+by the Marne. The river, always slow-flowing,
+has an almost imperceptible movement in front of our
+house, and there are many grasses and reeds; the banks
+are weedy and little green boats are made fast to them,
+and nature is a bit motley and untidy. A soldier is
+fishing on the opposite side near the station. An officer
+and a black-robed woman pass. Farther down, the
+banks are thickly wooded and the trees glisten after the
+rain; even the great railway station is a-shine, where tens
+of thousands of men pass daily, together with millions
+of francs of war material, and it all looks like some not
+very sharp wood-cut of the sixties—the kind you
+wouldn’t buy if you were looking over a lot; but, somehow,
+lived in, it is charming. Then I found myself on
+a path by the river, with a lush border of trees, poplar,
+willow, white birch, ash, hawthorn, and clematis-twined,
+wild-grape-vined bushes. On the other side were ripe
+wheat-fields. Near a sycamore a man and a woman
+were locked in an embrace, whether of greeting or farewell
+I know not. Neither was very young—this much
+I saw before I turned my eyes and went on; but when
+I passed there again they were as before, their eyes
+still closed; and I suddenly knew them for true lovers,
+who count not moments, but were lost in some infinity;
+and for all I know they may be there yet, and if not
+they, then others, for the spaces of love are never empty.
+To some it may be nonsense that I am talking, but there
+are those who will know. All the while there was a dull
+boom of cannon, and other men who could love women<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+were giving up their lives; and I seemed to understand
+little or nothing, but did not need to understand, for I
+had a full heart, which is better than a full brain. And
+I cried, as I walked back, “<i>Domine Deus, Rex Celestis,
+Pater omnipotens</i>,” and left it all—the soft love and
+the hard death—where it belongs. And I was glad
+to have walked for a few moments alone by the green
+Marne.</p>
+
+<p>When I got back I found Joseph of the 71st <i>Chasseurs
+à pied</i> sitting with Miss N. Joseph thinks we are friends;
+he <i>knows</i> we are friends, so different from “world’s”
+people, who are suspicious and think nobody loves
+them, or fatuous and think everybody does.</p>
+
+<p>We sat in the 1860 dining-room. There is a pressed-bronze
+clock on the mantelpiece, representing a mild and
+smiling Turk with a drawn sword—and there is a sideboard
+you could find in Barnesville, Maryland, or
+Squedunk (I forget <i>where</i> Squedunk is), and the extremely
+“distant” Guido Renis decorate the brown
+walls, without, however, enlivening them.</p>
+
+<p>And this is Joseph’s story—Joseph of the grateful
+heart, Joseph with two years and a half of service,
+Joseph who won’t be twenty till December, Joseph with
+his young, round face and flat nose, dark under his
+pleasant eyes, and a bit hollow under his cheek-bones,
+and with decorations on his chest:</p>
+
+<p>“I never knew my parents; the Fathers brought me
+up. I have had only good from them, and when they
+were <i>chassés</i> I was taken with them to Pisa. I was
+going to continue my studies, <i>mais la guerre, que voulez-vous</i>?
+They call me ‘<i>le gosse</i>,’ I was the youngest in
+the regiment. Now I am alone in the world since my
+brothers were killed, one at Verdun three weeks ago,
+the other last year on the Somme. I miss the letters,”
+he added, simply.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span></p>
+
+<p>“But, Joseph, tell us how you got your <i>Croix de
+Guerre</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I only happened to save the life of my captain
+at Verdun. We were making a reconnaissance, and he
+fell with a ball in the hip. I started to bring him in,
+with a comrade who was hit by a piece of shrapnel in
+the head and killed instantly. I caught ‘mine’ in the
+arm, but I was still able to drag my captain in by his
+feet. It was quite simple, and since then he is very
+good to me.”</p>
+
+<p>Joseph is <i>en perm</i>, his regiment is at Reims, but he
+spits blood and his voice is hoarse—he was gassed a
+few weeks ago.</p>
+
+<p>“It smelt of violets,” he said, “and we didn’t know
+that anything was the matter till an officer rushed toward
+us. Eight of us never got up. I’ll never speak
+clearer than this.”</p>
+
+<p>Joseph stayed to supper with us—a supper of <i>soupe
+à l’oseille</i>, scrambled eggs, and salad, but the brown,
+dull, little room gradually seemed to fill with a sifted
+glory, and we left our meal and went out to find the
+whole world dipped in transparent pink, and the great
+Light of Day about to disappear, a reddish ball, in a
+mass of color of an intenser hue. The delicate willows
+were like silver candelabra reflected in the Marne,
+which now was a satiny pink. The wheat-fields were
+seas of burnished gold.</p>
+
+<p>Over all a terrific boom of cannon was borne on the
+damp evening air. It seemed impossible to do other
+than walk magnetically on and on toward the dreadful
+sound, out of that world of surpassing beauty toward
+those supreme agonies, toward Mourmelon and Reims,
+where men were laying down their lives, even as we three
+women walked the fields at the sunset hour. I remembered
+suddenly a picture known and loved years ago—a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+woman kneeling by such a river-bank, her hair falling,
+her face buried in her hands, called “<i>Hymnus an die
+Schönheit</i>,” but over the pink-and-silver beauty of <i>my</i>
+sunset world I heard the deep and dreadful tones of
+<i>their</i> cannon, and the answer of the 75’s, which Joseph
+likened to the <i>miaulement d’un chat</i>—and all the world
+seemed askew, and I looked through tears at a golden
+half-moon that was rising in the pink to add an unbearable
+beauty to it all.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">In my room</span>, <i>10.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p class="right">The cannon still booming.</p>
+
+<p>My room also has a dark-brown paper with great
+white flowers on it—some cross between peonies and
+dahlias, if such union is possible—and heavy mahogany
+furniture; a few books which I immediately investigated,
+on a gimp and tasseled trimmed shelf, for a clue
+to the one-time dwellers. Among them were two by
+Victor Tissot, <i>Le Pays des Milliards</i> and <i>Les Prussiens
+en Allemagne</i>; the dates were 1873 and 1875,
+and they told of that other war; and I looked at Germany
+through the eyes of forty years ago as I turned
+the pages of <i>Le Pays des Milliards</i>, listening to the
+1917 guns. History was not only repeating itself, but
+tripping itself up!</p>
+
+<p>Joseph is sleeping in the garden in the steamer-chair.
+I hear his gas-cough, a cross between a croupy cough
+and a whooping-cough. We wanted him to sleep inside,
+but he said “<i>J’étouffe</i>,” and took the steamer-chair
+out under the spreading chestnut-tree, and sleeps the
+sleep of youth, even though weary and gassed.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Thursday, 26th July, 1.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sitting in the garden, after lunch, where we have had
+coffee under the spreading chestnut, ready to go to
+Bar-le-Duc. <i>Avions</i> are whirring in the perfect blue,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+and we plainly hear the cannon. We are to take night
+shift at the little <i>Foyer des Alliés</i>. When I say that we
+carry nothing with us, not more than if we were going
+to take a stroll about town, one sees that the journey
+will be fairly elemental.</p>
+
+<p>Many white butterflies with an unerring instinct for
+beauty are flying in and out of the little white ash-tree.
+And in spite of the boom of cannon there straightway
+came to me a dear and fugitive realization that beauty
+is the first thing sought by instinct, its earliest and its
+last love, its imperishable means and its end. And how
+every other seeking of instinct comes after perpetuation,
+conservation, survival of the strong, and how it
+accompanies and pushes the soul toward its transfiguration.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, under the rustling chestnut, all about me
+the murmur of the gently stirring garden, I found I
+was mad for beauty, and some liquid, long, unrepeated
+lines came to me, I know not why:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>E il pino</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>ha un suono, e il mirto</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Altro suono, e il ginepro</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Altro ancora, stromenti</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>diversi</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sotto innumerevoli dita.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="center">...</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Che l’anima schiude</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>novella,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Su la favola bella</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Che ieri</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>M’illuse, che oggi t’illude,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>O Ermione.</i><a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When you’re not carrying anything with you except
+your money and your safe-conduct, you <i>can</i> dream till
+it’s time to take the train.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE CANTEEN AT BAR-LE-DUC</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Epitaphe</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts simplement: en victimes,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et n’ayant de la guerre éprouvé que l’horreur.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts sans nourrir en leur cœur</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>La haine et tous ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts comme ils avaient vécu:</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Assidus noblement à de modestes tâches.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui, n’étant ni très braves, ni lâches,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>N’ont su que résigner leur corps pauvre et vaincu.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts pour servir et défendre</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Des honneurs et des biens dont ils n’ont point leur part.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui se sont donnés sans rien attendre</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>De leur postérité, de l’histoire ou de l’art.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui, luttant seulement pour la vie,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ont ignoré les lois qui reposent sur eux,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mais compris en mourant qu’ils sont les malheureux</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>En qui depuis toujours Jésus se sacrifie.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis, ils le sont tous, et saints entre les morts,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ceux qu’on ne pleure guère et que nul ne renomme:</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Car, devant les héros, ils ne sont rien que l’Homme;</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Car, parmi tant de gloire, ils fondent le remords;</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Car leur don si naïf, ce don de tout leur être,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mêle aux vertus du sol les grâces d’un sang pur,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pour composer, avec tout l’or du blé futur,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Les moissons d’un esprit dont l’Amour sera maître.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Georges Pioch.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Châlons</span>, <i>27th July</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Half past four. Half an hour ago, <i>alerte, sirènes</i>.
+We hastily arose from resting, and have just come up
+from a really charming cellar, with nice vaulting, evidently
+much older than the house itself.</p>
+
+<p>Returned from Bar-le-Duc this morning rather sketchy
+in my mind, blurred with fatigue, in a compartment with
+five silent, dead-tired officers. It’s a great human
+document, night shift in a canteen. From ten o’clock
+till six I watched the <i>poilus</i> fill the <i>Foyer des Alliés</i>, in
+and out, in and out. From time to time the voice of
+the station-master called out some fateful destination.
+I was thankful for any momentary slackening of the
+rush, so that when one gives coffee, chocolate, or bouillon
+one can also give a word, the precious word, where
+all is so anonymous. Between three and four there was
+a lessening, and a short, haggard, deep-eyed, scraggy-mustached
+man of forty-six, leaning on the counter,
+said to me, “I am father of five,” and, showing his
+blue trousers tucked in his boots, added, “I am of the
+attacking troops.” He then shifted his accoutrement
+and dug out from his person the photographs of the
+five children and his <i>épouse</i>, and I think more and more,
+“it is for the young to fight.” I can’t bear the look on
+the faces of the middle-aged going up to battle.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>poilu</i> trying to find his purse or the photographs
+of his family, among everything else in the world that
+he carries on his person, pressed tightly against other
+men carrying the same, feels doubtless the way a sardine
+trying to turn over would feel!</p>
+
+<p>The next with whom I spoke was a <i>gaillard</i> with a
+glancing blue eye, reddish mustache and high color, from
+Barcelona, of French parents, and he insisted on speaking
+Spanish with me. His brother is professor at Saint-Nazaire.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Every time he writes me it is about Mr. Lloyd George
+instead of about the family.”</p>
+
+<p>This is a delicate tribute to my supposed English
+nationality.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think we are going to win, señorita?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course,” I answer, “with the help of God. <i>Dios
+y victoria</i>,” I add, piously.</p>
+
+<p>But as he tosses off his coffee he says, with a gleam,
+“<i>Victoria y Dios</i>,” and then gives way to a comrade
+who was at Craonne in April.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man with a softish eye and full-lipped mouth
+and was probably naturally flesh-loving, and wanted
+his coffee very hot, and looked approvingly at me as I
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Mon ami</i>, I know all about it, if coffee isn’t <i>too</i> hot,
+it isn’t hot enough.”</p>
+
+<p>He ended a conversation about an engagement he
+had been in by saying: “The most awful sensation is
+to see the dust raised by the mitrailleuses and to know
+that you have got to walk into it and to see the men
+ahead of you stepping with strange steps—and some
+falling.”</p>
+
+<p>As I said, he was naturally ease-loving and pain-fearing,
+yet that is the way <i>his</i> dust may be called on to
+return to dust.</p>
+
+<p>There are many jokes about shrapnel and shells,
+but nobody ever jokes about a bullet. It’s a thing
+with a single purpose—and you may be it.</p>
+
+<p>Our headquarters are at ——, not far away, and it
+was at Bar-le-Duc that I first saw our own men among
+the French for the same strange purpose. Something
+stirred deeply in my heart, with an accompanying searing,
+scorching consciousness of what an elemental thing they
+have come across the seas to do—quite simply kill or
+be killed. It’s all to come, for “He hath loosed the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,” and it is
+for the young to fight.</p>
+
+<p>At 3.30 they come into the canteen and ask for eighteen
+fried eggs; they are oozing with money, and <i>they</i>
+aren’t feeling sentimental. One of the four young
+spread-eagles (he proved to be from Texas, and was
+changing a big plug of tobacco from one side of his
+mouth to the other) said, with an appraising look at the
+counter, that he could “buy us out,” and a second
+added, “And more, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“How about those coming in later?” I suggest, and
+then I ask how long they’ve been here.</p>
+
+<p>“Been here? Just five hundred years,” a small one
+answers, promptly, “and the next time the ‘Call’ comes
+they won’t get me. They can take the house and the
+back fence, too, but they won’t get little Joe. This
+loving another country’s one on me!”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t listen to him, lady; he’s homesick. We’re
+out to can the Kaiser, and he’ll take some canning
+yet, but I say next July he will be about as welcome as
+a skunk at a lawn-party.”</p>
+
+<p>And then even the homesick one cheered up. The
+simile made me think of summer evenings in New England,
+but I only asked when they were to go back to ——.</p>
+
+<p>“We ought to have been there at 10.15.”</p>
+
+<p>I gave a stern glance at the big canteen clock. The
+hands pointed to 3.30. They were then five and a
+quarter hours late.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t know ‘<i>Gun</i>court.’ It’s a fierce place,”
+said one, in answer to the look.</p>
+
+<p>“Aren’t you busy?”</p>
+
+<p>“Holy smoke! She says <i>are we busy</i>! Why, we dig
+ourselves in all day, and we dig ourselves out all night,
+and somebody after you all the time. I don’t call this
+war. We’re out for real trouble.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, you’ll get it when you see your officer,” I remarked,
+unfeelingly.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a <i>poilu</i> whom they seemed to know approached
+with his ten centimes. One of the Sammies
+knocks it out of his hand onto the counter, points to
+his own chest, says, “On me, a square meal,” and
+opens his bursting purse for me to take whatever is
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>poilu</i>, hearing the chink of coin and rustle of
+paper, says to me, with eyes the size of saucers, “<i>Sont-ils
+tous millionaires?</i>” ...</p>
+
+<p>Apart from his “private resources,” which seem unlimited,
+the American receives just twenty times a day
+what the Frenchman does.</p>
+
+<p>But how my heart goes out to them, so young, so
+untried, so generous—and a sea of blood awaiting them!</p>
+
+<p>Toward morning, when a chill was in the air, a thin-faced,
+dark-eyed man with glasses shiveringly drinks his
+hot chocolate. “It’s too long, the war,” he says, “two
+years—even three—<i>mais cela traîne trop, nos bonnes
+qualités s’usent et se perdent</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“What were you before the war?”</p>
+
+<p>“My father has a book-shop at Chartres, <i>j’adorais les
+livres et une bonne lampe</i>,” he added, so simply.</p>
+
+<p>And then a trench-stained comrade came up to him
+and they talked after this fashion—one couldn’t have
+done better oneself—while I mopped up the counter and
+refilled my jugs:</p>
+
+<p>“This country pleases me. I will come back and
+take a turn about after the war.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Mon vieux</i>, one should never return to a place where
+one has been happy; one is apt to find only regrets and
+disillusions. You are thinking of the young <i>boulangère</i>
+here, but she herself will leave the town after the hostilities!
+And then what? <i>Un seul être vous manque et<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>
+tout est dépeuplé!</i> But nothing, however, counsels one
+to return to a place where one has suffered.”</p>
+
+<p>From this point of view one must say that the life
+of the <i>poilu</i> is ideal, for when he will have tried all the
+fronts, including those of the Orient, the war will perhaps
+be over.</p>
+
+<p>And then they slung everything except the kitchen
+stove on their persons, and, thanking me, went out to
+be killed, or, in the very best event, to get <i>la bonne
+blessure</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One in a thousand, one in ten thousand gets it, <i>la
+bonne blessure</i>, indeed, not disfiguring, not incapacitating,
+and afterward, sometimes, decorations, honors. On
+the other side they say, “<i>Glück muss der Soldat haben</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>A strange, intense blue, like some outer curtain to
+the windows, announced the coming of dawn, and out
+of it appeared nine men shivering.</p>
+
+<p>“Why are you so cold?” I ask.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Il fait du brouillard</i>,” said one, with a beard in a
+point and wearing a <i>béret</i>, such a man as would have gone
+into an inn of Rabelais’s time, <i>en route</i> for some seat of
+war; and as he drank his big bowl of chocolate he
+added, “<i>Cela console</i>; toward dawn one’s courage is
+low.”</p>
+
+<p>Then a young, stone-deaf man with blue eyes and delicate,
+pink-skinned face came in with something vague
+and searching in his look. I didn’t realize in the first
+moment what was the matter, as I asked, did he want
+coffee or chocolate, but a comrade pointed to his ears
+and said, “Verdun.” He himself smiled, a dear young
+smile, but sudden tears came to my eyes and I slopped
+the coffee.</p>
+
+<p>A little before six we closed the canteen, which is
+always swept and garnished between six and seven, and
+went back to the house where Miss Worthington, who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
+so admirably runs it in conjunction with Miss Alexander,
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>I lay me on a sofa with my shoes unlaced—my feet
+by that time were feeling like something boneless and
+bruised, mashed into something too small.</p>
+
+<p>Seven-thirty a great knocking at the door.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>L’alerte! A la cave, madame!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>I was then in a state where a bomb couldn’t hurry
+me, but, the knocks continuing, I finally got up and
+went down-stairs to find the lower floor full of people,
+too <i>blasé</i> to go into the vaulted cellar below.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Quelle comédie!</i>” said one woman. “<i>Moi, je m’en vais.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Quelle tragédie, si c’est pour vous cette fois</i>,” answered
+another, pressing her baby to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>“The bits of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns
+firing at the aeroplanes make more victims than the
+bombs,” said another.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Worthington appeared at that moment, but
+decided, however, to go back to bed. I went out into
+the hot streets; the early sun was shining in a faultless
+sky. The <i>Foyer des Alliés</i> had been hastily evacuated
+at the <i>alerte</i>, according to orders, so I asked for the
+nearest church, where I could sit down in peace, or comparative
+peace, out of the glare and the heat, not to
+mention the enemy airplanes. I was directed up the
+principal street, told to turn down by the river, and
+was proceeding under the dusty poplars to the church
+of St.-Jean, when suddenly some beauty of the morning
+touched my face and a feeling almost of joy succeeded
+the fatigue of the night. I was turned from
+thoughts of men going to their doom, and destruction
+coming from the lovely sky, and I could receive only the
+morning light, and the glory of the shining river and the
+rolling hills was for the moment mine; and I saw how
+“dying, they are not dead.” ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mass was over when I got to church, but I sat
+down, crossed myself, and commended, with a suddenly
+quiet heart, the world of battle to its God,
+and then, instead of <i>un</i>lacing my shoes in the
+sanctuary, I proceeded to lace them <i>up</i>, having
+walked from my abode with the laces tied about
+my ankles; it wasn’t as sloppy as it sounds, considering
+what was going on overhead. But I found
+myself thinking of praying-carpets, and rows of
+sandals outside of dim mosques, and things and ways
+far from Bar-le-Duc.</p>
+
+<p>After twenty minutes of a somewhat hazy contemplation
+of other than war mysteries, I went back to
+the canteen.</p>
+
+<p>Betwixt the time I had left it and my return a bomb
+had fallen between it and the station; a large piece of
+roof had been removed from the station, and a very neat
+nick had been made in the corner of the canteen where
+we kept our hats and coats and hung up our aprons.
+The street in between looked like an earthquake street.
+I stood quite still for a second of time—not thinking—you
+don’t think on such occasions. The Barrisiens, or,
+in plain English, the Bar-le-Dukites, were engaged in
+business as usual.</p>
+
+<p>I then began the cutting up and buttering of endless
+large slices of bread, with a Scotchwoman, who has unmodifiable
+opinions about Americans—any and all
+Americans. Even when she only remarks, “I saw two
+new people in town yesterday, <i>very</i> American-looking,
+<i>very</i>,” you feel there’s something the matter with the
+States, and if you had time you’d get argumentative,
+even perhaps annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers were coming in again. To one tired, deep-eyed
+man, sitting listlessly, with the heavy load slipping,
+I said:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Vous avez le cafard,<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> mon ami?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>And he answered, suddenly, as if the words had been
+ejected by a great force from his soul:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Je monte demain</i>—and I can’t bear the sound the
+bayonet makes going in.”</p>
+
+<p>I answered, “A hot cup of coffee and you will feel all
+right again.” But to myself I said, “There’ll be trouble
+for him; he <i>can’t</i> any more.”</p>
+
+<p>And then a huge Senegalese, all spinal column and
+hip, waving a generous five-franc note in his hands,
+came along and wanted to know if there was anybody
+<i>bas mariée</i> among the ministrants, as he had a day off.
+The service is quite variegated, as will be seen from
+these random specimens.</p>
+
+<p>Last night we walked up the hill of the ancient town.
+A yellow half-moon, hanging behind the fourteenth-century
+tower, further decorated the scene. We sat on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
+immemorial steps, in a little V-shaped place that framed
+the valley and the town, and talked of war and wars.
+I thought how the legendary Gaul had wandered over
+these hills and these wooded stretches, with his battle-ax
+and skin about him, and long-haired women had
+waited his return, and children had played in front of
+caves. As the clock on the tower struck nine a woman
+appeared, waving her arms and calling out, “<i>Une incendie!</i>”
+and we went higher up the steps and saw masses
+of smoke and flames on one of the hills. It was the
+huge barracks for refugees that was burning, and the
+flames were blowing toward the near-by encampment
+for German prisoners. Then we went down the ancient
+roadway through the dim, warm, summer streets to the
+canteen overflowing with blue-clad men, singing, drinking,
+disputing. A blue mist of smoke and breath hung
+about them, with a smell of hot wool and worn leather—and
+it was the war. As I put on my apron I found
+myself repeating the words:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts simplement: en victimes,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et n’ayant de la guerre éprouvé que l’horreur.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Bénis ceux qui sont morts sans nourrir en leur cœur</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>La haine et tous ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br>
+<span class="smaller">THEATRICALS AND CAMOUFLAGE</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>27th July, evening.</i></p>
+
+<p>This afternoon Lieutenant Robin fetched us to the
+theatrical representation the <i>Division Marocaine</i>
+was to give.</p>
+
+<p>Generals thick as leaves in Vallombrosa were there
+in a hemicycle about the stage, pressed close by the
+flood of <i>poilus</i>. Terrible heat in the great, glass-roofed
+auditorium, a slanting afternoon sun pouring itself in
+like hot gold. Some thousands of spectators; thick
+odor of <i>poilu</i>; blind being led in; groups of one-legged
+men naturally gravitating to one another; groups of
+one-armed the same. A few <i>gardes-malades</i> from the
+hospitals, and ourselves the only women in the audience.</p>
+
+<p>We were presented at the door with some copies of
+a charming, really literary newspaper, <i>L’Horizon, Journal
+des poilus</i>, and there was a little paragraph, “<i>Hiérarchie
+française qu’on trouve au Théâtre des Armées</i>,”
+which also described the protocol of seating, “In the
+first row near the stage wounded men are lying, immediately
+behind them wounded men are sitting, then
+come ladies, if there are any—and then come officers!”
+General Goïgoux and General Abbevillers sat near us.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting we looked at <i>L’Horizon</i> and laughed
+with General Goïgoux over a paragraph showing the
+philosophy of a son of Mars under certain circumstances,
+and it was the following:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>Nature is kind. She places the remedy near the ill and often
+cures, as one has seen, evil by evil.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, too much loved, sent me a letter so cruel that I didn’t
+even have the strength to tear it up, but carried it around in my
+pocket for weeks.</p>
+
+<p>One night, being quartered in a stable, I took my coat off and
+hung it up.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, no letter. A cow had eaten it. Nature is kind.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When General Gouraud, first in command, entered,
+the “Marseillaise” sounded, a thrill went through the
+vast assemblage, and we all arose. <i>Le Lion d’Orient</i> is
+tall, intensely straight, his whole thin, khaki-clad body
+on parallel lines with his perpendicular armless right
+sleeve. Long, straight, brown hair <i>en brosse</i>, bronzed
+skin. His entry was a thing not to be forgotten. I
+wondered “Is it the East that stamps great chiefs with
+such majesty, that can give them such calm?” and I
+thought of Gallipoli—blue seas, battles, wounds, hospital
+ships. Then the curtain rose on one of the most
+delightful theatrical representations I have ever seen,
+screamingly funny, and quite chaste.</p>
+
+<p>But all that <i>entrain</i>, all that life, to be snuffed out to-morrow
+or the next day, or the next? At Craonne or
+Reims or Verdun or wherever it may be? And how
+natural that they should sing of love and women, and
+say witty things concerning food and raiment and the
+government, till the end!</p>
+
+<p>After the performance, during which nobody had
+ever been so hot before, the sun moving across the hall
+and grilling each row in turn, we passed out in a great
+jam of <i>poilus</i>. One huge man, with the thickest of
+meridional accents and red cheeks, and eyes like two
+black lanterns, and a coal-black beard, was gesticulating
+at a small, hook-nosed, blond man.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Le Midi, le Midi—qu’est-ce que tu en sais, toi, bêta?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+Les Anglais t’ont déjà pris ton trou de Calais, aussi je
+te demande, sale type</i>, what army corps took the <i>plateau
+de Craonne</i>” and he burst into a great laugh of triumph.
+Then, borne on the blue waves, we found ourselves in
+the open air and realized what we had been breathing.</p>
+
+<p>General Goïgoux presented us to General Gouraud
+standing by his motor with several other generals, while
+a squad of German prisoners, looking out of the corners
+of their eyes, were being marched by. His mien was
+dignity itself, and out under the sky one was even more
+conscious of that harmony of browns and straight lines,
+that something remote yet majestic in his being. As we
+turned to go I saw him speaking to a blind zouave, and
+he pressed his hand lingeringly on the man’s shoulder.
+<i>Oh, enfants de la patrie!</i></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Saturday, July 28th, 10.30 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>All last night the strange, recurring, sinister sound of
+the <i>sirènes</i> over the plain of Châlons, and it seemed to
+me like cries of men of the Stone Age.</p>
+
+<p>These two days I have been haunted by ghosts of
+beings of the twilight ages; elusive emanations, dim suggestions
+of their psychologies have at moments possessed
+me in this city of the Catalaunian Plains.</p>
+
+<p>Rested in my pink-silk wrapper, dead tired—too tired
+to care whether “they” got here or not—and stayed in
+bed during the <i>alertes</i>, but I thought of airmen, attackers
+and defenders, in the soft summer sky, a golden half-moon
+lighting a dim heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Dreamed, but only in snatches, of peace and the
+ways of peace.</p>
+
+<p>At 4.30 I heard Joseph’s gas-bark and knew he was
+again with us, stretched out on the <i>chaise-longue</i> under
+the chestnut-tree.</p>
+
+<p>As I stood at the window my thoughts went twisting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+about the stars of the gorgeous night that was so soon
+to give way to another summer day, and I suddenly
+saw human beings, only as tiny specks, everywhere
+going forth at some word of command to their doom.
+There was a flinging back of my thoughts upon me, and
+I turned from my window, as suddenly the chill of early
+dawn and the boom of cannon came in, and I could see
+nothing for tears and I knew the beauteous earth for
+what it is—the abode of mad horrors.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Paid my respects to General Goïgoux for an instant
+of time (I can always get out quickly) in the old gray
+house of the Rue Grande Étape, and found him as always,
+<i>distingué</i>, human, untired, cordial. Officers passing
+in and out of his room, and the walls tapestried with
+maps. Later Colonel Rolland of the 1st Zouaves, very
+jaunty in his red fez, adoring his men and adored by
+them, and flicking his leg with a short cane having a
+deadly knife on a spring in the top, took us to the railroad
+station, to inspect the great, dreary sheds that with
+time, labor, and much energy are to become <i>La Cantine
+Américaine</i>. Blue-clad men were lying around like
+logs in inert bundles on the earthen floor. One had to
+step over legs and motley equipment to get anywhere.
+A dreadful sound of hammering was echoing through the
+vast spaces, without, however, seeming to disturb the
+slumbers of those men, and I dare say was as a lullaby
+in comparison to the first-line trenches.</p>
+
+<p>We stepped into the kitchen. A smiling, twinkling-eyed
+<i>cuistot</i><a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> who probably had something awful the
+matter with him—flat-foot or hernia or something of the
+kind, or he wouldn’t have been there—with pride asked
+us to partake of some of his coffee. He proceeded to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+dip it from a great, steaming caldron, pouring it
+into worn tin cups carefully wiped first on his much-used
+apron. My soul responding to echoes of fraternity
+enabled me to drink with a smile, which, though it
+started out rather sickly, behaved all right as I returned
+the cup with compliments. The <i>cuistot</i> said he
+hoped the <i>cantine</i> would soon be in order, and as he
+looked through the small opening through which he
+shoved the cups to the <i>poilus</i>, rendered still smaller by
+piles of bread and festoons of sausage, he added, “<i>Les
+têtes de ces dames seront plus consolantes que la mienne</i>.”
+He was a nice, human <i>cuistot</i>, though no lover of water
+except for making coffee, and then, as we fell into conversation,
+he added, “<i>Si la guerre pouvait finir; mais il
+y a un fossé de dignité et personne des deux côtés n’ose le
+sauter</i>.” These <i>poilus</i> are astounding!</p>
+
+<p>We then visited Lieutenant Tonzin, who is going to
+decorate the <i>cantine</i> as never <i>cantine</i> was decorated.
+He was at the camouflage grounds. As one knows,
+camouflage is <i>de l’art de la guerre le dernier cri</i>, but the
+grounds were discreetly veiled from public gaze, and we
+were directed into a little garden, green-treed and sun-flecked.
+In it was a trestle with a large, very clever,
+plaster cast of a <i>camion</i> taking <i>poilus</i> somewhere; they
+were hanging from every possible place except the
+wheels, just such a sight as one constantly sees on the
+roads near the front.</p>
+
+<p>The gayest sounds of whistling and singing issued from
+the rather coquet sun-flooded house behind the garden.
+Several other young artists appeared on hearing women’s
+voices, loving life, adoring art with a new adoration,
+and who with something of wonder and much of thankfulness
+found themselves for a sweet, brief space in
+charge of the camouflage work, with brush and chisel
+again in hand instead of bayonets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p>
+
+<p>We looked at the designs for the <i>cantine</i> decorations,
+quite charming—but we delicately suggested suppressing
+the figure of a too fascinating “mees” that was to
+embellish the entrance and point to the <i>poilus</i> the way
+to those delights. We feared some confusion of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward went to church at Notre Dame, and, sitting
+there, drew my first quiet breath in Châlons, out
+of the hot streets. Beautiful music rolling through the
+gray, antique vaulting. A white bier near the altar;
+some beloved child was being laid away from sight and
+hearing and touch and earthly hope. As I looked about
+the lovely gray spaces I remembered how in <i>La Cathédrale</i>
+Huysmans says the length symbolizes the patience
+of the Church during trials and persecutions;
+the width, that love which dilates the heart; and the
+height, our aspirations and our hopes—and some speechless
+gratitude overflowed my soul because of being one
+of the enduring community to whom, through the gorgeous,
+terrible ages, nothing human is foreign. I had
+a strange, complete sensation of brotherhood and I
+saw us all of the great laughing, weeping caravan, winding
+through the desert, and the Church compassionate
+the spot of living waters. And how “men must endure
+their going hence, even as their coming hither. Ripeness
+is all.” ...</p>
+
+<p>On the same site had once been a pagan temple, and
+on its altar was the figure of a Virgin, and at her feet
+were graven the words, “<i>Virgini Parituri</i>” (“to the
+Virgin who shall bring forth”). And it had come to
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>The most precious of the old windows have lately
+been put out of harm’s way, but the ogival tops remain
+with their jewels of medieval reds and blues; and on
+each side, as one looks through the lovely gray vaulting,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
+are delicate windows of a later epoch, with designs in
+fawn and green and yellow.</p>
+
+<p>As I came out behind the mourners following the little
+white bier, I noticed again with a sinking of the heart
+the revolutionary defacement of the splendid portals.
+Men in all ages have had seasons of madness, wherein
+they destroyed whatever mute and unresisting beauty
+was within their reach.</p>
+
+<p>Again through the hot streets—an epic in themselves
+of war, dust, sun, blue-clad men, blue-gray automobiles,
+gallooned officers, and I realized among other things
+that without uniforms war would be impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Bought <i>Le Champ de Bataille de l’Epopée</i>, also <i>Le
+Mannequin d’Osier</i>, out of a huge stock of Anatole
+France’s books, who is evidently a favorite here. I
+passed through the old courtyard of the museum, hermetically
+sealed <i>depuis la campagne</i>, as the porter told
+me when I sought his lodge, from which the most savory
+of noonday smells was issuing. Uninteresting and entirely
+beside the point, Buddhist sculptures fill one side
+of the court, and then, passing through the portal of a
+seventeenth-century church, transported there when
+the church itself was being done away with, one finds
+oneself in a narrow passage on the walls of which are
+hung quaint old fire-backs, <i>plaques de foyer</i>. The first
+is of the eighteenth century, “<i>l’amour désarmé</i>” (love was
+nearly always disarmed in those days), and this one
+represented Cupid supporting a languorous lady. “<i>Le
+retour du marché</i>” of Louis XVI depicted a housewife returning
+with a full basket on her arm, and evoked the odor
+of the porter’s <i>pot-au-feu</i>. A French soldier wounded
+in the Crimea, 1855, with his colonel bending over
+him, might have been any one of a hundred thousand
+scenes of to-day. On one were the arms of the King
+of Spain, and the date 1608, and on another those of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
+Maria Theresa and her consort, Francis III, Duke of
+Lorraine. Their origins were as diverse as the history
+of Lorraine itself, and I glimpsed family groups sitting
+about hearths, looking at them through the flames.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Met to-day two Englishwomen coming out of the hospital.
+One, nearing sixty, had something ardent in her
+charming blue eyes and under austerely brushed whitening
+hair; there was a suggestion of banked fires—banked
+under ashes of circumstance, probably, as well
+as time. The other, somewhat younger, in the full grip
+of <i>l’âge dangereux</i>, had something inexorable in her regard.
+When we passed on I asked who they were, and
+found they were daily doers of acts of mercy and devotion,
+and then I found myself looking for eternal reasons
+in transient things, under the impression made by those
+two women—met only in passing, but whose emanations
+I suddenly caught. And I thought: Among the innumerable
+phenomena of the war are these women of
+various ages (though the phenomenon is most apparent
+between thirty-five and sixty), brought for the first time
+into personal contact with man, other than father or
+brother, ministering to his wants, witness of his agonies,
+awed spectator of his continual apotheosis, and all the
+daily transmutations of the definite and ordinary into
+the infinite and divine. The world war gives the one
+chance for the twisting of conventional fives, lived along
+the straightest of fines, into completely unexpected
+shapes. They come from abodes of hitherto unescapable
+virginities, these elemental women of indescribable
+innocence, with that warm, wondering look, or
+sometimes that determined and inexorable look, upon
+their faces, these unchosen and unmated, to become
+part of the strange lining of the war, part of the vast<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
+patchwork. Not the least strange are these pale, thin
+bits, sewn into something riotous, reckless, multicolored,
+heroic. It’s a far cry from Shepherd’s Bush or Clapham
+Junction or Stepney Green to battle-fields, hospitals,
+vanishings, potent reminders of forces withdrawn forever
+from the world-sum, or, still more, of convalescences
+and evocations of returning forces, but <i>not</i> re-established
+order.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere the subtle but deathless emanation of
+the male—his heroisms, his agonies, his needs, his weakness,
+and his strength.</p>
+
+<p>Can one wonder at the mighty tide obeying nameless
+natural laws, like other tides, that flood the areas where
+the manhood of the world is concentrated?</p>
+
+<p>Very hot. Out there in the <i>Champagne Pouilleuse</i>
+men are marching in the white dust, resting in the white
+dust, giving up their lives in the white dust. Am sitting
+under the chestnut-tree. A soldier, in civil life a gardener,
+has been sent to tidy up our garden, and its <i>belle
+patine</i> will soon give way to spick-and-spanness. I
+sensed such a passion of tenderness in the way he
+handled his rake that I went over to speak to him, and
+this is his history. He is from Cette—<i>une ville si jolie</i>—and
+he speaks with the heavy accent of his part of the
+world. He is a territorial and forms part of the <i>État-Civil
+des Champs de Bataille</i> (civilian workers on the
+battle-fields). This doesn’t sound bad, but it really
+means that since he was called, eighteen months ago,
+he, who all his life has planted flowers, has been digging
+up dead bodies, hunting in a literal “body of death”
+to find the plaques, and then identifying by means of
+a map the place where they are found.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Madame, je rien pouvais plus.</i> It was too terrible.
+I am forty-seven years old, but I asked to be put among
+the attacking troops. They refused, but sent me here.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
+Now in this garden I have found heaven again.” And
+his eyes, his soft, suffering eyes, filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>I asked him about his family—one son is fighting in
+the Vosges.</p>
+
+<p>“He is six feet four and he so resembles Albert I that
+they call him <i>le roi des Belges</i>. I lost my daughter a
+few months ago—a beautiful girl with curling blond
+hair. After her fiancé fell at Verdun, she went into a
+decline. My other son is young, seventeen, but his
+turn is near. I had a beautiful family.” The gardener
+himself is straight-featured and straight-browed, caught
+up how terribly in the wine-press of the war. “All my life
+I have been gardener in great houses,” he added, with
+a shudder. “The work they gave me <i>là-bas</i> is the most
+terrible of all. <i>On n’y résiste pas à la longue. O les
+pauvres restes qu’on trouve! O, Madame!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>I asked him to bring me the photographs of his family,
+and his face brightened for a moment as he stood with
+his head uncovered. One speaks to any chance person,
+and immediately one gets a story that is fit only to be
+handled by some master of that incomparable thing,
+French prose.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>A while ago investigated the house. Up-stairs is a
+little room toward the north, papered in a yellow-and-white
+pin-stripe design of forty or fifty years ago. In
+it is a yellow baroque niche with a shell design at the
+top, having a temple or altar-like suggestion, in spite
+of the too-large, ugly, marble-topped mahogany wash-stand
+that fills it. Above the mahogany bed is a carved
+wooden holy water font, a little shelf in the corner for
+books, and another for a lamp, and there is a window
+looking out on small gardens cut up into bits for flowers
+and vegetables. As I entered it I seemed to know that
+some spirit rare and strong enough to project emanations,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+sensible even to a stranger long after, had lived,
+perhaps died, in it. I settled down immediately in a
+really not comfortable, too-small, brown, upholstered
+arm-chair, sloping forward, and felt somehow as if I
+were in choice company, and began to turn the pages
+of Bordeaux’s <i>Dernier jour du Fort de Vaux</i>, which I
+had in my hand as I entered. But something unseen
+held my attention, not the book. The room was gently,
+softly haunted, and the world of spirits was sensibly
+about me.... Anyway, the plain of Châlons gives me
+the creeps.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph, reappearing this afternoon, brought the news
+that there had been another air raid on Bar-le-Duc at
+noon, and they had dropped pounds of leaflets telling
+of the Russian defeat, Rumanians retreating, in danger
+of being enveloped. The leaflets wound up by saying
+the Germans were sick of the war—they supposed the
+French were—and why not have peace?</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE BURIAL OF PÈRE CAFARD</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Châlons</span>, <i>Sunday, 29th</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Telegram that M. de Sinçay may be passing
+through. I would like to see his <i>grand seigneur</i>
+contour decorate our 1860 establishment. Go to the
+<i>Bureau de la Place</i>, and nothing less than a general
+(Abbevillers) grasps the receiver and telephones for me
+to Bar-le-Duc—but without result. They are all in
+“our” <i>secteur</i> “of a courtesy”!</p>
+
+<p>Twelve-o’clock mass at Notre Dame. Again rolling
+music, and the green vestment of the priest especially
+beautiful at the end of that high gray Gothic vista.
+Many, many military. I thought of an English officer
+who said to me not long ago:</p>
+
+<p>“See how the soldier is exalted in the New Testament.
+It is certainly not the man of law, the money-changer,
+the man of politics, nor governors. When Christ has
+an especial lesson to show, how often He shows it
+through the soldier, even unto the servant of the centurion.”</p>
+
+<p>On returning, found Mrs. S. and Miss E. arrived from
+the village of the fifteenth-century towers,<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and the khaki-clad
+sons of Mars from over the seas, their hearts filled
+with patriotism and their tank with American <i>essence</i>.
+Coffee under the chestnut-tree, lovely sun filtering<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span>
+through, and the little white butterflies flying about the
+little white ash-tree; and we told stories, being all of
+us souls that laugh, which we did, till we couldn’t
+breathe, at the story of the woman’s-preparedness
+meeting in a certain transcendental town where the
+head of the assembly in solemn accents besought as
+many as felt drawn to such work to become automobilists—“and
+the moment the Germans set foot in New York
+rush the virgins to the West, preferably Kansas City.”
+In the town of brotherly love, where a like assemblage
+was held, an immediate position was available, March,
+1917, with a commission of major-general, to look after
+dead soldiers’ widows for another blinking female. <i>Oh!
+là, là!</i>—and when one thinks we’ve <i>got</i> to win the war!</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Have just laid down <i>Le Mannequin d’Osier</i>, completely
+dazzled by that first chapter, so monstrously clever, so
+diabolically lucid, so icily logical, so magnetically cynical,
+and I said to myself, after all, “one can only write
+of war in between wars.” I long for a friend to read
+with me the pages where M. Roux, on short leave during
+his years’ military service, says to M. Bergeret, “<i>Il y a
+quatre mois que je n’ai pas entendu une parole intelligente</i>,”
+to the paragraph where M. Bergeret says, “<i>Mais
+nous sommes un peuple de héros et nous croyons toujours
+que nous sommes trahis</i>.” It stimulated a desire for the
+discussion of things as they are, over against what one
+idiotically hopes they may be, with a bit of imagination
+concerning the future thrown in.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>July 29th, evening.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon we all went to another theatrical
+representation in the big hall, given by the <i>1er Régiment
+de Marche des Zouaves</i>. Again immense concourse.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+Again the “Marseillaise,” and again the <i>Lion d’Orient</i>
+made his majestic entry, and dozens of generals and high
+officials followed him, and again all sat forming their
+glittering hemicycle in front of the stage. Again a few
+nurses, some wives of officers, and the thousands of
+<i>poilus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A great poster read: “<i>Vous êtes priés d’assister au
+convoi, service, et enterrement du Père Cafard, assassiné
+par le Communiqué.</i></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Le deuil sera conduit par le Pinard, le Jus, la Gniole,
+le Tabac, et tous les membres du Chacal hurlant.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>It appears that those of the 1st Zouaves still in hospital
+had had a rise in temperature at the thought that
+their representation might not equal that of the Moroccan
+Division of Friday. The <i>Compère</i> was made to look as
+much as possible like Colonel Rolland—adored by his
+men. “<i>On R’met Ca!</i>” has been given in the trenches
+all over the front, and was just as funny and amusing
+as the other, but there was a strange intermezzo about
+three o’clock, when the dreadful sun, shining through
+the glass panes of the sides (on the roof great squares of
+canvas had been spread), began to get fainter. It was
+like being in the hot-room of a Turkish bath. Suddenly
+a darkness fell, accompanied by a deafening and
+terrifying noise of a heavy rattling on the roof and a
+beating in at the sides; the voices and music were
+completely drowned and the performance had to be
+suspended. Even the officers were beginning to look
+about—when the lights suddenly went out and we found
+ourselves in Stygian blackness at 4.30 of a summer
+afternoon, the terrific noise continuing, with the under-note
+of the stirring of the thousands assembled. A
+nameless fear, or something akin to it, went through
+the vast assemblage. Finally we realized that it was
+heaven, not the enemy, bombarding us, as hailstones,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
+even by the time they had gone through many hot hands,
+as big as turkey eggs, were passed about. There was
+the sound of breaking glass, water began to rush in, the
+heavy canvas, spread on the roof as protection against
+the sun, and also to prevent the light from being seen
+from the air, alone prevented the roof from breaking in.
+Finally the lights reappeared and the performance proceeded
+to the diminishing sound of heavy rain—but it
+was a strange experience. Even those generals of Olympic
+calm had begun to “think thoughts” at one moment.
+It would have been a big “bag,” had anything
+been doing, and we all knew it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. S. and Miss E. have been persuaded to stay at
+the house by the Marne, rather than at La Haute Mère
+Dieu, and we have arranged to double up.</p>
+
+<p>I am to motor back to Paris with them to-morrow.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br>
+<span class="smaller">A PROVIDENTIAL FORD</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>July 31st</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, at 8.30 in the damp morning, Lieutenant
+Robin appeared with my military pass to
+return by auto instead of by train, and I said a special
+farewell to the gardener, carrying our bags out to the
+motor in a passionate tenderness of courtesy. Miss
+Nott and Miss Mitchell bade us Godspeed, and we
+passed over the Marne and out of town. At the <i>consigne</i>
+examination of our papers, our charming chauffeuse
+excited much attention. An officer standing there with
+pasteboard box and leather bag asked if we would give
+him a lift. The road was unusually empty and he had
+been awaiting an act of Providence for two hours. We
+were it.</p>
+
+<p>He would be in ordinary times a Frenchman of the
+stereotyped banal sort, and he was entirely without
+charm, though I dare say he is known as a <i>beau garçon</i>
+in Lyons, where before the war he was <i>marchand de
+bois</i>. But the war transmutes everything it touches,
+and he, too, had undergone the subtle change. He said,
+quite simply for a man naturally fatuous, “<i>Je ne retrouverai
+jamais ma vie d’autre fois</i>.” I seemed to see
+what that life had been. Small but good business transactions;
+some success with women, as I said he would
+be considered as handsome; the theater; reading newspapers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
+in a café; talking of the happenings of his quarter
+of the town—and the lamp of his soul burning only
+dimly. But even he has been caught up in the “chariot
+that rides the ridges” and must partake of <i>la haine et tous
+ses maux, la gloire et tous ses crimes</i>. We drop him at a
+crossroad and he takes a muddy side-path to the village
+where his regiment is billeted.</p>
+
+<p>At another crossway just out of the village of Vertus
+another officer was waiting. We called out, “Is this
+the road to Epernay?” And then, “Do you want a
+lift?” This time it was a dark-eyed young man with
+a kindling glance and something responsive and mercurial
+in his being, giving a sensation of personality,
+awake, running, a-thrill. He had twenty-four hours’ permission
+to go to Paris to see his mother, and had arrived
+to see the train pulling out of the little station. He
+also was waiting Fate at the crossroads, and crossroads
+in war-time are a favorite abode of Fate. He had been
+wounded near Suippes, lay twenty-four hours in a shell-hole,
+and was finally brought in by some man he didn’t
+know, whose head was blown off as he was pulling him
+into the trench. Something deep rustled in my heart
+at the vision of the splendor of that anonymity. Six
+months in hospital, six months of convalescing, and then
+a hunger for the front—<i>quorum pars fuit</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We were passing through a beautiful country of vineyards,
+Vertus, Mesnil, Avize, in the loveliness of graded
+greens, malachite, beryl, emerald, jasper, and stretches
+of aquamarine where the grapes had been powdered
+with the <i>mélange de Bordeaux</i>. Everywhere were little
+sharp, steep hills, their plantings taking all kinds of
+lights as they turned to east or west or south.</p>
+
+<p>At Epernay we wound about the streets till we came
+to the Hôtel de l’Europe, marked with a star in the guide;
+but you see no stars when you get into its encumbered,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+dull little courtyard—as slightly modern as possible—ask
+for luncheon, any kind of luncheon, and find one
+can’t have it or anything till twelve, the only fixed
+thing, except the <i>consigne</i>, I have discovered in the war
+zone. We went across the square to the Café de la
+Place, where we had <i>œufs sur le plat</i>, a yard and a half
+of thin, crusty bread, a thick pat of yellow butter, and a
+bottle of Chablis, that poured out pinky into our glasses.
+After which, reinforced and most cheerful, we went to
+the Place du Marché, where were many signs of the campaign
+of August and September, 1914. Among débris
+of bombarded buildings the fruit-market was being
+held. Plums, peaches, and apricots were of the most
+delicious, and we got pounds of them, which later were
+to be smashed and mashed and to ruin our dressing-bags
+and our clothes and the motor seats as we bumped
+along. It all came from Paris except the tiny, sweet,
+white grapes.</p>
+
+<p>Epernay seems banal, driving through it, but if one
+thinks a bit, all sorts of things flash into the mind. It
+has a Merovingian past, and has been pillaged innumerable
+times by innumerable hosts. It belonged to the
+Counts of Champagne, to Louise of Savoy; Henry IV
+besieged it in person, and Maréchal de Biron fell by his
+side. Now thinking of its great champagne industry,
+into mind come memories of dinner-tables around which
+sat white-vested, decorated statesmen, even unto the
+kind that did not prevent war, and lovely women,
+and the toss of repartee, and flash of jewel and white
+throat, and all the once-accustomed things no longer
+ours.</p>
+
+<p>As we got out of Epernay a terrible temptation assailed
+us. Three law-abiding women, by reason of
+original sin, I suppose, were drawn to take the forbidden
+road to Reims—Reims, the scarred, the pitiful—Reims,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+whose cannon sounded even now in our ears—rather
+than the straight path of duty and <i>sauf-conduits</i> to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>“After all, we’re not here to go joy-riding in the war
+zone,” said one, virtuously; and then prudence, most
+dismal of virtues, triumphed, bolstered up by a look
+at a well-guarded bridge, and I told the inspiring story
+of the principal of the school my mother went to, whose
+last words to every graduate class were, “What is duty,
+young ladies?” And the young ladies were expected to
+respond, “A well-spring in the soul.” It isn’t (and
+never has been), and our eyes kept sweeping the hill
+between the Epernay road and that great plain of Champagne
+in the midst of which is set the broken jewel of
+France. A military auto passed as we stood there, and
+an officer waved us onward. We let that hand pointing
+us to Paris decide. It was the triumph of prudence—plus
+a lively sense of favors to come. Some one muttered,
+“Had we been going to take the boat on Saturday,
+oh, then mayhap, mayhap....”</p>
+
+<p>Dormans. Several kilometers before we got into Dormans
+little crosses began to show themselves along the
+roadside. All through here was heavy fighting during
+the battle of the Marne. The first grave we stopped by
+bore on its little cross the words, “<i>Trois Allemands</i>,”
+and it was neatly fenced up with black sticks and wire.
+We started to climb the hill, and among the malachite,
+the beryl, the emerald, the jasper, and the aquamarine
+vines were many other graves. Sometimes it would be
+“<i>20 Français</i>,” the red-and-white-and-blue <i>cocarde</i>
+decorating the cross. Once it was “<i>30 Allemands</i>.”
+On another was the name “<i>Lastaud, le 3 septembre,
+1914, souvenir d’un ami</i>.” I thought how friendship has
+been glorified in this war.</p>
+
+<p>But mostly it was the continuous gorgeous anonymity<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+of the defenders of the land that clutched the heart
+and with them the invaders, pressing their bayonets
+and their wills into a land not theirs. I was once more
+again before the awful tangle of the world as I looked
+at these resting-places. Over beyond the crest of the
+hill and the forest was Montmirail. Just a hundred
+years before, Napoleon had put these names upon the
+scrolls of history, and again and then again they had
+resounded to marching feet, the terrors of invasion, the
+heroisms of defense. One of a group of soldiers passing
+called out as we stood by one of the German graves:</p>
+
+<p>“I came through here in 1914.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you still walk the earth,” I answered.</p>
+
+<p>“I got a ball in the hip, all the same, on the top of
+that hill,” and he pointed across the road. “<i>Mais j’ai
+eu de la chance.</i>” And a look of a strange and pitiful
+wonder that he was above the earth, not under it,
+flashed for a moment over his young face; then he
+touched his cap and went singing down the road with
+his companions, and I caught the refrain, “<i>Ces mots
+sacrés, ces mots sacrés, gloire et patrie, gloire et patrie</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>And somehow, after Dormans, we were all quiet. I
+only remember long, gray villages, mostly eighteenth
+century, and many blue soldiers walking about their
+broad, central streets, and signs of billetings, “<i>30
+hommes, 2 officiers</i>,” “<i>5 hommes, 2 chevaux</i>,” black-robed
+women coming out of little Gothic churches, and children
+playing, and in between the villages great avenues of
+poplar and plane trees. Then we lost the Marne and
+picked up the Seine, and passed La Ferté, and Meaux,
+seen from the inside, preserved its flavor of “<i>autres temps,
+autres mœurs</i>,” in spite of the 1917 soldiers billeted there,
+walking hand in hand with girls who don’t have a ghost
+of a chance, in military towns, to get through the war
+as they began it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span></p>
+
+<p>Entered Paris in a fine drizzle of rain at 6.30. Our
+charming chauffeuse dead tired after the long day, but
+steering us so prudently and yet so quickly through
+the wet, crowded streets. Give me a good woman
+chauffeur <i>any day</i>!—not simply when coming from the
+front! She takes no chances, but she makes good time
+and she gets you there. But somehow one leaves one’s
+heart at the front, and I thought to myself as I got to
+the hotel door, “It’s not so good, after all, to feel <i>just
+safe</i> and to be comfortable.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_III">PART III<br>
+<span class="smaller">LORRAINE IN AUTUMN</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">“<i>L’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine</i>”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br>
+<span class="smaller">NANCY AND MOLITOR</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>1.30 p.m., Tuesday, October 9th.</i></p>
+
+<p>Passing Meaux. Square gray tower of its cathedral
+against a gray sky, the gray hemicycle of its lovely
+apse cutting in against reddish-gray roofs; gray houses
+with old towers built into them; yellowing acacia and
+plane and willow trees; level corn-fields stripped of
+their harvest, pheasants and magpies pecking in them;
+golden pumpkins; and <i>betteraves</i> showing red and vermilion
+roots bursting out of the ground; everything
+wet—wet.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ligny-en-Barrois.</span></p>
+
+<p>Two American soldiers walking up a muddy village
+street in the dusk; rain falling; a cinnamon-colored
+stream slipping by; and a quantity of shabby, wet
+foliage and wetter meadows.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Gondrecourt</span>, <i>5.40</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the extreme point of the angle where the Nancy
+train seems to turn back to Paris and where many
+American soldiers are billeted. Cheerless, dimly lighted
+station. Groups of our men standing about, high piles
+of United States boxes, marked “Wizard Oats.” Some
+persuasion of black-frock-coated “sky pilot” walking
+up and down and humming, “Pull for the shore, sailor,
+pull for the shore” (there <i>was</i> a lot of water about!),
+and then in the darkness the train slipped out. There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+and in all the dim, wet Lorraine villages about are damp,
+puzzled, homesick, forlorn, brave, determined, eager
+young Americans.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre, Nancy</span>, <i>Tuesday evening</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Cabs at station, hot water, writing-paper, meat,
+warmth, all sorts of things you don’t always get on Tuesday
+in Paris. Everything, in fact, except light. Dining-room
+full of officers. <i>Chic atmosphère de guerre</i> began
+to envelope me, not yet experienced that day.
+Started from Paris tired and not particularly receptive,
+but was conscious of a slow quickening of sensibility as
+the hours passed, drawing me within the zone of armies.</p>
+
+<p>This “chic war atmosphere” is like nothing else.
+Impersonal and larger lungs are needed to breathe it.
+We no longer, so many of us, read of their battles, but
+they still fight them, these blue-clad men out here. In
+the coal-black evening, stumbling from the station, one
+realizes it all once more—and there is some lighting of
+the soul.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 10th.</i></p>
+
+<p>Nancy in rain and storm, and all night the sound of
+cannon and gun and mitrailleuse turned against sweet
+flesh and blood, the sons of women dying in agony hard
+as their mother’s pain, and no way out. Never were the
+imaginations of men less elastic; little groups everywhere
+are hourly setting this cold grind in motion with
+a word or a gesture, around green tables or bending
+over maps—in a few small spaces deciding the agonies
+of millions.</p>
+
+<p>An <i>avion</i> almost tapped at my window once toward
+morning and reminded me of a young aviator with
+whom we talked in the train last night, his face a-twitch,
+strange eyes, gloomy, set mouth, once <i>jeunesse dorée</i>.
+A hard look as he answered:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Avion de chasse, il n’y a que cela.</i>” He had been
+“resting” in the cavalry, where there was little movement,
+and he couldn’t stand it. As for the trenches—</p>
+
+<p>“<i>O les tranchées! Être avec des gens que je ne connais
+pas, sous des conditions indescriptibles; non, je n’en peux
+plus.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Better to fall from the heavens?” I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>And then I realized the disarray of nerves, the complete
+unfitting of the being to an earthly habitat, in the
+knowledge that life is measured by an almost countable
+number of hours or days, scarcely weeks, and rarely,
+rarely months, and the calling on help from the flower
+of sleep to fit one for acts impossible to normal being.</p>
+
+<p>I must say this very evidently “made-in-Germany”
+hotel is most comfortable. <i>Jugend-Stil</i> designed bed,
+exquisitely clean; great white eiderdown; a munificence
+of brass electric-light fixtures representing leaves, with
+frosted shades running from pale pink to pale green,
+and giving plenty of light; the iron shutters tightly
+pulled down, of course. Large wash-stand with a huge
+faucet for hot water, bearing the name “Jacob”; the
+heating apparatus by Rückstuhl; the telephone, “Berliner-system”;
+electric light and lift the familiar
+“Schindler.” Wardrobe and mirror over wash-stand
+have, like the bed, a design, not of conventionalized
+flowers, but of flowers devoid of life. The inexpressibly
+sloppy <i>mollesse</i> of <i>art nouveau</i> is in such contrast to the
+beautiful precision of touch of the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>At 9.30 E. M. came into my room and said, “We’d better
+doll up and be off.” I leave it to the gentlest of
+readers to surmise what we did before being off, and I
+would like to say here that one doesn’t always “doll
+up” for others; the process gives to one’s own being a
+sense of completeness most sustaining. It comes after
+that of having one’s clothes put on properly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>En route</i> to the Prefect’s we met the tall, good-looking
+blond young son of Jean de Reszke, “<i>très chic, cherchant
+le danger</i>”; “<i>en voilà un qui n’a pas froid aux yeux</i>,” the
+only and adored child of his parents. It’s not a very
+promising situation for them. But again I thought,
+“Nothing but good can befall the soldier, so he play
+his part well,” and started to ponder on the incalculable
+growth of filial piety, and of the love of mothers, and
+their griefs, when, suddenly walking along the gray
+streets of Nancy, the scene shifted, and it was the
+Metropolitan Opera House that I saw—the lights, the
+red glow, the boxes, the jewels; the warmth, the stir
+of the orchestra, the quiet of the listening house, were
+about me. It seemed to be the second act of “Tristan
+and Isolde” after the duo, when King Mark makes his
+noble entry and in those unforgetable accents begins
+his broken-hearted apostrophe to Tristan, “<i>Tatest du’s in
+Wirklichkeit, wähnst du das?</i>” And all that unsurpassed
+and unsurpassable art of the great Polish brothers
+was again evoked; one now gathered to his rest in stress
+of war, the other knowing a greater fear than for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then I found myself in the Place Stanislas under
+gray morning skies, instead of the gleaming twilight
+web. I felt suddenly and acutely the turning of the
+seasons and the inexorable advent of winter through
+which unsheltered flesh and blood must pass. That
+ravishing of the spirit I knew in the warm June sunset
+was mine no more.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p class="right">Waiting for the motor to drive to Lunéville.</p>
+
+<p>Went with Madame Mirman, the wife of the <i>Préfet
+de la Meurthe et Moselle</i>, to visit Molitor. It is a huge
+collection of barrack-buildings which for three years
+has contained that terrible precipitation of old men,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+women, and children from the devastated districts
+around about. They are received in every conceivable
+condition of hunger, dirt, disease, and distress of soul.
+They had been living in the woods and fields that first
+summer, and the children running the streets of half-ruined
+towns, before being brought to Molitor.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="illus11" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus11.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>SISTER JULIE</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus12" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus12.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>BAS-RELIEF OF THE REFUGEES</p>
+  <p>As they passed at Evian—but typical of any group anywhere.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>We went first to the school-building, and into the
+kindergarten room where rows of children were making
+straight lines with beans on little tables. Very hot and
+stuffy in the hermetically sealed room, every child sniffling
+and sneezing and coughing. There are always
+faces that stand out, and in this room, as the children
+rose and sang a song with patting of the hands, there
+was one child of five with gestures so lovely and movements
+of the body so rhythmic that one realized afresh
+the eternal differences in the seasoning of the human
+<i>pâte</i>. She was between two clumsy, wooden-faced children,
+one with a peaked forehead, the other with a heavy
+jaw.</p>
+
+<p>We then went up-stairs to a class-room of older boys,
+and after we had spoken to the schoolmaster I noticed
+a handsome boy with shining eyes and a firm mouth.
+The master, who was new and wished to become acquainted
+with his pupils, had written the following questions
+on the blackboard: “Whence do you come?
+What was the occupation of your parents? Are you
+happy at Molitor?” etc. Well, that little boy of eleven,
+when asked what he had written, turned out to be a
+sort of cross between Demosthenes and Gambetta, and
+read from his slate an impassioned apostrophe about
+“<i>le flot envahisseur des barbares, quand délivrera-t-on la
+France martyrisée de la main destructrice de l’ennemi?</i>”
+and to the question, “Are you happy at Molitor?” the
+answer was, “<i>Oui, on est bien à Molitor, mais rien ne
+remplace le foyer; quand on a perdu cela, on a tout perdu</i>.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span></p>
+
+<p>The face of the master showed some embarrassment
+at any restrictions on happiness at Molitor, but the
+boy, whose eyes had begun to flame, continued: “<i>O
+quand viendra le jour de la Revanche, le jour sacré de la
+délivrance?</i>” and wound up with something about his
+blood and the blood of his children. His father, who
+was dead, had been employed in the customs at Avricourt,
+and his mother now cooked in one of the Molitor
+buildings. Then we passed through a room where
+some fifty women were sorting and stemming hops; the
+strong, warm odor enveloped us and the eyes of the
+women followed us.</p>
+
+<p>Then out across the immense courtyard to one of the
+dormitory buildings. Rows of beds, and above them,
+around the walls, a line of shelves on which is every
+kind of small article that could be carried in flight, from
+trimmings for Christmas trees to shrines and little
+strong-boxes.</p>
+
+<p>As we entered the first room, Madame Mirman said
+to an old woman with deep, soft eyes:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Comment ça va-t-il aujourd’hui?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>And with such grace she answered:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Oh, Madame, c’est la vieillesse, et on n’en guérit pas.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Another woman, nursing a rheumatic knee, when
+asked about her son, who had been at Molitor on a
+three days’ permission, put her cracked old hand over
+her heart and said, “<i>Voir un peu sa personne fait oublier
+tout</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>In all the big rooms near the long windows women
+sit bent over embroidery and passementerie frames.
+One of them, with thin hair and horny hands, was working
+with extreme rapidity on a bright <i>pailleté</i> strip for
+an evening gown, a design of silver lilies on white tulle,
+in such contrast to her worn face and bent figure.</p>
+
+<p>Many were working at lovely and intricate tea-cloths,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
+with designs of the Lorraine cross, and
+thistle, oak and acorn designs, that had been handed
+down through generations. Some of the work Madame
+Mirman is able to dispose of directly, while some is
+contracted for with big shops.</p>
+
+<p>When we came down-stairs there was a great sound
+of young feet and voices and various noises of well-cared-for
+children, just dismissed from the seats of
+learning, coming up the stone stairway to their dinner.</p>
+
+<p>It’s the threading up of all these destinies, this web
+of the France to be, that is the great problem. And
+oh, how terrible is this uptearing of human beings, this
+ghastly showing of the roots! I have seen it wholesale,
+east and west. I remember especially the first two
+evacuations of Czernowitz and the adjacent towns and
+villages during the Russian advance through Galicia.
+They would flood the streets of Vienna by the tens of
+thousands, in pitiful groups, always the same—old men,
+women, and children; and it’s all alike, it’s war, the
+ruthless, the indescribable, and everywhere the children
+paying most heavily. Could the war-book of <i>children</i>
+be written no eyes could read it for tears....<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>We went back to luncheon at the Prefecture, where I
+met M. Mirman, one of the most striking figures of the
+war. Since the 12th of August, 1914, when he took
+up his duties as <i>Préfet de la Meurthe et Moselle</i>, his handsome,
+straight-featured face has figured at every gathering
+of sorrow or relief. As he sat at his table, surrounded
+by his six children, he talked of those first days when
+Nancy was in danger and it was not known if <i>le Grand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+Couronné</i> on which Castelnau had flung his <i>paraphe
+could</i> protect them, and then he told of many urgent
+present needs.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch we drove with Madame Mirman to her
+favorite good work, <i>l’école ménagère</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When we got there the elementary class, girls of thirteen
+to fourteen, were chopping herbs and onions to
+make seasoning for soups in winter, and putting it up
+in stone pots. Another class was kneading and rolling
+out dough. Then we went into the great sewing-room
+and turned over the books of miniature sample pieces
+of underclothing. When the girls become expert they
+are given material and make their own trousseaux.</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh Madame Mirman said: “But I am sad
+for these girls. The men who might have been their
+husbands lie dead on the field of honor, and there will
+be no homes for them.”</p>
+
+<p>Something chill and inexorable laid its hand on me as
+I thought: only graves, and they leveled out of memory
+by time; except in the hearts of mothers, to whom <i>voir
+un pen sa personne</i> is the supreme joy, and the knowledge
+that it can be no more the supreme sorrow.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hôtel des Vosges, Lunéville</span>, <i>11.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>A long day. Many pages of the book of life and
+death turned. Just before leaving Nancy, made a little
+tour of the battered station. Scarcely a pane of glass
+left anywhere, but in and out of it is the ceaseless movement
+of blue-clad men. A few flecks of a strange, dull
+amber in a pale-pink sky, the true sunset sky of Nancy.
+A bishop with a military cap and a chaplain in khaki
+pass, lines of <i>camions</i> and Red Cross ambulances. Suddenly,
+beyond the station, a dark-winged thing against
+the sky is seen to drop, right itself for a moment, then
+a column of smoke goes up from it, then a flame, then<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>
+there is a falling of something black just behind the twin
+Gothic towers of St.-Léon. The streets filled instantly,
+“<i>C’est un des nôtres</i>,” said a man with field-glasses,
+and then, death in the sky not being unusual here, they
+went about their business, and the long, delicate towers
+of St.-Léon got black as ink against the flaming sky.
+But a man’s soul was being breathed out in some distant
+beet-root field or in the forest of Haye. Peace to
+him!</p>
+
+<p>The next thing I saw, that has become a familiar sight
+in the last months, was an American soldier on some sort
+of permission, and hanging from his arm, neatly bound,
+was a pretty little “dictionary”—from whom, however,
+came sounds of broken English. The British Expeditionary
+Force saved the classics from destruction at one
+time; now “salvage” seems to be rather the turn of
+the American forces. One can only philosophize on the
+indestructibility of matter.</p>
+
+<p>The Place Stanislas was a bit out of our way, but when
+I saw the lovely Louis XV knots of pink that the orb
+of day was tying in the sky before he quite departed
+I begged for three minutes in its pale loveliness. Against
+the delicate ribbons of the sky were urns and figures,
+urns with stone flames arising from them, softly glowing,
+or stone flower-twisted torches held by winged beings,
+children and youths or angels I knew not—but I did
+know in a flash just how and why the Place Stanislas
+came into being.</p>
+
+<p>In the gray streets were blue-clad, heavily laden men,
+and the chill autumn twilight was falling about them.
+Oh, Nancy! dream of the past and yet with so much
+of the hope of the present within your gates!</p>
+
+<p>As we sped out of town, through the vast manufacturing
+suburbs, I turned and saw a bank of orange glory
+in the west, cut into browns and reds, with little threadings<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
+of gray and green and blue, for all the world like
+an ancient Cashmere shawl with light thrown on it.</p>
+
+<p>Night was falling as we passed through St.-Nicolas du
+Port. The two immense towers of the church, which
+dominate the landscape, were cutting black and cypress-like
+into the sky. The streets were full of dim figures—soldiers,
+overalled men, and many trousered women
+coming from munition-factories, with baskets and clinging
+children, hurrying home to get the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>We two American women found ourselves threading
+our way through it all in a Ford which E. M. was
+driving herself, the Ford which in the afternoon had
+allowed itself caprices only permissible to lovelier objects,
+and there, close behind the French lines, we talked
+of love and marriage, and the Church. And these things
+had been and are for one, and for the other all to come.</p>
+
+<p>Among its various imperfections, the Ford was one-eyed,
+and our little light did not cast its beams very far.
+We got tangled up into a long line of <i>camions</i>, with
+blinding headlights, quite extinguishing us as we hugged
+the right side of the road. Finally we reached the outpost
+of Lunéville, where the guard stopped us, dark and
+disreputable-looking as we were, flashed his lantern,
+saw the lettering on the auto. We cried, “Vitrimont,”
+and then passed on. The chill night had completely
+fallen, but in the dark fields rose darker crosses that
+only one’s soul could see. Peace to them that lie beneath!</p>
+
+<p>Into town safe; drew up at the door of the house
+that was once an old Capuchin monastery, groped our
+way through a dark garden to find a warm welcome from
+Mademoiselle Guérin, a shining tea-table, an open fire,
+many books, things seemed <i>too</i> well with us.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br>
+<span class="smaller">EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EMANATIONS</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 11th, 7.30.</i></p>
+
+<p>Awakened at five o’clock to the sound of cavalry
+passing under my windows. I have three, and
+got the full benefit of the hoofs. I looked out into a
+bluish, late-night sky; endless shadowy lines of men
+that I knew were blue-clad were defiling, and there was
+a faint booming of cannon. Everything that the pitchy
+blackness of the streets of Lunéville prevents the inhabitants
+from doing between 5 and 8 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> they do between
+5 and 8 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> The hour was set back on the 7th,
+which is why we have suddenly so much morning and
+these chopped-off afternoons. It makes the streets of
+the old town “hum” in the early hours. No Taubes;
+the sky too threatening. Again <i>chic atmosphère de guerre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>My big room is charming. The doors have panelings
+of the great epoch of Lunéville, but on the walls is a
+fresh papering of a pinkish <i>toile de Jouy</i> design, in such
+good taste, an abyss between it and the <i>Jugend-Stil</i> of
+the “Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre”; over each door
+is a lunette containing a faded old painting.</p>
+
+<p>The pink-curtained windows have deep embrasures;
+a fresh, thick, pale-gray carpet quite covers the floor;
+on the mantelpiece is a bronze clock, a large Europa
+sitting on a small bull. I suspect <i>it</i> is 1830. In one
+corner a commodious Louis XV <i>armoire</i>. On one of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span>
+its doors is carved a peasant’s house and a hunter aiming
+at a deer half-hidden in some trees. On the other
+is a fishing scene and a bridge, and in the distance a
+château. The panels are inclosed in charming Pompadour
+scrolls, and there is an elaborate wrought-iron
+lock of the same period. It seemed to epitomize the
+life of Lorraine, as well as “the reign of the arts and
+talents.” Discovered last night that the electric light
+is in the right place, so that a lady can dress for dinner
+or read in bed with equal facility. There is all the hot
+water one could wish, an open fireplace, but it was with
+a sigh that I said, as I heard the cannon, “<i>Rien ne
+manque</i>.” The maid, who had been in England, put
+our things out last night with a dainty touch, the ribbons
+on top; my pink satin négligé was placed with
+art across the chair by my bed. In E. M.’s room,
+equally comfortable, her pale-blue one was also tastefully
+displayed. Somehow, all the physical comfort is
+so insistently in contrast with what is being gone through
+with a few kilometers away, and though my soul can
+be supremely content without any of it, I looked for
+the moment with a new appreciation on this flicker of
+comfort behind that dreadful front.</p>
+
+<p>Again we groped through the Place Léopold after dinner
+at Mlle. Guérin’s, feeling our way slowly under completely
+remote stars, Jupiter so gorgeous that for a moment
+my heart was afraid. Then I became sensible of
+ghostly and lovely companions, the amiable secrets of
+whose amiable lives have been revealed to me in many
+a tome since I crossed that square in those linden-scented
+nights of June. Did linden scent, on which a
+long chapter could be written, have anything to do with
+their morals, I wonder? However that may be, I
+thought of Duke Léopold going from the château through
+the park to the house in the rue de Lorraine to see the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>
+Princesse de Craon, who bore twenty children here in
+Lunéville, preserving her beauty and her husband’s
+love, and that of Duke Léopold as well, evidently having
+the secret of squaring the circle without breaking it
+(unknown in the twentieth century, when everything
+“goes bang” if it is but breathed upon). Then of the
+wild and witty Chevalier de Boufflers, painting and
+making verses, loving and forgetting, whose mother,
+beloved of “<i>Stanislas, Roi de Pologne et Duc de Lorraine
+et de Bar</i>,” was the bright particular star of Stanislas’s
+Court, as his grandmother had been of Léopold’s. And
+how often <i>La divine Emilie</i> and Voltaire passed through
+the Place Léopold in their coach to be put up at the
+Palace and contribute to the gaiety of nations. They
+and many others filled the square, and I was thinking
+of discreet sedan-chairs coming from rendezvous rather
+than of the uncompromised and uncompromising lamp-post
+that finally got me, minus the light.</p>
+
+<p>Now I quite dislike getting up from this literally
+downy couch, with its dainty pink-lined, lace-trimmed,
+white-muslin covered eiderdown and its heaps of soft
+pillows, to investigate further their <i>amours</i>, and in
+general the <i>arts et talents</i> of the eighteenth century, but
+so I willed it, and so it must be done. For some reason
+nervous energy is at a low ebb. There are moments
+when I throw my life out of the window, when nothing
+seems impossible and most things quite easy, but to-day
+the gray world outside, <i>l’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine</i>,
+I would consider well lost for converse with a beloved
+friend by my fireside.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 12th.</i></p>
+
+<p>Nothing to be found in Lunéville on an October night
+except your soul, and if you don’t keep it fairly bright,
+you won’t find even that. Oh, woe is me! about six
+o’clock mine was suddenly too dark and sad for words,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
+so I betook me to the downy couch of the morning,
+with a batch of letters and various books given me by
+M. Guérin at lunch, some old, some new, concerning
+<i>l’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine</i>. The Hôtel des
+Vosges is ahead of any Ritz that was ever built, and,
+what’s more, in it your soul’s your own, even if it is
+a poor and dark and trembling thing.</p>
+
+<p>My “<i>Symphonie Pastorale</i>” letter to —— returned
+to me. Have just reread it and pinned it into the
+Journal. It’s all part of the same.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Aix-les-Bains</span>, <i>vendredi, 27 août, 1917</i>.</p>
+
+<p>... The orchestra, pale, emasculated, having the minimum
+of strings—the musicians of France are dead or
+in the trenches—seemed without accent during the first
+part of the program. “<i>La Chasse du Jeune Henri</i>” of
+Méhul, “<i>Les Eolides</i>” of César Franck, something of
+Grétry, Dukas, Saint-Saëns, <i>enfin</i>, one of the usual war-time
+programs. But then followed the “<i>Symphonie
+Pastorale</i>” and the master’s voice suddenly swelled the
+thin sounds, triumphant in the beauty of his order and
+splendor.</p>
+
+<p>A.—(<i>Sensations agréables en arrivant à la Campagne.
+Allégro ma non troppo.</i>) I felt myself invaded by a
+familiar but long-untasted delight as my ear received the
+gorgeous consonances, and the lovely theme of the violins
+drew me to an interior place. My fancy was set
+a-wandering in a world of green glades, and broad
+meadows covered with asphodel and belladonna and
+fringed by dark plantings of pines, such as the master
+had wandered in, and “upon my eyes there lay a tear
+the dream had loosened from my brain.” In deep
+serenity I found myself thinking on appearances of
+“things wise and fair,” feeling myself in some way included
+in a company of paradisaical beings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an almost unbearable spiritual exasperation
+succeeded the delight, and I saw a scarred and dreadful
+scene, like to the lunar landscape of the battle-field of
+Verdun, and I knew that my dwelling-place was a world
+of blood-madness. I tried to beat off the invading horror.
+Hot tears of protest came to my eyes, a feeling
+of suffocation clutched my throat, and a something
+burning wrapped my soul. Delight was dead.</p>
+
+<p>B.—(<i>Au bord du Ruisseau. Andante molto moto.</i>)
+The master spoke again, in a voice of purling water over
+smooth stones and through soft grasses; the music of
+the lower strings, monotonous, hypnotic, possessed my
+fancy. Again the joy with which he was looking on the
+beauty of the exterior world tried to communicate itself
+to me. But my eyes fell on a white-haired man
+seated near me, a black band about his arm, dozing or
+dreaming, I knew not which. He awakened with a
+start and groan, and was doubtless thinking on combat
+and empty places and “heroes struggling with heroes
+and above them the wrathful gods.”</p>
+
+<p>And I thought of Veiled Destinies and high and nameless
+sacrifices and children at evening and silent firesides,
+and broken loves and other visible and invisible
+things.</p>
+
+<p>C.—(<i>Joyeuse réunion de Paysans. Allégro.</i>) Expressing
+the master’s deep belief in the goodness of humanity,
+its deathless adorations, its inextinguishable hopes.</p>
+
+<p>But the houses of the peasants are empty, even here
+in Savoy, and husbands and fathers and sons will cross
+their thresholds no more. “The ancients have ceased
+from the gates, the young men from the choir of the
+singers.”</p>
+
+<p>I sat by the stream among the peasants and remembered
+suddenly two combatants, an Austrian and a
+Serb, visited in a hospital in Vienna that first winter of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span>
+the war. One had lain by a frozen brook across a fallen
+log for two days, his hands and feet alone touching the
+ground, and when he was brought in they were black
+and swollen, and as I saw him he was but a trunk of a
+man with dull eyes. And the other, the Serb, with
+something wild and burning in his look, and restless
+hands, had fallen with his feet in a stream, and he, too,
+would walk no more; and so one thinks of brooks and
+sweet, moving waters these days.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>Orage—Tempête. Allégro.</i>) The sudden D flat, the
+world in noise and horror and protesting hate, and hard,
+bright-eyed men meeting from East and West, the sons
+of the world falling for the sins of the world; and
+there is no way out, for all words save that of peace
+may be spoken. And I thought on the loneliness of the
+mind, and knew it for as great or greater than that
+of the heart, for mostly humanity lives by its personal
+throbs, its desires and its hopes and fears, and these
+are of such abundance that there are always contacts.
+But the loneliness of the mind is a world where there is
+scarcely any sound of footsteps, few voices call, and
+sometimes it is deathly cold, and that is why I write to
+<i>you</i> to-night.</p>
+
+<p>I listened again. (<i>Joie et sentiments de reconnaissance
+après l’orage. Allegretto.</i>) And I suddenly realized how
+unsubstantial, for all their thickness, are the towers
+wherein each dwells isolated from some near happiness,
+shut off from some close beatitude, that for a dissolving
+touch might be his own. And I found that the completed
+harmonies of the lovely finale, “<i>Herr, wir danken
+Dir</i>,” were seeking my mortal ear, and my soul was being
+regained to tranquillity. My mind was turned from untimely
+vanishings, or the despair of men of middle life
+who go up to battle, and from all the company of those
+who “have wrapped about themselves the blue-black<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+cloud of death,” and I saw again visions, felicities, progressions,
+accomplishments. Then, not bearing less
+beneficent harmonies, I went out, and Hope, with
+lovely, veiled, outcast, undesired Peace, accompanied
+me through the warm Savoyan night. But they left
+me at the door of my dwelling, as the one-armed <i>concierge</i>
+saluted me, and the one-legged lift-man (symbols
+of my real world) took me up-stairs. Now I am alone
+with thoughts of him who gave to melody its eternal
+fashion and to music itself its furthest soul, and would
+that you had listened with me!... You who will not,
+Peace!...</p>
+
+<p>M. Guérin’s book-loving, artistic, perceptive son, <i>en
+permission</i>, with a dreadful cold, was at lunch, Colonel
+——, and several other men. Mr. G., whose family have
+been part owners of the Lunéville porcelain-factories for
+one hundred and fifty years, is charming, erudite, and
+afterward, over our coffee by his library fire, we talked
+politics and literature and music. I had just been reading
+Madame de Staël’s <i>De l’Allemagne</i>, not at all in
+favor just now, which I had picked up on her centenary.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Une exaltée</i>,” said one of the officers.</p>
+
+<p>“That is not enough to say of one who always had
+the courage of her convictions,” I answered, and recalled
+the conversation between her and Benjamin Constant
+when under the Consulate he threw himself into the
+opposition.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Voilà</i>,” he said, “<i>votre salon rempli de personnes qui
+vous plaisent; si je parle demain, il sera désert; pensez-y</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>And she answered, “<i>Il faut suivre sa conviction</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“She certainly followed out her convictions; but what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>
+did Madame de Staël know of the Germans?” pursued
+the colonel. “She saw them in the quite factitious
+setting of the Weimar Court, and was intoxicated by
+the play of mind. Those <i>beaux esprits</i> presented the
+character and the future of their race, through rose-colored
+clouds of Romanticism, to one of the most
+charming and gifted women another race had ever produced,
+<i>et puis elle rentre et elle écrit de l’Allemagne!
+Cela serait comique si ce n’était pas si triste.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you think both sides played up,” I asked,
+“at those Weimar suppers? She was under the charm
+of philosophers and musicians, and they under the
+charm of her wit and appreciation. I keep thinking
+how they all enjoyed it—and how those black eyes
+flashed under the heavy red-and-gold turban.”</p>
+
+<p>“Without doubt it was more than agreeable. I only
+complain that she was in a position to mislead succeeding
+generations, and did so. She seems to have had no
+<i>flair</i>, and because she got the personal enthusiasm, the
+hot striking of mind against mind, that was at once her
+gift and her delight, she glorifies a nation that later
+makes furious attempts to destroy hers.”</p>
+
+<p>I then remarked, but a bit warily: “Talking of
+centenaries, I have just had in my hands the discourse
+of Wagner on the centenary of Beethoven. It has fire.”</p>
+
+<p>“We won’t talk of Wagner, the mere memory of a
+phrase scorches one’s ear. Beethoven, yes, for all time,
+but we French can’t listen to Wagner now. He’s like
+a hot iron on seared flesh—or a rake in a wound. We
+want nothing more to do with the Lohengrins and the
+Tannhäusers and the Siegfrieds. I only wish they had
+been annihilated with their Walhalla.”</p>
+
+<p>“These beings, however, were potential in the German
+race. Madame de Staël got their projections, together
+with the metaphysics of Goethe and his contemporaries,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span>
+and carried away with her the memory of
+a blue-eyed people lost in metaphysical dreams, passionately
+loving poetry and music.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and presented them to us as an example of all
+the social virtues. Look at history,” said another officer,
+with a gesture toward the east.</p>
+
+<p>One <i>can</i> talk of other things besides the booming of
+cannon, even in Lunéville—but not with complete
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Then E. M. and I departed to take a <i>tournée</i> about
+the country. But the Ford reposing in the Guérins’
+garage was completely unresponsive; it might have been
+dead. It appears it hates cold weather. A dozen
+officers are billeted in the Guérins’ house; two of
+their orderlies and the butler tried to crank it. The
+only signs of life were in the handle, which from time
+to time flew round with extraordinary rapidity. We
+called out to one not-over-cautious soldier, “Be careful;
+you will break your arm.”</p>
+
+<p>He only answered:</p>
+
+<p>“If that happens I shall have two or three months
+of tranquillity.” And that’s how <i>he</i> felt anent the
+breaking of his arm!</p>
+
+<p>At last we found ourselves on the road bounded by
+the meadows of the silent crosses, skirting the hill of
+Léomont, with its great scars of 1914 shell-holes, beneath
+which is a little village with the strange name of
+Anthelupt. The Romans were all about here and it
+was once “Antelucus” (before the sacred grove), and
+afterward was a dependence of the priory of Léomont
+built on the site of the ancient temple to the moon.
+Then we found ourselves on the broad ridge of road leading
+to Crévic. Great stretches of Lorraine, <i>l’élégante
+et mélancolique Lorraine</i>, were flung out before us under
+rain-clouds and sunbursts—lovely stretches, with fields<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
+of mustard greedy for the light, blowing patches of
+red-stemmed osier, and everywhere fields of beet-root
+in which women and old men and little children were
+working, piling high red-white mounds or separating
+the wilted leaves into greenish-yellow piles.</p>
+
+<p>Crévic is shot to bits. Of the château of General
+Lyautey<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> but a few crumbling walls remain. Though
+the piles of stones and mortar are covered with the
+green of three summers’ growth, still the cannon are
+booming to the east and north. The perfectly banal
+church is intact. People were walking about the streets
+and improvised roofs cover some sort of homes, and
+there seemed many very little children. We passed out
+over an old bridge in a dazzling sunburst, while a great
+curtain of rain hung to the west near Dombasle, the
+smoke-columns of whose hundred chimneys caught and
+held and reflected the gorgeous afternoon light, and
+there were other great stretches of unspeakable beauty,
+soft, rolling, and radiant—crying out about the generations
+that have bent over them.</p>
+
+<p>The great village of Haraucourt has a lovely destroyed
+church of pure Gothic that workmen are at last
+roofing over; but three winters have already passed
+over its beauty, unsheltered and unguarded. We go
+out through the village in the direction of Dombasle,
+and suddenly against some gorgeous masses of clouds
+we see an <i>avion de chasse</i>, “type Nieuport,” as E. M.,
+who has ample reason to be expert in things aerial, tells
+me. There is a moment when it is a great silver brooch
+pinning two gray velvety curtains together, where a
+ray of blinding light falls. Then it makes a series of
+marvelous <i>vrilles</i>, and I say to her, “How can men who
+do that love finite woman?” A great observation
+balloon, <i>saucisse</i>, hung in the sky, and another broad<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+shaft of light lay on the far hills behind which lie intrenched
+gray-clad men with pointed helmets.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a <i>panne</i>. The only thing in sight is
+a long line of war-supply wagons drawn by tired horses,
+and women and old men and children bending over their
+eternal piles of beet-root. But E. M. said, “Sooner
+than change that tire, I’ll bury the Ford by the road.”
+So we bumped and crawled along till we met a line of
+<i>camions</i>. The first was driven by a handsome, tall,
+very small-handed, extremely polite Frenchman, who
+knew Fords, having been four months with Piatt Andrew
+at the Field Service Ambulance in the rue Raynouard,
+and who agreed to change it for us.</p>
+
+<p>A hail-storm, like a pelting of diamonds, as sudden
+bursts of light caught it, came up in the middle of the
+operation, which was finally completed with expressions
+of mutual satisfaction. The shining storm was withdrawn
+like a curtain, showing the sun on the great
+stretches, and Dombasle with the smoke of its hundred
+chimneys was a thing of inexpressible beauty, while behind
+it were the great towers of St.-Nicolas du Port,
+for which we decided to make a dash. We got into it,
+through Dombasle, as a perfect rainbow rose from the
+Meurthe and disappeared into the horizon, where the
+gray-clad men with the pointed helmets are intrenched.</p>
+
+<p>“For luck,” said E. M.</p>
+
+<p>But I asked, “Whose luck?” the rainbow evidently
+being neutral.</p>
+
+<p>We had some difficulty in finding anything but the
+towers of the church. There is no square in front;
+tiny streets encircle it on all sides. But we at last got
+into the narrow street in front of the cathedral, which
+is called “<i>Des Trois Pucelles</i>,” in memory of the three
+young girls to whom St.-Nicolas gave a <i>dot</i>. I was not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span>
+alone in remembering that he is the patron saint of
+those contemplating matrimony.</p>
+
+<p>The church is of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
+and among the largest of the Gothic churches of Lorraine.
+Swelling-breasted pigeons with gorgeous pink and red
+and green and purple upon their throats were nestled
+against the beautiful carvings of the gray portals, and
+much soft cooing was going on. Above the central
+door, in the <i>trumeau</i>, is a statue of the saint said to
+have been done by the brother of Ligier Richier, and I
+thought of the lovely Gothic fireplace by Ligier Richier
+himself taken from St.-Mihiel, and now at Ochre Court
+in Newport.</p>
+
+<p>Noble interior, though the pillars have had the beautiful
+sharpness of their chiseling blunted by much painting
+and whitewashing. There are remains of early
+frescoes on some of the croisillons, and near a door I
+found a tiny, ancient painting representing scenes in
+the life of St.-Nicolas, inclosed in glass in a modern
+varnished wooden frame. Somewhere in the pavement
+of the church is a certain potent slab, and she who steps
+upon it is married within the year. Its exact position
+is not known, but I told E. M. to take an exhaustive
+walk about and commend herself to heaven and the
+saint.</p>
+
+<p>When we came out into the ancient streets the western
+sky was aflame and there were translucent pale greens
+ahead of us. We turned again toward the open road and
+Dombasle, named after a monk of the fifth century.
+Hermits brought the first civilization to these forests,
+followed by the great bishops and the builder-monks,
+who constructed the immense abbeys and the churches
+of Lorraine. Dombasle from some mysterious wilderness
+had become what I saw it that afternoon. From
+the chimneys of its munition-factories, against the amber<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
+sky, there poured and twisted a wonder of gray and
+white and deep brown and violet smoke. The darkening,
+soot-blackened streets were overflowing with human
+energies spilling themselves into the greedy war-machine.
+There are vast monotonous workingmen’s
+quarters, and everywhere children, little children, being
+trampled in the wine-press....</p>
+
+<p>It was dark when we drew up in front of the house of
+the <i>maire</i>, Mr. Keller, the celebrated house where the
+Prince de Beauvau was born, where the beautiful
+Princesse de Craon had most of the twenty children,
+where the Treaty of Lunéville was signed in 1801, and
+where, in 1914, the <i>maire</i> lodged the generals of the
+German army. Madame was still at her hospital, so
+we left our cards and came back to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Now I must leave the almost Capuan delights of this
+pleasant room to motor a hundred kilometers. Nancy,
+Toul, the antique Tullum, and back, is the program.
+It’s raining, it’s hailing, it’s blowing, but I bethink me
+of St.-Mansuy and St.-Epvre, the great Bishop of Toul,
+and those other saints, St.-Eucarius and St.-Loup, starting
+out in all kinds of weather, and of the <i>œuvre</i> that we
+are to visit, founded last summer for children gathered
+in 1917 from villages where there had been bad gas
+attacks. The history of Lorraine piles high about me—the
+cannon boom. What a day to lie with your life’s
+blood flowing from you in wet beet-root fields....
+The motor horn sounds.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br>
+<span class="smaller">TOUL</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 13th.</i></p>
+
+<p>We lunched at the Café Stanislas yesterday after
+the wildest of drives into Nancy, the Ford
+seeming like an autumn leaf in the high wind. We did
+ourselves well, even I, who care not a farthing what I
+eat except to “stoke the engine.” The proprietor, who
+left Alsace as a boy after 1870, stood and talked to us,
+as we ate our <i>œufs au beurre noir</i>, as French people alone
+can talk. He said “they” came only with fire and
+sword; the great Napoleon, who came with the same,
+had also his “Code” in his pocket. Then he spoke of
+the marvelous administration of Germany, the order
+and the use made of each one’s capacities, which was
+why they could <i>tenir</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“We only ask for a leader here in France, to be <i>bien
+menés</i>. All other things we have in abundance. But
+if a department is to be organized or reconstructed, it
+seems always to be given into the hands of some one
+knowing nothing about it.”</p>
+
+<p>In between I kept looking out where against gray
+skies beings half child, half angel hold up stone flames,
+and <i>panaches</i> leaning one against the other. The gilding
+of the <i>grilles</i> has a dull gleam through the wet. The
+statue of Stanislas <i>le Bienfaisant</i> was black and big.
+Everybody was talking about the unexpected visit of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
+the German <i>avion</i> in the bad weather the night
+before.</p>
+
+<p>The station was further devastated, a train moving out
+was wrecked and many <i>permissionnaires</i> killed, a house
+near the Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre was totally
+demolished, the <i>avion</i> flying very low, not more than
+twenty-five meters above the town at one time. After
+lunch we went over to the prefect’s house, from where
+we were to motor with him to Toul. He could not go
+with us, as he was out investigating the damage of the
+night before, but one of his daughters was waiting for
+us in the Prefecture motor.</p>
+
+<p><i>Le Grand Couronné</i> was but a ridge of mist and clouds
+as we passed out of town, but it was there that the
+Germans were held up and Nancy was saved that first
+September of the war, there that was written the
+<i>paraphe de Castelnau</i>, and from there the German Emperor
+had looked into France.</p>
+
+<p>I never should have known Lorraine if I had not seen
+it gray and wet under its autumn skies, bands of lemon
+and amber at sunset finishing the garb of its gray days.
+As we sped along I could just distinguish the landscape—villages
+lost in the immense stretch of the plains, and
+great forests of beech and oak in which are strange,
+mysterious ponds (<i>étangs</i>), and before my mind passed
+for an instant images of those solitaries of the twilight
+centuries, slipping through them with staff and scrip,
+after the Romans, and bringing to the land the things
+Rome tried to destroy.</p>
+
+<p>A beautifully kept straight road leads to Toul. From
+time to time one sees rusty barbed-wire entanglements
+and camouflaged trenches, for, on this road, had the
+Germans taken Nancy, they would have come to Toul,
+as they did in 1870. Outside the town are double ramparts,
+where the guard stopped us, but the military<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+chauffeur cried the magic words, “<i>Monsieur le Préfet</i>,”
+and we passed in through the Porte de Metz, dating from
+the time of Vauban, then skirted the town, to get to the
+barracks of Luxembourg, where hundreds of little children,
+first gathered together by Madame Mirman, are
+now being taken care of by the American Red Cross.
+It is conducted by Doctor Sedgwick, unfortunately in
+Paris. It seemed a dreary spot that afternoon, and it
+has since been confided to me that the weather is always
+dreadful there. The barracks are after the new model
+of groups of one-storied houses, which, it appears, have
+also disadvantages, as well as the large buildings they
+superseded.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was raining and hailing and blowing as we made
+blind dashes from one to the other with the French
+directors. A consolation to find oneself in the dormitories
+where many blessed tiny babies lay asleep (or
+howling!) in little cots or perambulators, out of the
+horrid cold.</p>
+
+<p>They are not always orphans, but their mothers work
+in the fields of Lorraine or in the munitions-factories.
+Doctor Peel, second in charge, came at last from a distant
+building, and met us in the school-room, out of which
+a hundred noisy, warm, well-fed children were scuffling.
+Tea was offered us, but we came away; time was short
+and I was a-hungered, after the cold, windy, wet desolation
+of the Luxembourg barracks, for a sight of the
+beautiful cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>Some one said, “Why ‘sight-seeing’?” but I said, “It’s
+soul-seeing.” And there was some lifting of the being
+as we stepped into the loveliness of the pale-gray vaulting
+of the church of St.-Étienne. At the end of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span>
+apse was an immense, high, narrow, blue window, and
+it reminded me of Huysmans’s phrase about the cathedral
+of Chartres, “<i>Une blonde aux yeux bleus.</i>” We
+stepped over worn <i>pierres tombales</i>, and as I stood on
+one of them, whose date, scarcely decipherable, was
+fifteen hundred and something, I looked up and saw in
+the wall a new marble plaque, and it was to the memory
+of “<i>Jean Bourhis, aviateur-pilote, chevalier de la Légion
+d’Honneur, Croix de Guerre, né 1888.... Mort glorieusement
+pour la Patrie, le 22 mars, 1916.</i>” And so one’s
+thoughts are jerked from the past into the dreadful,
+sacramental present.</p>
+
+<p>Close by the cathedral is the Hôtel de Ville, once
+the Episcopal Palace, a gem of the eighteenth century.
+We stepped from the little square in front of the church
+into the wet, wind-swept garden. At one end is a flat,
+round fountain, and behind it is a moss-grown statue of
+a woman in contemplation, and one side of the garden
+is hedged in by the flying buttresses and gargoyles of
+the cathedral. Broad, low steps lead down to its gravel
+walks from the terrace of the Palace, onto which open
+long windows, forming a great hemicycle. I did not need
+to see it under warm, sunset skies, with the linden-trees
+of the garden in full blossom, to be possessed of its
+charm.</p>
+
+<p>An American soldier was coming out of the cathedral
+as we issued from the garden in a gust of wind which
+blew my umbrella wrong side out, and when I and it
+were righted he was gone. But it’s all a part of
+history.</p>
+
+<p>We went for a moment to St.-Gengoult, the old
+Gothic church in the rue Carnot. (Like every town in
+Lorraine and in the whole of France there is a rue Carnot,
+and it’s horribly monotonous when your soul is
+aflame.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span></p>
+
+<p>As we entered, a thick rich light came through the
+ancient windows.</p>
+
+<p>A black-robed woman was sobbing before a grave and
+pitying statue of St.-Anne—sixteenth or seventeenth
+century, I didn’t know which—and a pale, tiny child
+with a frightened look was standing by her. Again I
+thought on the oceans of fear children have passed
+through in this war, and again I besought God to take
+care of His world.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed up the central aisle I saw two American
+soldiers kneeling before the high altar. That spot of
+khaki and its young, unmistakable silhouette under the
+gray vaulting of that old church suddenly seemed
+momentous beyond anything I had ever seen. It was
+the country of my birth and my love pursuing its gigantic
+destiny down an endless vista, crowded with uncountable
+khaki-clad forms, men with souls. The two
+anonymous soldiers became typical of each and every
+Miles Gloriosus since the world began, and as they knelt
+there on the altar steps I knew that they had been
+laid on that other dreadful altar of the world’s sin....</p>
+
+<p>An open door showed us the way to a lovely Gothic
+cloister of the sixteenth century, surrounding a tree- and
+flower-planted court. It had a few fresh chippings on
+its <i>belle patine</i>, the results of a bomb which fell in it
+a few months ago.</p>
+
+<p>Long lines of soldiers’ socks were hung on strings
+across one corner of it, and soldiers were sitting in a
+little room-like corridor, leading I know not where,
+reading newspapers, whistling and writing. Then, out
+through a delightful sixteenth-century door into the
+streets, the loveliness of Toul imagined rather than
+really perceived, for the rain was falling again. Khaki-clad
+men of the <i>Division marocaine</i>, together with blue-clad
+companions, were threading their way through the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+narrow streets, and there were few women and children.
+I thought how I had seen the two towers of the church
+shining from afar as I passed by in the train that June
+evening with the two Bretons whose fate I shall never
+know.... Did the one from Nantes return to hold his
+first-born in his arms? Or the fiancé return to consummate
+his nuptials?</p>
+
+<p>Then I caught sight of my own two soldiers standing
+at the door of a little tobacco-shop. I suppose it was
+the nearest resemblance to anything familiar in Toul,
+and they were rather cuddling up to it. They smiled
+broadly when they heard themselves addressed in what
+they termed the “blessed lingo,” and called it “some
+luck.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was just thinking, ‘me for the coop,’” genially
+continued the biggest, raw-boned, lantern-jawed one who
+had a bad bronchial cold and wore a muffler about his
+throat. He turned out to be from Omaha; the smaller
+one was from Hackensack, N.J. (with an emphasis on the
+N.J.). We talked about simple and unglorious matters,
+what they had for breakfast, among other things,
+and it was, in parenthesis, what any Frenchman would
+call a dinner—ham and eggs and oatmeal and white
+bread (which none save American soldiers get in
+France these days) and jam and coffee. They were
+from Pagny-sur-Meuse near by—pronounced “Pag-ni”
+by the Omaha man. The Hackensack man avoided it.
+He quite simply wanted “the war to begin,” so that
+he might “show the Germans how.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re sure to lick ’em in the spring,” the one with
+the cold said, “but it’s a long time waiting for the fun
+to begin, and I haven’t been warm since I got here.”</p>
+
+<p>I asked them how they came into France.</p>
+
+<p>“All I know is that after we got off the boat we were
+three days in some sort of a milk-train; there wasn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>
+room to sit, let alone lie. We drew lots and I got the
+baggage-rack; but what saved us was that we could
+get out at every station, and, believe me, the fellows
+that got drunk were the only ones that pulled in all
+right—the others were sent up to hospital soon as they
+arrived.”</p>
+
+<p>In the best and most persuasive of Y.M.C.A. manners
+I said to this special Miles Gloriosus:</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t a remedy, however, that you could really
+count on.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I say,” answered the Omaha man, “you’ll own
+up that it’s worth trying.”</p>
+
+<p>It was getting late and, the Omaha man having the
+best of it, we parted with smiles of mutual appreciation.
+It’s all so simple—and so momentous.</p>
+
+<p>Then back to Nancy, running swiftly over a white
+road, the gray sky very low, and on either side green
+and yellow and brown fields, and the oak and beech
+forest of Haye. The <i>Grand Couronné</i> for a moment was
+divested of its mists, and some brightening of the western
+sky touched its ridge with a subdued splendor; and
+then we got into Nancy and were deposited at the Prefecture,
+where we made our adieux. We proceeded to
+the garage of a stoutish, blond man of pronounced Teuton
+type and accent, with an uncertain smile—and a
+coreless heart, I think—who cranked <i>la Ford</i> (by the
+way, Fords change their sex in France), and we started
+out through the town that night was enveloping, with
+but one dull eye to light us to Lunéville. We thought
+the trip might prove fairly uncertain, but didn’t know
+how much so till there was an impact, in the crowded
+suburb, and a horse’s form with legs in air, looking
+as big as a monster of the Pliocene age, showed for an
+instant on our radiator, then fell to the ground. A
+crowd immediately gathered, while the driver of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
+cart proceeded to tell us what he thought of us in particular
+and women drivers in general. But, though unfortunate,
+we felt blameless, as the horse had been tied
+<i>behind</i> the wagon standing at the curb and there was
+no light, except something very dim coming from a green-grocer’s.
+We departed to the <i>commissaire de police</i> with
+the man and a couple of gendarmes, explained that we
+were willing to do anything and everything if he would
+only let us proceed to Lunéville, gave the magic name
+“Commission Californienne,” and equally potent reference
+to the <i>Préfet de la Meurthe et Moselle</i> whose house
+we had just left. Then with beating hearts and a
+chastened outlook on life—I use the word “outlook”
+rather wildly; we couldn’t see anything—we passed out
+through the great manufacturing district. Every now
+and then our feeble ray was swallowed up by the great
+lamps of a military auto or the large round headlight
+of a <i>camion</i>. As we passed through St.-Nicolas du Port
+and Dombasle the blue of the soldiers’ tunics took on
+a strange ghoul-like color, a white incandescent sort of
+gray, and the moving forms seemed twice their natural
+size. We couldn’t see the streets at all, and the only
+thing we wanted to do in all the world was to get to
+Lunéville and run <i>la Ford</i> into the garage of M. Guérin.</p>
+
+<p>When that was accomplished we decided to say good-by
+to the proud world, sent regrets to Mlle. Guérin, and
+had a much more modest repast served in my room by
+the deft maid, whose husband got typhoid fever in the
+trenches and died at Epinal last year. Later the mistress
+of the house came up to know if we were comfortable,
+and told us her husband, too, had died of it in
+hospital at Toul. And then I read <i>Les Vieux Châteaux
+de la Vesouze</i>, a modern <i>Etude lorraine</i>, and <i>Promenades
+autour de Lunéville</i>, printed in 1838, to the accompaniment
+of rattling windows and the heavy boom of distant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>
+cannon. All else was quiet. Near my room is a
+device plastered on the wall, <i>Qui tient à sa tranquillité sait
+respecter celle des autres</i>. Isn’t it nice? It makes one
+steal in at night, get into slippers immediately, and ring
+gently in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>It is still raining, hailing, blowing—dreadfully discouraging
+weather to investigate the amours of the
+eighteenth century, and I have a couple of twentieth-century
+idyls right under my eyes, too. I had planned
+a stroll in the park to trace the steps of Léopold and
+Stanislas to the doors of the fairest of ladies, and Panpan
+and St.-Lambert and the Chevalier de Boufflers,
+and all the other <i>charmeurs</i>. I’ll either have to leave
+them out of the Journal or do them in some half-dream
+when I’m back in Paris and warm! What <i>they</i> did in
+this sort of weather I don’t know, except that when they
+knocked at a door or tapped at a window they were sure
+of tender welcomes, they and the easy verses that accompanied
+them.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br>
+<span class="smaller">A STROLL IN NANCY</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 15th.</i></p>
+
+<p>I spent yesterday a-wandering in the old streets of
+Nancy, between gusts of wind and rain and great
+bursts of sun. After much coaxing, <i>la Ford</i> was cajoled
+into taking the road at 9.30, but as we got to Nancy and
+into the Place Stanislas suddenly her front wheels
+spread apart. E. M. gave one glance, but not at all
+the glance of despair she would have given had it
+happened on the road, and then flew to seek her waiting
+bridegroom at the Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre, while
+I, less enthusiastically, sought the blond chauffeur of
+the coreless heart. He seemed quite human, as, unscrewing
+the bar in front, which crumbled softly like a
+piece of bread, he held up a piece and said, “<i>C’était fait
+pour vous casser le cou</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Seeing the American flag flying from the ground-floor
+window of one of the beautiful old buildings of the Place
+Stanislas, I went in to find Mrs. Dawson installed in
+charge of the Nancy branch of the “American Fund for
+French Wounded.” It was another novelty for Stanislas
+to look upon out of his <i>right</i> eye! He’s been kept busy,
+these past three years, looking about him. The large
+room was filled with furniture M. Mirman is collecting
+for refugees—wardrobes, tables, chairs, in and on which
+were piles of shirts, vests, sweaters, <i>cachenez</i>, handkerchiefs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span>
+all from over the ocean. And really, when one
+investigates the comfort-bags filled by too-generous
+American hands, one has a cupidous feeling. There is
+a lavishness in the matter of Colgate’s tooth-paste, for
+instance, which one can rarely get for love, and not
+at all for money, in Paris!</p>
+
+<p>I came away in a gray, slanting rain that made the
+Place Stanislas look as if Raffaello had done it over and
+framed it beautifully in gray. Great scratchings of
+rainfall, and soldiers and women hurrying through it.
+But <i>le geste</i> is not like the days when Raffaello painted—there
+are no skirts to lift up, or, rather, none that
+need lifting.</p>
+
+<p>Then I crossed over to the Place de la Carrière,
+where <i>souvent en ces aimables lieux des héros et des demi-dieux</i>
+had held their tournaments, and then into the
+church of St.-Epvre to get a Mass. The stained-glass
+windows, modern and very expensive-looking, were
+crisscrossed with broad stripes of paper on the side
+toward the railway, where the shocks from the frequent
+bombing of the station are especially felt. Everywhere
+in Nancy the windows are broken, or crisscrossed
+with paper, or both. The church was blue with
+military.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward I walked through the Grande Rue. The
+ducal palace of the early sixteenth century, begun by
+René II, has its door scaffolded and sandbagged. It is
+the celebrated <i>Musée Lorrain</i>, whose treasures are now
+removed further from the frontier. It is here that the
+body of Charles III lay in such magnificence that there
+arose the saying in the sixteenth century that the three
+most gorgeous ceremonies in the world were the consecration
+of a king of France at Reims, the crowning of
+an emperor of Germany at Frankfort, and the obsequies
+of a duke of Lorraine at Nancy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p>
+
+<p>I continued down the Grande Rue between groups of
+<i>poilus</i>, officers, and the usual Sunday population coming
+from Mass, or getting in last dinner provisions, to the
+Porte de Graffe of the fourteenth century, beyond which
+is the Porte de la Citadelle, and then the garrison. As
+one walks along, the snatches of talk one overhears are
+“<i>Bombardé deux fois</i>,” “<i>Pas un vitre qui reste</i>,” “<i>Volant
+très-bas</i>,” etc.</p>
+
+<p>I came back through the park. In it is a modern
+iron bandstand, fortunately copied after the delicious
+designs of Jean Lamour—only <i>he</i> would have done something
+to relieve the heavy iron roof. And he quite
+certainly caught his inspiration musing about the park
+one autumn day, for everywhere I saw charming repetitions
+of his <i>grilles</i> in that delicate tracery of yellow leaf
+against gray trunk and branch.</p>
+
+<p>Old houses give on the park, where one might dream
+dreams, and find the world—perhaps well lost. Many
+windows broken, and more crisscrossing with bands of
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting to be 12.30 when, having been as much
+of an angel as the three dimensions permit, I emerged
+on to the Place Stanislas to see E. M. approaching
+with a young blue-clad aviator, with something distinguished
+yet modest in his bearing, of whom I instantly
+thought he is one of those <i>qui cherche sa récompense
+plutôt dans les yeux de ses hommes que dans les
+notes de ses chefs</i>—and so it proved to be. He didn’t
+even wear the <i>brisquets</i> of his years of service on his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Tout le monde sait que je n’ai pas été trois ans sans
+rien faire</i>,” he said, later, during lunch, which we took
+in the Café Stanislas, crowded with gallooned and decorated
+officers. Several red-and-white marked autos of
+the General Staff were waiting before the door, where<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+Stanislas also could see them, and those beings, half
+human, half divine, of the sky-line, framed it all. Afterward
+I again removed my three dimensions, hunting for
+M. Pierre Boyé, the great authority on all things of
+Lorraine, M. Guérin having given me a letter to him.
+On arriving at the house, through quiet gray streets,
+there was no answer to my numerous ringings of the
+bell, so I came back, drawn irresistibly to the Place
+Stanislas. By this time it was aglow in the afternoon
+light; great masses of clouds even at 3.30 were tinted
+with yellow and orange, and every inch of gilding caught
+the light. I hailed an antique cab and drove out where
+I could look over rolling stretches of country, along the
+road to Toul. The brown and yellow fields were aglow,
+the bronzing forests, too; above were piled the high and
+splendid clouds of autumnal Lorraine, and I saw where
+Claude le Lorrain had got <i>his</i> masses. The <i>cocher</i> then
+proceeded to bring me back to town by a perfectly hideous
+road, called Quai Claude le Lorrain—on one side
+the blackened railway, on the other modern claptrappy
+houses with their windows shattered and their roofs
+damaged.</p>
+
+<p>I then told him to take me to the church of the Cordeliers,
+where I stepped suddenly, not only into its late
+afternoon dimness, but into the dimness of past ages.
+A shaft of light from a high window showed me a dull,
+rich bit of color on an ancient pillar, in a sort of chapel;
+and then my eye fell on what I had come to see, the
+tomb of the Duchesse Philippe de Gueldre, widow of
+René II, bearing the incomparable stamp of the genius
+of Ligier Richier.</p>
+
+<p>I tiptoed toward the stone slab where that great lady
+of another age is lying asleep, clad in the dark robe of
+the Poor Clares. Her hands, folded downward, are
+clasped at her waist. Under the cowl the pale head is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+turned gently, as if in sleep.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> She is an enduring image
+of resignation, not alone for herself, but for all of us
+who live and die, we don’t quite know how or why, and
+who must “endure our going hence even as our coming
+hither.”</p>
+
+<p>The church was constructed by her husband, René
+II, Duke of Lorraine, to commemorate the deliverance
+of Nancy and the defeat of Charles the Bold, Duke of
+Burgundy, in 1477. Duke René himself had a glorious
+reign; for him the arts and letters were the ornament of
+victory. I discovered a commemorative monument of
+my friend Duke Léopold, flanked rather flamboyantly
+by unquiet, yet charming, statues of Faith and Hope!
+Also an elaborate statue of Katerina Opalinska, the
+consort of Stanislas, who, though he had been somewhat
+forgetful of her in life, had done really all that a wife
+could wish in the matter of the tomb. But some virtue
+more mystic than the decorative Faith and Hope of the
+eighteenth century exhaled from the quiet figure of
+Philippe de Gueldre.</p>
+
+<p>Near the high altar is the Chapelle Ronde begun
+by Charles III, the grandson of René, in 1607, intended
+as a sepulcher for the princes of Lorraine, and in a
+beautiful <i>grille</i> are entwined the arms of Lorraine and
+Austria. Then the sacristan came in to light the candles
+of the high altar, the church got suddenly quite dark,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
+from the organ came the strains of “<i>O quam suavis est,
+Domine</i>,” and people began to come in to Benediction.
+The blue and vermilion and gold of the mausoleum of
+René II faded and one saw only vague outlines of saints
+and angels, and a figure of the Eternal Father. It cried
+out of that other deliverance of Nancy; but when the
+world war is over will his widow, Philippe de Gueldre,
+<i>conjunx Piissimi</i>, still be sleeping quietly, her brown cowl
+over her head and her crown at her feet? Her soul
+“conducted to Paradise by angels, where martyrs received
+her and led her into the Holy City Jerusalem.”
+The church got quite full, the organist continued to
+play early Italian music, and the “Pietà, Signor” of
+Pergolese rose as I knelt by Philippe de Gueldre. The
+great cope of the priest shone, the smell of incense pervaded
+the dim spaces, the “<i>Tantum Ergo</i>” sounded,
+and I bowed my head....</p>
+
+<p>Then out into a world of fading light, found the
+<i>cocher</i> in the exact attitude I had left him, and begged
+him to drive quickly (which was impossible) to the
+Hôtel Excelsior et d’Angleterre, bethinking me of the
+5.30 train to Lunéville. As we went through the dim,
+charming streets I remembered an old verse I had
+found in one of M. Guérin’s books, by an unreservedly
+admiring individual, who said that if he had one foot
+in Paradise and the other in Nancy, he would withdraw
+the one in Paradise, that both might be in Nancy!</p>
+
+<p>I found waiting at the door of the hotel E. M., the
+<i>distingué</i> young aviator, and Don Kelley, <i>en permission</i>
+for twenty-four hours from Gondrecourt, strong and
+eager, since a week at Gondrecourt, since a month in
+France for the first time in his life.</p>
+
+<p>The young men took us to the station and deposited
+us in the train and made their adieux. For very special
+reasons at that moment I said to E. M.:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span></p>
+
+<p>“If you are going back to Lunéville on <i>my</i> account,
+don’t!”</p>
+
+<p>The guard had closed the door of the compartment,
+had sounded his whistle, but I caught the look in her
+eye and out we jumped, returning to the hotel, where we
+gave what we hoped was a pleasant surprise party.
+<i>Dîner à quatre</i> at seven o’clock. About a dozen Americans
+<i>en permission</i> were dining among many Frenchmen,
+and we amused ourselves investigating the multicolored
+intricacies of the various uniforms, aviators,
+cavalry, infantry, artillery, and the many “grades.”
+Then again a dash for the station—Count de L. had to
+get to Paris, and Don Kelley to Gondrecourt. The
+latter said, as we stood in the dark, battered station:</p>
+
+<p>“I am where I would most want to be in the world,
+and, though I am an only son, I am where my parents
+would most wish me to be. When I get back to Gondrecourt
+and get into that long, dark shed and see the men
+rolled up, and if it is raining, the water dripping in, I
+shall know it is the real thing, and those of my generation
+who have known it and those who have not will
+be forever divided.”</p>
+
+<p>Permissions not being among things safely trifled with,
+we then saw them into their train, which was leaving
+first, and crossed the rails to where ours, dark, filled
+with returning officers, was waiting; and so out into
+the night with all curtains carefully drawn, the stars
+shining. It was a <i>nuit à boches</i>, one of the officers said,
+continuing, “It’s often an obsession with them—for a
+long time they won’t come near Nancy or Lunéville,
+and then every night when it is at all clear they appear.”
+The inhabitants can choose (in their minds) between
+good weather and <i>avions</i> or bad weather and safety.</p>
+
+<p>Trains from Nancy to Lunéville seem to have a way
+of hunting up stations, threading them up, and what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+one does easily in three-quarters of an hour in a motor
+takes an hour and a half to three, according to the
+stops. At Blainville we descended to show our <i>sauf-conduits</i>,
+the guard standing just behind a convenient
+puddle that every one splashed into and then stepped
+out of. Finally, Lunéville, night-enveloped, lighted
+only with flashes from electric pocket-lamps, like great
+fireflies. And coming through the night from Nancy,
+I kept thinking how France had done enough, more than
+enough, the impossible, and what a cold and dreadful
+grind the war had become, and of untried young Americans
+sleeping in dim villages so near. And many other
+things that it is bootless to record. <i>Nous sommes dedans.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br>
+<span class="smaller">VITRIMONT IN AUTUMN</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Out of Lunéville over the muddy Vesouze, through
+the Place Brûlée, and onto a pasty road, E. M.
+driving, and, on the back seat, newly wedded love. As
+we left the town a dwarf made a face at us and then
+turned his back on us with a not over-elegant gesture,
+for all the world like the tales of the famous dwarf
+Bébé, during years the delight of the Court of Stanislas.</p>
+
+<p>Mustard and osier plantings became the intensest
+yellow or red, as the sun fell on them through rifts in
+dark clouds, and many women, old men, and children
+were working in wet beet-root fields, among little groupings
+of black crosses....</p>
+
+<p>We got into Vitrimont through streets deep in mud.
+Such a change! Before reaching it, instead of the skeleton
+outline of homes one now sees orderly rows of red
+roofs. The work that had seemed almost stationary,
+pursued with so much difficulty by Comtesse de B.
+(Miss Polk), had got suddenly to a point where it began
+to show, though the finished houses will be too damp
+for habitation this winter, and, like a lot of other things,
+must await the spring.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere in the streets the busy work of reconstruction
+is proceeding. Soldiers billeted in Vitrimont
+are coming and going, helping with masonry, bringing
+in great wagons of beet-root, as if they had always lived<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>
+there; not <i>en passant par la Lorraine</i>. It’s a very human
+document, this billeting of soldiers; though, as
+far as they are concerned, when they leave a village
+they only change their residence. For the women the
+thing is much more serious. <i>They</i> get a change of regiment.
+However, I have no time to muse on this detail
+of the war. Things in Vitrimont were simply taking
+their inevitable course. Nothing is held back for long,
+with the generations pressing thick and fast. Black-aproned
+children with books on their backs, to whom
+E. M. gave little slabs of chocolate, were coming
+from the new school-house. Old men were hobbling
+about, and women bending over embroidery frames,
+in houses often half destroyed and hastily roofed over.
+In the old days Lorraine furnished beautiful damasks
+and gold galloons and laces to Paris and Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped by a window where a thin-faced woman
+was just taking from its frame a beautiful beaded bag
+such as one would buy very, very dear in the Rue de la
+Paix. Near her sat an old woman, her mother, the
+light falling on her pale, withered face, wearing a great
+black-bowed head-dress, a yellow cat in her lap. It was
+an <i>intérieur</i> that would have done honor to any great
+museum.</p>
+
+<p>We visited Mlle. Antoine, living in a reconstructed
+street named after a Polish prince. She escaped to
+Lunéville with her servant on the day of the entry of
+the Germans into the village, August 23, 1914, fleeing
+through the ancient forest, but returned to her Lares
+and Penates a few days afterward with German passes.
+She represents culture in the village, and is clear-eyed,
+sweet-voiced, but with two red spots on her cheeks—she
+is fighting off consumption by living out of doors
+with her chickens and live stock, in sabots and apron
+and shawl. A beautiful old desk was in her living-room,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+and there was a discussion as to whether it was Louis
+XVI or Directoire, but under any name one would have
+loved to possess it. The windows looked out onto the
+inevitable dung-heap, but beyond were bronzing forests,
+and, in between, fields the color of semi-precious stones.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus13" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus13.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p>MISS POLK’S WEDDING</p>
+  <p>The Comtesse de Buyer (Miss Polk) on the arm of Monsieur Mirman,
+  Prefect of the Meurthe et Moselle, after her wedding at Vitrimont,
+  September, 1917.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Hearing the sound of music as we passed the church,
+we went in and found some young girls were practising
+a “<i>Credo</i>,” clustered about the little organ, and wearing
+brooches with a device of thistle and double Lorraine
+cross that Madame de Buyer had given them on her
+wedding-day. I looked again upon the lovely old fifteenth-century
+vaulting, fully restored, shifting my eye
+hurriedly from the hideous but seemingly imperishable
+dado with its design of painted folds of cloth. At the
+door the little holy water fonts, formed of shells held
+upon two heads of seraphim, gave me a thrill of joy—and
+sadness, too, that beauty is so perishable.</p>
+
+<p>Then I turned to the cemetery. The little pathways
+were muddy beneath the leafless trees. Bead crosses
+and wreaths and a few stunted chrysanthemums decorated
+the wet graves. All seasons are the same to the
+dead. I stood by a breach in the wall near the grave
+of “<i>Charles Carron, musicien, souvenir d’un camarade,
+31 août, 1914</i>,” looking out toward the forest of Vitrimont.
+Its autumn garb was soft, discreet, and lovely;
+more jasper and amethyst and Chrysoprase and cornelian
+fields rolled gently in between it and me. There was
+the band of yellow like a Greek border to a garment in
+the western sky—only that and nothing more, yet some
+beauty and sadness chained me to the spot. Quail and
+woodcock, gray pheasant and larks, were flying about,
+and some strongly marked black-and-white magpies were
+pecking at something in the nearest field. I asked
+myself again, “What is it that stamps Lorraine with
+such beauty?” General de Buyer told me that when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+Pierre Loti came to Vitrimont he said, “<i>C’est trop vert</i>,”
+and perhaps, after Stamboul and Egypt and the Grecian
+Isles, it would seem too green. But I saw, returning
+there in autumn, that the soul of Lorraine, <i>l’élégante et
+douleureuse</i>, is like unto tarnished silver, with its grays,
+yellows, browns, and purples; that soul that has suffered,
+hoped through the generations, whose abiding-places
+have been devastated and rebuilt through the centuries.
+And I knew that one must see it in autumn, beneath the
+wasteful splendors of gray clouds, with their hints of
+color, red, brown, yellow, and purple, or with sky and
+rain melting into one, curtaining the brown, mysterious
+earth—and, in between, the beat of the human heart.</p>
+
+<p>It all seemed to show itself through some dissolving
+light of ages. Those secular beeches, that I had first
+seen in their tenderest green, had become a brilliant
+yellow, and were turned to the south. The great bronze
+oaks looked to the north, obeying laws as inviolable as
+those of the human beings passing beneath them. In
+all these forests round about Vitrimont, Parroy, and
+Mondon the legendary lords of the country hunted; the
+roads of Gaul disappeared under the great Roman highways
+which traversed Lorraine from Langres to Trèves,
+from Toul to Metz, and again from Langres to Strasburg.
+The name Lunéville emerges out of the night
+of the tenth century in the person of Étienne, Bishop
+of Toul, successor of St.-Gérard, and Folmar I, Count
+of Lunéville, was married to Sparhilde, descended from
+Charlemagne. (To this day I notice that almost any
+one who respects himself in these parts talks quite
+casually of being descended from Charlemagne, or
+Charles the Bald, or René the Victorious, as a Boston
+man might of the Pilgrim Fathers.) Folmar’s hunting-lodge
+was by the muddy Vesouze, over which one passes
+to get from Lunéville to Vitrimont. In time it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span>
+transformed into a château, and around it grew a village,
+which in turn became a fortified town, then the
+capital of Léopold and Stanislas.</p>
+
+<p>I stood for a long time by that 1914 breach in the
+wall, and the grave of <i>Charles Carron, musicien</i>, looking
+out over the rolling fields in the late October afternoon,
+migrating birds passing against the amber sky, red
+vines floating from the yellowing branches of oaks and
+beeches; near me was a tangle of wild-plum bushes,
+stiffened blackberry-vines, and dried ramie. All except
+the deeds of men seemed sweet. Everything was in
+sinuous lines, inclosing the jasper, amethyst, chrysoprase,
+russet, jewels of the fields, through which flow the slow
+rivers, slipping between bushes of osier and plum, and
+somewhere there is a slower, nigrescent canal scarcely
+a-move between willows and poplars. And those men
+who are out there where that dull thunder is!...</p>
+
+<p>I thought how often in her history the men that
+hunted in her forests or tilled her fields had reddened
+them with their blood, or, buried in them, had increased
+the harvests, fighting now against one invader, now
+another, being continually thrown back from power to
+power like a ball, with nothing changeless save the
+changelessness of their changing destiny—and its
+unescapableness.</p>
+
+<p>And how, under Godefroy de Bouillon, a Lorraine
+prince, the Crusades began, and under a duke of Lorraine,
+Charles V, they ended. And of the holy glory
+of Jeanne d’Arc. And now, after the lapse of centuries,
+of the covenant of our own men.</p>
+
+<p>I realized that the beauty of Lorraine is not entirely
+of the natural world.</p>
+
+<p>As we drove back there was a sudden flaming up of
+that band of lemon. The western sky became a vast
+ocean of pink with great white clouds afloat in it. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>
+red roofs of Lunéville were transfigured, a crimson glow
+was flung about the Pompadour towers of the church,
+outlined against a blue-white eastern sky. But only
+for a few minutes. The streets of Lunéville were already
+dim as we passed in through the battered suburbs.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped for tea at the house of Madame —— on
+the outskirts of the town. It had been occupied by the
+Germans that first August, and in one of the <i>salons</i>
+was a large hole in the wall, stopped up, but not replastered
+or papered. “They” had rolled up her rugs
+and given them to her, and she and her four young
+daughters had lived in the upper stories during the occupation,
+and seen war very close from their windows.
+The only really valuable picture, a Claude Lorrain, I
+think, was missing. In the cellars and in the garden,
+whose walls are still breached and broken, dead and
+wounded, living and fighting, Germans and French, had
+lain.</p>
+
+<p>The usual conjunction of elderly officers and young
+aviators were there for tea. Then E. M. and I, closely
+linked, threaded the black streets to the Hôtel des Vosges.
+And there is great sadness in Lorraine in autumn.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br>
+<span class="smaller">AT THE GUÉRINS’</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 16th.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the park of the château, sitting on an old stone
+bench under yellowing chest nut-trees.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers are coming and going. The château has been
+for many years a barracks. One guardian of the park,
+of the now so-despised race of gendarmes, has walked
+by three times, for I have my little note-book in my lap
+and my pencil in my hand and I am plainly not of
+Lunéville. He is just passing me again, and I say</p>
+
+<p>“<i>C’est beau, le parc.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>He answers, “Perhaps in summer,” evidently not
+stirred by autumnal Lorraine, and then, “<i>Madame est
+en visite?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>I answer, “Yes, with Miss Crocker.”</p>
+
+<p>That name being magic in these parts, he salutes and
+passes on.</p>
+
+<p>Of the lovely old bosquets where Stanislas combined
+his <i>jets d’eau</i>, his <i>grottes</i>, his Chinese pavilions, and his
+<i>parterres</i>, the long avenue and the great flat basin of the
+fountain, in which black swans are floating, are all that
+remain. From the end of this avenue can be seen
+the aviation field with its great hangars. The low terraces
+have borders of autumn flowers, dahlias, chrysanthemums,
+red vines, dead leaves, and moss-grown
+and charming statues of ancient love-making gods,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
+who came into their own again in those amorous days.
+There is a statue to M. Guérin’s poet son born and dead
+between two invasions, but a lovely eighteenth-century
+statue of a veiled woman renders <i>mou</i> and without accent
+the flat, white-marble shaft that commemorates
+his earthly span (1874-1908). The statue of Erckmann
+is also in the nineteenth-century manner. Is the human
+race as uncharming as modern sculptors would make
+it? One feels apologetic toward the ages to come, and
+one wants to cry out that we weren’t so bad, after
+all, and that seemingly soulless individual in a frock-coat
+and baggy trousers and top-hat, looking so unattractive
+in white marble, was really a delightful person,
+an imaginative lover, a perceptive intellectual, and
+witty to boot. He would have been the first to protest
+against his memorial; and how he would have hated
+the geraniums and begonias planted at his base, and the
+wire fencing!</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the park, where the trees have been cleared
+away, is the brown, reedy Vesouze, a little border of old
+houses on its banks. Beyond is the rolling stretch of
+forest-covered hills and russet and jasper and topaz
+fields, and above it all the sunless and gray, but strangely
+luminous, noonday heaven of autumnal Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>Wandered about the town. Everywhere charming
+bits of <i>autrefois</i> arrest the eye. Over one doorway, between
+two angels’ heads of pure Louis XV, was written,
+“<i>Fais bien, laisses dire</i>.” A little farther along, under
+a figureless niche, “<i>Si le cœur t’en dit un ave pour son
+âme</i>.” In the window of a pharmacy near by, occupying
+a good old house with flat, gray façade, is a big
+Lunéville porcelain jar bearing the words “<i>Theriaca
+celestis</i>,” interwoven among flowered scrolls, and I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+thought of eighteenth-century servants going in for
+herbs and various cures for masters and mistresses
+having “vapors.”</p>
+
+<p>The portal of the church reminds me, with its rich,
+wine-colored tones, of the <i>tezontle</i> of the Mexican houses
+of the viceregal period. The words over the door are
+“<i>Au Dieu de Paix</i>,” the God that this torn borderland
+seldom receives, and still rarely keeps, and above is a
+figure of Chronos, or the Almighty, I don’t know
+which.</p>
+
+<p>A large black marble slab without name or date is
+near the door as one passes in; underneath lie the remains
+of Voltaire’s <i>divine Emilie</i>.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Having loved much,
+let us hope much was forgiven her. The choir, pulpit,
+and confessionals are very pure Louis XV. Over the
+organ-loft are the words “<i>Laudate Deum in chordis et
+organo</i>,” painted in among Pompadour knots which have
+been democratically colored red, white, and blue, near
+blue and gold fleurs-de-lys of another epoch.</p>
+
+<p>Against the wall of the façade is a marble urn that
+once contained the heart of Stanislas, who was very
+devout, and left no stone unturned, though he continued
+to love not alone the arts, to placate the final
+judge. He was very fond of music while dining, but
+on Friday never permitted any except that of the harp,
+considered less earthly than violin and clavecin. He
+never missed Mass; he was merciful to the poor and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+appreciative of the things of the mind. Not a bad showing;
+one hopes he’s happy somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the side altars is a Pietà and three long lists
+of those just dead for France, whose</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">graves are all too young as yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Its charge to each;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and then, as I sat quietly thinking upon the passing of
+heroes, Shelley’s immortal words kept sounding in my
+ears:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">And if the seal is set,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Break it not thou!...</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">From the world’s bitter wind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What Adonaïs is, why fear we to become?</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Lunched at the Guérins’. <i>La Ford</i> being the only
+means of locomotion in Lunéville, not even an old horse
+remaining to pull a cab, we had to give up the trip to
+Baccarat, and indeed any trip anywhere. Delighted to
+be able to <i>flâner</i> in the old streets without my umbrella
+being turned wrong side out.</p>
+
+<p>Overhead the <i>avions</i> were thick; we counted twelve
+at one time, some of them flying so low that we could
+hear words. Observation airplanes, bombarding airplanes,
+the swift <i>avions de chasse</i>, going in the direction
+of the forest of Parroy, where the Germans are intrenched
+since the retreat from Lunéville, September, 1914.
+Parroy and all that part of the country was completely
+laid waste in 1636 by Richelieu, who sent the cheerful
+report to Louis XIV that “Lorraine was reduced to
+nothing, and the inhabitants dead for the most part.”</p>
+
+<p>That conquest of the unsubstantial air seems the
+greatest of all man’s achievements. And as I walked<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+along there was an almost perceptible flinging of my
+soul into the heavenly spaces and I thought not on
+battles and wrecks nor even of hungry children, but
+rather of the discoverers of nature’s secrets, the disciples
+of philosophers, the undiscourageable lovers of the arts,
+who everywhere are in the minority, and everywhere
+reach the heights, and everywhere in the end control
+the hosts, even of battle. And at the sudden dropping
+of the sun over the lovely Lorraine fields, become blue
+with scarcely a hint of the green and brown and amethyst
+of a moment ago, the band of yellow fringing the
+horizon—though with me walked the ghosts of men who
+at the word of command invaded or defended—I was
+not sad. A lean, brown, unexpectant urchin entered
+the town with me. I gave him a two-franc piece and
+a blessing, <i>Pax tibi</i>, which last, from the look in his
+eyes, some part of him understood. Then I turned
+into the beautiful old house of the mayor where <i>goûter</i>
+and bridge had been arranged for us. I rapped with
+a large and very bright wrought-iron knocker bearing the
+date 1781, and, entering, found myself in a great hallway;
+to the left is the <i>escalier d’honneur</i>, with its beautiful
+wrought-iron balustrade. I mounted it, and
+passed through many rooms of noble yet thoroughly
+livable dimensions. They were filled with officers,
+some women came from their hospital service in nursing
+garb, groups of bright-eyed “<i>filles à marier</i>,” and a few
+young aviators. The large <i>salon</i> has beautiful panelings,
+with heavy gilt <i>motifs</i> of tambour, torch, helmet
+and shield in the corners. In it was signed the celebrated
+Traité de Lunéville, 1801, and it is all very
+seigneurial.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself seated at a table with the mayor,
+General —— and Mme. de C., in nursing garb. I investigated,
+during a couple of hours, the surprises of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+the erratic yet brilliant bridge of the <i>maire de
+Lunéville</i>, whose delight was to mystify his partner
+as well as the adversary, and who, without in the least
+deserving it, won every rubber. I had a few bad “distractions,”
+but who would not, under that roof so rich
+in memories?</p>
+
+<p>During the occupation in 1914 the German generals
+and high officers entering the town were lodged on the
+second floor of the old house. The same thing had
+happened in 1870.</p>
+
+<p>We came away in pitch darkness at 7.30, but I
+can now skip and bound about the dark streets, with
+the best of them, no more feeling around for curbs,
+which seem again to be placed where they are to be
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, dinner at M. Guérin’s. General and Mme.
+de Buyer, General ——, M. Guérin’s two sons, one a
+mitrailleuse officer for the moment near by at Blainville
+la Grande, the other the student and lover of the
+arts of whom I spoke, and whose every instinct is remote
+from killing. I sometimes wonder at the stillness of
+men like that—except that there is nothing to be done
+about it. General de Buyer told us of <i>lances-flamme</i>, of
+<i>flamme-snappes</i>, of the <i>obus asphyxiants</i>, which burst
+without odor or smoke, but are deadly, all the same.
+Then the conversation turned on <i>le conflit historique
+entre la race germanique et la nation gauloise</i> which had
+begun before the Roman conquest. M. Guérin told us
+of places where still may be seen colossal walls and
+thick, crumbling towers, mysterious witness of those
+legendary conflicts, just as the Place des Carmes, or
+Place Brûlée, is witness of those of 1917.</p>
+
+<p>The younger Guérin son was preparing to go into
+diplomacy when the war broke out. I said, “Perhaps
+we will sometime be <i>en poste</i> together,” and a strange<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
+look that the pleasant dinner scene did not allow me
+to interpret immediately came over his face.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Peut-être</i>,” he answered, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>I knew a moment afterward that that young man
+who loves his life was thinking, “if I am alive.” He
+has seen so many fall. And suddenly came into my
+mind the lines of his poet brother, born and dead between
+two invasions:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Nous sommes, ô mon Dieu, plusieurs dans la cité,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>A porter haut le lys de la mysticité, ...</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And for an infinitesimal moment, in spite of the pleasant
+evening meal, my thoughts, too, turned to invisibilities—his
+and my last end, and our veiled destinies.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br>
+<span class="smaller">ACROSS LORRAINE</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lunéville</span>, <i>Tuesday, October 16th</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One last look at the church, whose warm and lovely
+towers with their <i>motifs</i> of urn and scroll and
+angel were shining pinkly in the morning light. Then
+through the door of the Hôtel de Ville, built on the site
+of the ancient abbey of St.-Rémy, founded in the last
+years of the tenth century by Folmar de Lunéville for
+the repose of his soul and of his wife’s, and completely
+done over in the eighteenth century. As I turned in at
+the passageway leading through to the other street, old
+houses on one side, and on the other plantings of holly
+against the church walls, I thought of the saying of the
+Middle Ages, “<i>Il fait bon vivre sous la crosse</i>” (“It is
+good to live under the bishops”), and how the peasants
+would come in from their hamlets, through the fields
+and forests, with their tithes. The monks generally
+springing from the people showed themselves more
+understanding of their wants and their miseries, and
+were less apt to overtax them, having fewer needs, than
+the lords with their wars, their ambitions, and their
+grandeurs.</p>
+
+<p>Then one finds oneself in the garden of the Hôtel
+de Ville, where one doesn’t think of the Middle Ages,
+for in it is a figure of a weeping woman, and on the
+statue’s base are inscribed the names of young men<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
+fallen in 1870. Life becomes suddenly without
+reason.</p>
+
+<p>At the station. <i>L’abri de bombardement pour permissionnaires</i>
+is in an old convent having a deep cellar, across
+the railway. We carry our own luggage, resembling
+almost any <i>poilu</i>, and with grateful hearts think of
+what we left behind.</p>
+
+<p>Mont-sur-Meurthe. Flooding sun, many soldiers, no
+room in the train. The famous and now classic refrain,
+“<i>Faut pas s’en paire</i>,”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> floats about and makes one think
+how those who wait also serve, and in waiting learn
+patience, this new virtue of the Gaul. In regard to
+virtues, the French seem to have all those we thought
+they had, in addition to others we never suspected them
+of having.</p>
+
+<p>A man completely bent with grief follows two men
+carrying a coffin. He himself carries a huge bead
+wreath, and his head is bared. Whatever his sorrow,
+it is gone out into the eternal, the immeasurable Wisdom,
+which I thought, in sudden fear, completely conceals
+that which it receives.</p>
+
+<p>Dombasle, with its busy station and its great munitions-factories.
+Columns of smoke, from purest white to
+darkest brown, were rising to the shining heavens, and
+women in trousers, mothers and mothers-to-be, were
+going to work in the factories.</p>
+
+<p>At Rosières immense camouflage works, and then the
+railway skirts the great canal. A thin, heavy-haired,
+very young girl is drawing a huge canal-boat. Her
+arms are crossed over her breast; above them is the
+broad band by which she tows that behemoth, a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+thousand times her size. In accord with some law of
+matter it is just possible. One thinks of the building
+of the Pyramids, and of the unborn.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Nancy</span>, <i>1.15</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Lunching at the Café Stanislas and eating my fifth
+macaroon, “for remembrance.” The gold guipure of
+the wrought-iron work makes the square seem to me
+like some lovely handkerchief thrown down as a challenge
+to memory. And I will <i>not</i> forget.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Later.</i></p>
+
+<p>At the station, waiting for the train to pull out. An
+old man attended to our luggage; he liked his tip and
+became talkative as he straightened our impedimenta in
+the racks. Three sons killed in the war. Two at Verdun,
+the last and youngest at the Chemin des Dames
+this summer. His toothless old mouth trembled, and I
+thought to myself in sudden horror, “God, is <i>this</i>
+France?”</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Liverdun</span>, <i>3 o’clock</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A vision of transfigured beauty in the afternoon light.
+Its high promontory aglow, every window a-dazzle. Its
+ancient walls, its old château, its church, all seemingly
+made of something pink, unsubstantial, shining. At the
+foot of the town flows the Moselle and there is a second
+shining moiré ribbon—the great canal leading from the
+Marne to the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>Toul. The gorgeous towers of the cathedral are
+a-shine, too, above the outline of the great barrack
+buildings. The vast station is a sea of blue-clad washing
+in and out of trains.</p>
+
+<p>At Pagny we pick up the Meuse, <i>la Meuse aux lignes
+nonchalantes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At Sorcy, wide, shallow expanses of inundation, and
+reeds and trees grow out of shining spaces, and meadow-bounded
+flat horizons stretch away, and suddenly it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
+seems Oriental, Japanese, in the pink light—what
+you will—anything but a historic river of the European
+war, flowing through the elegant and sorrowful Lorraine.</p>
+
+<p>And then we find ourselves at Gondrecourt in the
+tip of the acute angle, for still, to go the straight road
+between Nancy and Châlons, we would have to pass
+Commercy, daily bombarded by big German guns.</p>
+
+<p>At Gondrecourt, about a dozen American soldiers
+standing on the platform, several seeming to have just
+left their mothers’ knees. We wanted to speak to the
+nearest one, but feared we might represent <i>l’autre danger</i>.
+Great packing-boxes piled everywhere with “U.S.
+Army” stamped on them—and how fateful a destination
+is this little Lorraine town!</p>
+
+<p>At Demanges-aux-Eaux more Americans. An old
+church, quite mauve, rises up seemingly from bronze
+waters, the houses of the surrounding village, blue and
+gray. Americans are billeted in these wide-doored
+Lorraine peasant houses, or in big stables whose entrances
+are high enough for great hay-wagons to pass
+through.</p>
+
+<p>A talkative military person in the compartment with
+us. I thought at first he was a secret agent, he seemed
+to know so little about the country; then I realized that
+he was only rather stupid. And he had an uncontrollable
+provincial curiosity about small things, and was quite
+<i>intrigué</i> about his traveling companions, who seemed
+to know all the things he didn’t know. He was <i>en
+permission</i>, coming from the forest of Parroy, the other
+side of Lunéville, where the French and Germans sit
+within a few yards of each other. He was quite uninteresting
+about it all, but it wasn’t his fault, merely
+the way he was made. He showed me his map and
+the zigzagging German and French lines in the forest,
+and then I got suddenly bored and stood in the corridor,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span>
+and watched the Meuse get pink and then purple
+and then a strange glinting black. Down the streets of
+little villages would come blue-clad men, smoking and
+talking, or getting water and stores for evening meals.
+And then the sun disappeared behind the yellow poplars,
+and a cold, clear night began to fall. Bridges were
+guarded by sentries with bayoneted rifles, and old men
+and women and children came in from dim beet-root
+fields, and more khaki-clad Americans were standing
+about village streets, or cycling in the dusk, behind
+reeds in water, and there were deepening forests, and
+black ridges against the last pale lemon glow, and
+then another little town, Laneuville, and two American
+patrols marching up and down with rifle on shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>And the talkative officer, who had bought newspapers
+at Gondrecourt, tells of the pretty spy dancer,
+Mata Hari, shot that morning in the prison of Vincennes
+with warning pomp and circumstance, and of Bolo Pasha
+and <i>l’affaire Turmel</i>, but as soon as he touches a subject
+it loses all vestige of human interest.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ce que nous avons vu d’Anglais parterre à Combes</i>,”
+or, “<i>Qu’il faisait froid la nuit où nous cédions la ligne
+aux Anglais</i>,” or, “<i>Je suis toujours là où on cède la ligne</i>,
+they say now the Americans will take the line at Parroy.”</p>
+
+<p>He has been through the whole war without a scratch—Verdun,
+the Somme, the Aisne—and now he spends
+cold, dark nights listening for Germans in the forest of
+Parroy, and it hasn’t helped a bit; and he is one that
+will get through, when so much of wise and fair will
+have been gathered to the Lord. In an unwonted
+pause I asked him what he was in civil life, and he
+answered, “<i>Fabricant de brosses à dent</i>.” I know it’s all
+right, and there must be tooth-brushes, but we had just
+come from gallooned generals, prefects, mayors, smart
+young aviators, and men living in the world of books.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span></p>
+
+<p>Blue mists came up from the meadows and slipped
+between the hills, and everywhere black trees grew out
+of gold water.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ligny-en-Barrois.</span></p>
+
+<p>The end of our line at the north, and there is a Gothic
+church of the thirteenth century called Notre Dame des
+Vertus, and in it is the tomb of the Maréchale de Luxembourg,
+dead in 1695.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Nançois-Tronville.</span></p>
+
+<p>More blue meadow mists along gold waters, and soft
+dark fringes of willows.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Longeville.</span></p>
+
+<p>The evening star and spirals of smoke from little
+houses, and blue-clad men melting into the twilight,
+and the canal a golden band, with stampings of deepest
+purple where tree shadows cut across it. Two American
+soldiers standing at a road-crossing looking up at the
+sign-post. Everywhere the Lorraine twilight is shot
+with khaki-colored threads from over the seas—and the
+three gray sisters spin the inexorable web.</p>
+
+<p>Bar-le-Duc, looking sick and sorry for itself. Station
+full of broken glass, dirt, and piles of demolished masonry.
+The evening star hangs above the older town on the hill.
+No time to get out to see how the canteen work is going
+on; but two obliging station employees gave me news.
+A whole quarter of the town by the river, near the Hôtel
+du Commerce et de Metz, of unsanctified memory, was
+destroyed ten days ago, by an air raid.</p>
+
+<p>I asked if anything had happened to the church of
+St.-Peter, for I thought of the <i>chef-d’œuvre</i> of Ligier Richier,
+René de Châlons,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> standing in its dim space, holding
+his heart aloft in his left hand, eternal offering to his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
+first wife, Louise of Lorraine. How his widow, Philippe
+de Gueldre, felt about this before she was laid out in
+the garb of the Poor Clares I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p>No longer any night work in the canteen, no lights
+being permitted. Our train unlighted, too. New and
+larger signs indicating cellars and shelters everywhere.
+Black moving shapes of <i>camions</i> along the road, and the
+evening star following us along the top of the hill of
+Bar. A squad of Annamites quitting their work on the
+road.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>En ces armées singulières</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Où l’Annam casse des pierres</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sur la route de Verdun.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Revigny.</span></p>
+
+<p>Portentous dark shapes of roofless houses and detachments
+of blue-clad men going down a winding road,
+one with the blue twilight. The station dim, the town
+completely dark, and the vine-planted hills only soft
+masses; the evening star still following us, though she
+is so close to the ridge that in a few minutes she will
+drop behind it. Oh, this passing of the evening star in
+a war—autumn behind French hills!</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Vitry-le-François</span>, <i>5.45</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Founded by François Premier near the old town which
+was burned with its church full of worshipers, in a fit of
+anger by Louis VII during his war with the Count of
+Champagne. To expiate this crime he undertook the
+Second Crusade. Much black ribbon of canal knotted
+about, one end of which leads from the heart of France
+to the Rhine. An endless train of troops going to the
+front, men pressed together, sardine- and herring-like,
+in each compartment—it made my soul sick—just human
+masses weighed down by accoutrement and literally
+wedged in. A lively dispute between a thick-set <i>poilu</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>
+and one of the station employees on behalf of a slight,
+blond, very young soldier.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Quoi, vous osez engueuler un poilu de quinze ans?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>And the following crescendo mounts to the broken
+panes of the station roof, “<i>Embusqué, cochon, salaud,
+vache!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>There was no answer of protest from the official.
+And Vitry-le-François is where Napoleon almost took
+prisoner the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia,
+and the Austrian General Schwarzenberg in 1814, and
+in 1914 it was bombarded by the Germans, and now
+American troops pour through it.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span></p>
+
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_III_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br>
+<span class="smaller">THE CHÂLONS CANTEEN</span></h3>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, Châlons</span>, <i>October 17th, 1.30 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Lodged at last with the “High Mother of God.”
+On arriving, dined in a low-ceilinged, dingy, dowdy
+room, but the acetylene lights, the uniforms and decorations
+of the officers, made something brilliant, which half
+veiled the knowledge of the dark night outside, the approaching
+winter, the continuing war.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward, I slipped out with my little electric lamp,
+through the Place de la République, almost empty; low
+and splendid stars hung over the town. In the rue
+des Lombards, St.-Alpin was a dark mass, and from
+its tower the hour was striking a quarter to nine
+o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>I turned into the long, perfectly black rue de Marne.
+Not a single light, nor any passer-by. I flashed my little
+lamp to find the curb. There came a click of wooden-soled
+shoes from a side street, and a thick voice said,
+“<i>Ah, la dame, pourquoi si vite?</i>” I passed on like the
+wind, trembling, down the deserted street, but when I
+flashed the lamp to find another curb, something heavy
+and stumbling got nearer. And then I didn’t dare to
+turn the light on, and I took the wrong turning, and
+found myself in what seemed a wilderness of mud and
+trees, with the click of those following wooden-soled
+feet behind, and any woman who has been terrified,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
+she scarcely knows why, will understand. Finally I
+stopped behind a dark mass of trees, with something
+sucking about in the mud, and mumbling half-suspected
+words, and finally retreating.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a soldier appeared, a gigantic shadow
+of himself as he struck a match to light his cigarette,
+and I asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Is this the rue du Port de Marne?”</p>
+
+<p>He answers, “You have missed your way; you are
+by the canal,” and he puts me onto the road again,
+and then I turn and grope my way to the little house
+by the Marne.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Miss Nott nor Miss Mitchell is there, so I depart
+again, going over the great Marne bridge to the
+station. Though I can see nothing, I hear the regular
+practised tread of a marching squad, and when I
+flash my lamp to find the curb, a little detachment looms
+up unmeasurably big and distorted, and the horizon
+blue becomes that ghostly gray.</p>
+
+<p>In the canteen a thousand men at least. Am quite
+dazzled by the splendor of the installation. Warm welcome
+from Miss Nott and Miss Mitchell, with the light
+of a very understandable pride in their eyes. Go behind
+the long counter, then through the kitchen to the
+little dressing-room; take off my hat, put on a long
+apron, twist my pale-blue chiffon scarf about my head
+and am ready. As I look out over the big room I
+feel that in the whole world it is the only place to be.
+Around me surged those blue waves; the light caught
+helmets and drinking-cups; there was the mist of
+breath and smoke; the familiar sound of laughing, disputing,
+humming. That strange atmosphere of fatality
+hung over each and every one, yet with a merciless confusing
+of destinies in the extreme anonymity of it all.</p>
+
+<p>Came away at 11.30 enveloped in a strange sidereal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+light, the stars still more splendid as the night deepened.
+Even the memory of tropical constellations
+vaulting high altitudes was dimmed. The Great Bear
+lay over the left of the Marne bridge, and on the other
+horizon, over the Promenade du Jard, where I suddenly
+remembered that St.-Bernard had preached the crusade
+in presence of Pope Eugene and Charles VII, was Orion,
+so bright that he alone could have lighted the town of
+the Catalaunian fields, and Jupiter seemed like a distant
+sun, under the soft blur of the Pleiades. The river
+was mysterious, yet personal with its new mantle of
+history wrapping it sadly, yet tenderly, and with much
+glory.</p>
+
+<p>Then I was again in the still, dark, long street; no
+passers-by, no lights from any window, the clock of
+St.-Alpin striking midnight, and Orion concealed to
+his belt by the houses of the Place de la République.
+There was some deep stirring of my heart as I turned in
+at the door of La Haute Mère Dieu, leaving the gorgeous
+heavens to stretch over the wide plain of Châlons,
+where the hosts of Attila were defeated, where the great,
+misty, tragic, glorious history of Champagne and Lorraine
+rolls itself out. Now above it all is the whir of
+<i>aeros de chasse</i>, and a faint, very faint booming of cannon.
+The Châlons plain continues to give me the
+“creeps.” It is haunting and suggestive in the same
+way that the Roman Campagna is haunting and suggestive,
+though the great bare stretch, with its bald,
+chalky scarrings, its dull spots of pine woods, its dust
+or mud, has none of the material beauty of the Campagna.
+Doubtless I’m within the folds of the mantle
+of the concentrated, continuous human passions that
+cover it.</p>
+
+<p>I trod as lightly as I could through a resounding
+corridor, having a profound regard for all sleeping things,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+past many leather leggings and spurred boots outside of
+silent doors.</p>
+
+<p>When I left the canteen, the guard, in answer to my
+cry, “Sentinelle!” said, as he opened the gate, “<i>Ce n’est
+pas comme à Verdun, où l’on ne passe pas</i>”; and then,
+“<i>Bonsoir, Mees.</i>” It was so easily and gracefully said
+in the inimitable French way.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>October 17th, 7.30 a.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>Tea, a lukewarm pale-gray beverage, with some still
+crisp leaves afloat on the top. I would have been ungrateful
+if I had not thought of the Hôtel des Vosges.
+Mrs. Church, fresh and strong as the morning, though
+just back from night shift, boiled some water for me
+and I blessed her. The bleakness of this room is indescribable.
+Two lithographs of the “<i>Angelus</i>” and
+“<i>Les Glaneurs</i>” but add to the desolation. A red-and-yellow
+striped paper on the walls; on the floor a worn
+square of Brussels carpet; brown woolen curtains;
+shutters with slats askew; a large mahogany chest of
+drawers; a grayish dimity cover to the feather bed,
+with machine-stitched <i>motifs</i> showing its ugly yellow
+case underneath; linen sheets, large, thick, and clean—and
+you have almost any room of La Haute Mère Dieu.
+Except Mrs. C.’s with its extraordinary bed, painted
+cream-color, having large “Empirish” corners formed
+by pale green and gilt Egyptian unduly voluptuous
+Sphinx-like figures, and a brownish-red plush baldaquin
+from which depend some yellowish-brown curtains; the
+brown carpet with purplish flowers is a protest between
+the two, and the rest of the room a riot of gilt mirrors.
+It’s a room one couldn’t forget, and why provincial
+hotels cling so to brown upholstery I don’t know. They
+give the effect of being old and dirty even when they
+are—<i>perhaps</i>—new.</p>
+
+<p>The corridor has been a sounding-board since dawn,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>
+and all during the night <i>camions</i> were being driven over
+the cobblestones, and motor horns rent the darkness.
+My room looks out over an old garden. A tall, dead
+tree-trunk has immemorial ivy clinging to it, and there
+is an old round well, half covered, and beyond the gate,
+with ivy and moss-grown urns, is a street that would
+have been quiet except for the <i>camions</i>; and I can see
+a row of distinguished-looking, plain-façaded gray houses
+of another century, opposite.</p>
+
+<p>The German General Staff was lodged here before the
+battle of the Marne, the chambermaid told me, with a
+reminiscential gleam in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But you see how any one’s personal history, his little
+wants, his little habits, are ground out into something
+quite different by the war-machine. The only thing
+any one asks is strength to get through what he has to
+do. He doesn’t demand to get through in any special
+way—just get through—where so many don’t. Not to
+be so cold that you can’t use your hands or your mind,
+not to be so tired that you can’t stand, not to be so
+hungry that you are faint and useless, not to go without
+sleep till you don’t care what happens to anybody,
+especially yourself. Life is fairly simple, and somehow
+very satisfactory, on such a basis.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>11.30 p.m.</i></p>
+
+<p>A long day, with the exception of luncheon at the
+house on the Marne and a talk in the garden, where
+Mrs. Corbin and I sat for a while under the yellow
+chestnut-tree, looking out on the brimming, jade-colored,
+slow-flowing Marne, talking of destinies, and the illusion
+of free will, by which, however, all these high deeds
+which we witness are done. And it seems to me the
+thing called Destiny resides somewhere. It isn’t a purely
+subjective affair, created out of the combination of
+qualities and opportunities of each, rather something<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
+definite and operative and immutable; but that may
+only be the way I feel about it now. I am overcome
+all the time by the relativity of everything, even of
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>The little white birch-tree has no leaves, the butterflies
+are gone, and winter is close upon the war-world.
+The gardener has been returned to his home. What
+of his sons, I wonder? He has a tender heart.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Stanton lives in the little yellow room with the
+niche and the emanations. Now she looks out on yellowing
+trees; yellow pumpkins lie in the little wet
+garden; there is a border of yellow and red nasturtiums
+and dahlias. It’s all like some stage-setting. When I
+said to her, “I hear you have the little room with the
+emanations,” she answered, “There must be something
+about it; for in spite of the fact that I am not comfortable,
+I don’t dislike it.”</p>
+
+<p>I wondered again what soul had inhabited within
+those four walls and if the niche had been an altar,
+and to what god, as I walked along in a sudden cold
+mist that began to envelope Châlons.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Since 10 o’clock.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have been swept about by varying tides of blue-clad
+men. Some thought the <i>cantine épatante</i>, others
+thought sadly and remarked loudly that so much money
+being spent on an installation meant that the war was
+going to last indefinitely. “<i>C’est trop long</i>” one thin,
+blond man, with deep-set eyes and bright spots on his
+cheeks, kept repeating, till one of his friends in unrepeatable
+<i>poilu</i> terms told him to “leave the camp.”</p>
+
+<p>Concert in the afternoon, the usual number of extremely
+good <i>diseurs</i>. In the Salle de Récréation, where
+it was held, are reclining-chairs and writing-tables.
+When I told one not very young <i>poilu</i> that there <i>was</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>
+such a heaven, he, too, answered, “<i>Alors la guerre va
+durer longtemps, si l’on fait tout cela pour ceux qui
+restent</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Tonzin has converted those old railway
+sheds into something most artistic. The walls are
+painted cream with strips of pale blue; conventionalized
+fruit-filled baskets and designs of flowery wreaths decorate
+them at intervals. The great roof has drapings
+of white muslin, and square, engarlanded shades make
+the light shine softly on the blue-clad men coming and
+going, coming and going.</p>
+
+<p>On the counter are small green bushes. One homesick-eyed
+gardener <i>poilu</i> from Marseilles, having felt
+them, wondered what they would do if watered. “<i>Les
+pauvres! Chez nous sont grands comme ça</i>,” and he
+raised his hand toward the roof.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Toi, grand serin</i>,” remarked his comrade; “<i>tu vois
+tout toujours dix fois grandeur naturelle</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon they began the inevitable dispute. I
+heard the words “<i>gueuleton</i>,” “<i>qu’est-ce que t’as au bec</i>,”
+and the Marseillais finally calling out, as they retreated,
+that he thanked God <i>he</i> hadn’t been born at
+Caen.</p>
+
+<p>All is so orderly and the jokes mostly relatable. Only
+when they are somewhat <i>allumés</i> do they get on the
+subject of the eternal feminine, and then the dots are
+put on the i’s, regarding her rôle on the natural plane.
+But even then there is generally some <i>copain</i> to say,
+“<i>Ferme ta gueule</i>,” or “<i>Que veux-tu que les mees sachent
+de tout cela?</i>” The legend being that the canteens are
+served almost exclusively by vestals.</p>
+
+<p>When holding out their “quarts,” they often ask,
+longingly, “<i>Pas de cogneau; pas de gniole?</i>”<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> When I
+answered once, “<i>Pas de pinard<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> ici</i>,” the <i>poilu</i> cried<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>
+back, “<i>Mais le ‘whisk’! Vous en avez toujours chez
+vous!</i>” Another delicate Anglo-Saxon reference.</p>
+
+<p>Late, in between one of the train rushes, two men
+came in, violently disputing as they stood at the
+counter:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>C’est une guerre diplomatique, je te dis, cochon, va.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Qu’est-ce que tu dis là, moi, je te dis, sale type, que c’est
+une guerre qui ne mène à rien!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>C’est la même chose, nom de—— —nom de—— —t’es
+bête, espèce d’acrobate</i>,” etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>Another comes in saying, loudly:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Cette sacrée guerre, cette sacrée guerre! Qu’est-ce que
+cela me fait que je sois boche ou Français? Suis de Roubaix,
+moi, il me faut manger du pain sec le reste de mes jours—moi
+et ma femme et mes cinq enfants.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>When I gave him his cup of steaming <i>jus</i> (coffee), he
+poured into it, from his <i>bidon</i>, a few drops of <i>gniole</i>, and
+by the time he got to the door he was singing the well-known
+refrain:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Je fus vacciné,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Inoculé,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Quatr’ fois piqué ...</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then a train arrived, the great room was flooded
+again, and no time for anything except to ask, “<i>Avez-vous
+votre quart?</i>” (the tin cup) our bowls having given out
+during the rush; or, “<i>Prenez votre billet à la caisse</i>,” or, in
+order to relieve the congestion at <i>la caisse</i>, one takes
+their ten centimes and pours and pours and pours, or
+indicates the end of the counter, where the <i>repas complet</i>,
+consisting of soup, meat, vegetable, and salad, is served.
+<i>Boudin</i> with potatoes (a hundred yards of this dark
+“blood-sausage,” curled up in boxes before being cooked,
+is an awful sight), or hash with potatoes, they love, but
+one and all hate macaroni with a deep hatred. Sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
+it is served when the potatoes give out, and they
+don’t conceal their distaste. They get too much cold
+macaroni in the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>It’s always the ones who speak English who have the
+worst manners. One rather nice-looking individual
+came up to the <i>repas complet</i> counter, saying: “I’m in
+a ’urry. Got no waiters? Step live.’” No <i>un</i>corrupted
+Frenchman, even half-seas over, would dream of such
+a form of address!</p>
+
+<p>Lots of tiny, yellow Annamites in to-day, sounding just
+the way they look and looking just the way they sound.
+One brought back his salad-plate (accidents will happen
+in the best canteens) with a little worm a-move upon its
+edge, and he made some unintelligible sounds. When
+I thoughtlessly asked a <i>poilu</i> what he was saying, the
+<i>poilu</i>, quite unembarrassed, proceeded to tell me, but
+<i>I</i> can’t tell <i>you</i>! It must go no further.</p>
+
+<p>Lunched at the house by the Marne, where we talk
+American politics for a change, then back. One goes,
+one returns, and still they flood the vast room, and one
+continues the book of the <i>cantine</i>, bound in its horizon
+blue, with its blood-stained, tear-sealed pages.</p>
+
+<p>A quite peculiar warming of the heart when one’s own
+khaki-clad men come in. Early in the afternoon an
+American appeared at the counter, accompanied by a
+French corporal. He had completely forgotten the
+name of his town, was driving a <i>camion</i>, and said, with
+a distressed air, “If I could only find a certain spot in
+town, I <i>could</i> get back”; and then added, with a grin,
+“I suppose you think I’m like the doctor that could
+cure fits; but I’ve got to get the fits before I can do
+anything else, and I’m late already,” he finished, anxiously.
+After giving various descriptions of various
+localities I hit on the Place de la République, “with a
+fountain with three women?” and as I explained to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+under-officer, he said, “You’ve saved little Willie’s
+life,” and hurried out.</p>
+
+<p>The names seem the difficult part. One of them,
+when I asked where he was billeted, said:</p>
+
+<p>“That’s one on me; it’s got three names; but”—and
+he beckoned to a <i>poilu</i> standing near—“this is a pal of
+mine. When I give him three knocks on the shoulder
+he gives the name.”</p>
+
+<p>The <i>poilu</i> didn’t wait for even the first knock before
+he said, “Demanges-aux-Eaux,” and then the American
+treated him to chocolate and offered him a “Lucky
+Strike” cigarette and began some exotic pronunciation
+of Demanges-aux-Eaux.</p>
+
+<p>There’s always one special thing in every situation in
+life that comes hard. Now I must confess that whenever
+I have to take a damp, dark-brown cloth in my hand
+and mop up puddles of spilled chocolate and coffee from
+the tiled counter, I feel an invincible repugnance. To-day
+four Americans came in together. A nice, tall,
+evidently perceptive one said, unexpectedly:</p>
+
+<p>“Just give me that rag.”</p>
+
+<p>As I gratefully surrendered the clammy thing he
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>“I will be here all the afternoon and you’ll find me
+mopping any time you like.” He subsequently ordered
+four fried eggs apiece for himself and a <i>poilu</i>, and then
+took a whole box of the little sweet round biscuits that
+we were selling rather gingerly by twos and threes, came
+back from time to time for bowls of chocolate, when he
+would cheerfully mop the counter for me. Finally I said:</p>
+
+<p>“What is your name?”</p>
+
+<p>And he answered: “Smith. There’re a few of us,”
+he added, and then with a twinkle, “but I’m John.
+Now what do you say to a swap?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m Mrs. O’Shaughnessy.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I bet I spot you. I was in Mexico last summer.
+Say, wasn’t your husband mixed up with old Huerta?”</p>
+
+<p>I had to answer “yes” to this version of history.</p>
+
+<p>“I wasn’t much on dust when I was down there, but
+there’s too much water here. However,” he continued,
+cheerfully, “we’ve got to tin the Teut or he’ll tin us.”
+Then he added, in a confidential voice: “What do you
+think of the war? I get mixed sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>I had noticed a small amethyst ring in the shape of
+a pansy on one of his large fingers as he was mopping,
+so, after disposing of his question in the briefest and
+most effective way by remarking that it was “up to
+us all” to do every bit we could to win the war, to
+which he agreed, I asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Are you engaged?”</p>
+
+<p>“To one beaut,” he answered, without an instant’s
+hesitation. “Met her in San Antonio last summer,
+but I guess she’s the kind that waits. Gee! they were
+around her like flies, but I shoo’d ’em all off.”</p>
+
+<p>And he pulled out the picture of a girl with large dark
+eyes half hidden in love-locks, and showing a lot of
+white teeth between pleasure-ready lips. What appeared
+of her person was clad in the most “peek-a-boo”
+of blouses, and there was a twist of white tulle
+about it all. I wondered if she was the “kind that
+waits.” I had a sudden affection for John Smith, thinking,
+however, as he passed out of the door, that his
+identification disk would be more definite than his
+name, and then, for an instant, I pondered on the
+supremely elemental thing he’s come for.</p>
+
+<p>Damp, cold night had fallen on Châlons, but the
+canteen was warm and cheery, and the men who knew
+little of warmth and cheer were sitting about in a moment’s
+comfort, and there came to mind a canteen I
+know (oh, far away!) which is presided over by a lady<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+with a mustache like a majordomo, and there are no
+night hours in her canteen. She rings an inexorable
+bell at the chaste hour of 9.30, and, rainy or dry, warm
+or cold, out they go, the <i>poilus</i>. Some one with a compassionate
+heart remarked to one of the men on a pouring
+night, as the bell was ringing, “I am sorry you must
+go.” He answered, with a glance at the ringer and a
+twist of <i>his</i> mustache: “It’s well to choose them that
+way. It quiets us.” And he went off singing, “<i>Depuis
+le jour où je me suis donnée</i>.” It was too funny....</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Friday, October 19th.</i></p>
+
+<p>A tightening of the heart at leaving that flooding
+hall—going out again to pick up the personal life, inconsequential
+as it now seems. One is hypnotized by
+the stream of humanity, drawn into its vortex, finally
+rushing along with it, who knows whence or whither.
+I jerked myself back by saying, “This is not my bit,”
+and, “Each one to his own.” There are many ways of
+helping win the war.</p>
+
+<p>I saw for a moment General Goïgoux, just back from
+his <i>permission</i>, so solicitous for the welfare of his men,
+so pleased with the results of the canteen, smiling as he
+said to me:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Eh bien, Madame, cela a fait des progrès depuis votre
+dernière visite.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>There is a quite wonderful entente, and appreciation,
+on both sides in Châlons.</p>
+
+<p>I went back into the canteen, and found some <i>poilus</i>
+in fits of laughter over a black cat. Now what a black
+cat evokes in the mind of the <i>poilu</i> I can only suspect;
+I don’t quite know. Anyway, it’s something that
+“makes to laugh”; and our black cat, strayed in weeks
+ago from who knows where, and perched near a devoted
+lady of unmistakable respectability, lately arrived<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span>
+to help “save France,” furthermore enveloped in a
+gray sweater (it’s cold and draughty where she sits behind
+the small aperture selling tickets for coffee, chocolate,
+and <i>repas complets</i>), and not in her nature playful,
+seems somehow suggestive to the <i>poilu</i>. Even when it
+perches on the counter by the coffee-jugs it’s the same.
+We don’t like to get rid of it; it’s supposed to bring
+good luck. However, enough, or perhaps too little,
+about the black cat.</p>
+
+<p>There is a <i>surveillant</i> supposed to keep order. He is
+rarely needed, and if he does say anything, he gets an
+“<i>Embusqué!</i>” thrown at him, between the eyes. It’s
+not the day of the civilian employee. This one spends
+a good deal of time eating and not paying, and nobody
+loves him. There is a favorite story of the <i>poilu</i> saluting
+a common or garden variety of policeman, thinking
+he was a corporal; and when telling of his mistake afterward
+he called it “<i>le plus malheureux jour de mavie</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>A hitch in the serving of the <i>complete repasts</i>. I
+looked into the kitchen to see if things couldn’t be hurried
+up. The group that met my eyes, of the cook
+and her assistant wrestling with yards of blood-sausage,
+could have been the female pendant to the Laocoön.
+It was awful. As I turned back to the counter I heard
+this bit of conversation between two <i>poilus</i> waiting for
+their meal:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Tu sais</i>, when a Canadian sees wood he goes wild.
+He’ll chop up anything from a roadside cross to a baby-carriage.
+They say it is because of his forests. At
+—— last spring they took the balusters out of the house
+where they were quartered, and that pretty Jeanne
+you’ve heard about—<i>un amour, je te dis</i>—fell down in
+the dark and was killed.”</p>
+
+<p>“Each one has his <i>manie</i>,” answered his friend, in
+perfect tolerance. “<i>Mais moi, je ne toucherais pas à<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+une croix.</i>” And he proceeded to cross himself at the
+bare thought.</p>
+
+<p>A colonel whose name I don’t remember took me into
+the garden to see the kiosks that I had so often indicated
+when the men asked for <i>pinard</i> or <i>tabac</i>. The <i>guignol</i>
+that I had seen at the camouflage grounds in July was
+in place; beyond was the huge bomb-proof shelter built
+by German prisoners to contain 2,000 men in case of
+<i>avion</i> attack. We took a few steps into its black, moist
+intricacies. As I came up I found myself close to a
+group of some thirty German prisoners being marched
+past to work on a cement emplacement for a gun, the
+large P.G.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> stamped on their backs, and wearing their
+small round caps with the red stripe, and any kind of
+clothes. I felt for a moment like an illustration for
+Cæsar’s <i>Commentaries</i>, or some sort of a Roman watching
+northern prisoners being marched by.</p>
+
+<p>The officer who showed me about was one of the
+twenty-seven men who escaped from the Fort de Vaux,
+and had lost his only child on Hill 304.</p>
+
+<p>“I was wounded, and I’m not yet worth much, which
+is why I am here. My boy was only twenty-one—<i>mais
+c’était une personne faite</i>—a leader of men. All,
+with those qualities, go; I am not alone, alas! in my
+<i>douleur</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>And that is one of the beautiful things of this sorrowful
+epoch. Each thinks upon the others’ grief....
+And then I left it all.</p>
+
+<p>The jade-colored Marne is flat, eddyless, brimming
+over with its autumn rains, the reeds have disappeared,
+the trunks of the willows are hidden. Over the gray
+bridge flows, unabated, that other stream of war and
+life. <i>Camions</i>, ambulances, smart red-and-white-marked
+staff automobiles, soldiers in every conceivable state<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+of soul and body, “enduring their going hence even as
+their coming hither.” English, Americans, Senegalese,
+Annamites—a dozen races swell this Gallic flood, and
+the Gray Sisters never so busy since the world began.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>January 7th, 1918</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I am waiting to know from one of the most charming
+of the sons of Gaul, who has promised to be my intercessor
+before the powers that be, whether I am to go to
+my front—our front—now or not. If, as Amiel says, “<i>Être
+prêt, c’est partir</i>,” then I am already off.</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">FINIS</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Killed 10th November, 1915, at Zagora, at the head of his battalion.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Planted so that any vista represents the Roman numeral V.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Like porcelain dogs.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Verdun, the Virdunum of the Romans. In the third century a bishopric
+was founded there with Saint Saintin as first bishop; 843, the treaty
+of Verdun; after the battle of Fontanet the three sons of Louis the
+Debonair, Lothair, Louis of Bavaria, and Charles the Bald, divided the
+empire of Charlemagne, with the result that not only was France
+separated from Germania, but her natural boundaries, the Alps and the
+Rhine, were lost; 1792, the Prussians besieged it in force and it was
+obliged to capitulate after two days; 1870, a heroic defense lasting
+nearly three months ending in capitulation; 1916, <i>Ils n’ont pas passé, ils
+ne passeront pas</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Neuvième série.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Alan Seeger, <i>Letters and Diary</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Regimental decoration in the form of a cord worn over the left
+shoulder, passing under the arm.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> The <i>sauf-conduits</i> for the army zones are in the form of little, red,
+paper-bound books.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> “<i>La Pioggia nel Pineto.</i>”—<span class="smcap">D’Annunzio.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> In <i>L’Horizon</i> I found these lines from Verlaine, with a few added,
+concerning <i>le Cafard</i>, by “Bi Bi Bi”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Quelle est cette douleur</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Qui pénètre mon cœur?</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>C’est bien la pire peine</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>De ne savoir pourquoi</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sans amour et sans haine</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mon cœur a tant de peine.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>En effet, cher Verlaine,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>C’est bien la pire peine</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Que ta fameuse peine</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Et les poilus sans art</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>La nomment le Cafard.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But <i>le Cafard</i> differs from Verlaine’s <i>peine</i> in that it is a very special
+kind of world-pain, and very complete; for those in its grip know <i>why</i>,
+as well as <i>not</i> why, they suffer. The memory of loved and early things,
+very probably not to be known again, is part of it. The consciously unreasonable
+hope that all will be well in an extremely uncertain future
+is another part of it—and underlying it is crushing physical fatigue,
+sleeplessness, hunger, cold, heat, the whole smeared in the blood of
+brothers and foes, the dull reaction after killing, or escape from being
+killed—one can’t feel that there is anything vague about <i>le Cafard</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Cook.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Gondrecourt, the first American encampment in Lorraine.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> During the closing days of February, 1918, the air raids on Nancy
+were so continuous and so disastrous that Molitor had to be evacuated
+and the inmates, the aged and the children, were redistributed in other
+parts of France. These words are quite simple to write and to read.
+Their significance is beyond expression.</p>
+
+<p class="right">March, 1918, E. O’S.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> She received ten refusals for the dinner she was giving the next night;
+among them one from Talleyrand, which caused a permanent rupture in
+their relations.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> Governor-General of Morocco.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> The American Red Cross Asylum at Luxembourg (Toul), now under
+the very able management of Dr. Maynard Ladd, has accommodations
+for nearly a thousand children, well and ill, and a maternity hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The American forces hold the line to the northwest of Toul.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Her epitaph, written by herself, is to the effect that underneath lies a
+rotting worm, giving to death the tribute of nature, the earth her only
+covering, and begging her sisters, the Poor Clares, to say for her a <i>Requiescat
+in pace</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ci-gist un ver tout en pourriture,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Donnant à mort le tribut de la nature.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sœur Philippe de Gueldre fust Royne du passé,</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Terre soulat pour toute couverture.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Sœurs, dites-lui une requiescat in pace.</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right"><i>MDXLVII.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Madame du Châtelet, around whose death-bed three men met in fraternal
+tolerance, Voltaire, St.-Lambert, and her husband, was buried here
+September 11, 1749. In 1793 the tomb was profaned, the lead coffin
+stolen, the bones scattered. In 1858 they were gathered up and put in a
+modern coffin in which they now repose. She said of herself: “<i>J’ai reçu
+de Dieu une de ces âmes tendres et immuables qui ne savent ni déguiser ni modérer
+leurs passions; qui ne connaissent ni l’affaiblissement ni le dégoût, et dont
+la ténacité sait résister à tout, même à la certitude de n’être pas aimée....
+Mais un cœur aussi tendre, peut-il être rempli par un sentiment aussi paisible
+et aussi faible que l’amitié?</i>”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> “<i>Faut pas s’en faire</i>” is one of the most famous phrases of the
+French army, and has been described as a combination of two slang expressions,
+“To keep your hair on, <i>de ne pas se faire des cheveux</i>,” and
+“not to hurt your digestion by undue worry, <i>de ne pas se faire de la bile</i>.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> René de Châlons, Prince of Orange, killed in 1544, at the siege of St.-Dizier.
+The genius of Ligier Richier has represented him according to
+his wish, as his body might have appeared three years <i>after</i> death.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Slacker, pig, dirty-one, cow!</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Cognac.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> wine.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> <i>Prisonnier de Guerre.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75744 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this book outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #75744 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75744)