We came across him by chance in the cathedral—­the beautiful cathedral I have heard Walter Pater describe, in my young Oxford days, as one of the loveliest and gracefullest things in French Gothic.  Fortunately, though the slender belfry and the roof were repeatedly struck by shrapnel in the short bombardment of the town, no serious damage was done.  We wandered round the church alone, delighting our eyes with the warm golden white of the stone, the height of the grooved arches, the flaming fragments of old glass, when we saw the figure of an old priest come slowly down the aisle, his arms folded.  He looked at us rather dreamily and passed.  Our guide, Monsieur P., followed and spoke to him.  “Monsieur, you are the Abbe Dourlent?”

“I am, sir.  What can I do for you?”

Something was said about English ladies, and the Cure courteously turned back.  “Will the ladies come into the Presbytere?” We followed him across the small cathedral square to the old house in which he lived, and were shown into a bare dining-room, with a table, some chairs, and a few old religious engravings on the walls.  He offered us chairs and sat down himself.

“You would like to hear the story of the German occupation?” He thought a little before beginning, and I was struck with his strong, tired face, the powerful mouth and jaw, and above them, eyes which seemed to have lost the power of smiling, though I guessed them to be naturally full of a pleasant shrewdness, of what the French call malice, which is not the English “malice.”  He was rather difficult to follow here and there, but from his spoken words and from a written account he placed in my hands, I put together the following story: 

“It was August 30th, 1914, when the British General Staff arrived in Senlis.  That same evening, they left it for Dammartin.  All day, and the next two days, French and English troops passed through the town.  What was happening?  Would there be no fighting in defence of Paris—­only thirty miles away?  Wednesday, September 2nd—­that was the day the guns began, our guns and theirs, to the north of Senlis.  But, in the course of that day, we knew finally there would be no battle between us and Paris.  The French troops were going—­the English were going.  They left us—­marching eastward.  Our hearts were very sore as we saw them go.

“Two o’clock on Wednesday—­the first shell struck the cathedral.  I had just been to the top of the belfry to see, if I could, from what direction the enemy was coming.  The bombardment lasted an hour and a half.  At four o’clock they entered.  If you had seen them!”

The old Cure raised himself on his seat, trying to imitate the insolent bearing of the German cavalry as they led the way through the old town which they imagined would be the last stage on their way to Paris.

“They came in, shouting ’Paris—­Nach Paris!’ maddened with excitement.  They were all singing—­they were like men beside themselves.”