The hill of Leomont, and the many graves upon it, were quiet enough as we stood talking there.  The old farm was in ruins; and in the fields stretching up the hill there were the remains of trenches.  All around and below us spread the beautiful Lorraine country, with its rivers and forests; and to the south-east one could just see the blue mass of Mont Donon, and the first spurs of the Vosges.

“Can you show me exactly where the French line runs?” I asked my companion.  He pointed to a patch of wood some six miles away.  “There is a French battalion there.  And you see that other patch of wood a little farther east?  There is a German battalion there.  Ah!” Suddenly he broke off, and the younger officer with us, Capitaine de B——­, came running up, pointing overhead.  I craned my neck to look into the spring blue above us, and there—­7,000 to 8,000 feet high, according to the officers—­were three Boche aeroplanes pursued by two French machines.  In and out a light band of white cloud, the fighters in the air chased each other, shrapnel bursting all round them like tufts of white wool.  They were so high that they looked mere white specks.  Yet we could follow their action perfectly—­how the Germans climbed, before running for home, and how the French pursued!  It was breathless while it lasted!  But we did not see the end.  The three Taubes were clearly driven back; and in a few seconds they and the Frenchmen had disappeared in distance and cloud towards the fighting-line.  The following day, at a point farther to the north, a well-known French airman was brought down and killed, in just such a fight.

Beyond Leomont we diverged westward from the main road, and found ourselves suddenly in one of those utterly ruined villages which now bestrew the soil of Northern, Central, and Eastern France; of that France which has been pre-eminently for centuries, in spite of revolutions, the pious and watchful guardian of what the labour of dead generations has bequeathed to their sons.  Vitrimont, however, was destroyed in fair fight during the campaign of 1914.  Bombardment had made wreck of the solid houses, built of the warm red stone of the country.  It had destroyed the church, and torn up the graveyard; and when its exiled inhabitants returned to it by degrees, even French courage and French thrift quailed before the task of reconstruction.  But presently there arrived a quiet American lady, who began to make friends with the people of Vitrimont, to find out what they wanted, and to consult with all those on the spot who could help to bring the visions in her mind to pass,—­with the Prefet, with the officials, local and governmental, of the neighbouring towns, with the Catholic women of the richer Lorraine families, gentle, charitable, devout, who quickly perceived her quality, and set themselves to co-operate with her.  It was the American lady’s intention—­simply—­to rebuild Vitrimont.  And she is steadily accomplishing it, with the help of generous money subsidies coming, month by month, from one rich American woman—­a woman of San Francisco—­across the Atlantic.  How one envies that American woman!