But—­the Kaiser was not there!  Even Colonel Buchan in his admirable history of the war, and Major Whitton in his recent book on the campaign of the Marne, repeat the current legend.  I can only bear witness that the two French staff officers who walked with us along the Grand Couronne—­one of whom had been in the battle of September 8th—­were positive that the Kaiser was not in the neighbourhood at the time, and that there was no truth at all in the famous story which describes him as watching the battle from the edge of the Forest of Champenoux, and riding off ahead of his defeated troops, instead of making, as he had reckoned, a triumphant entry into Nancy.  Well, it is a pity the gods did not order it so!—­“to be a tale for those that should come after.”

One more incident before we leave Lorraine!  On our way up to the high village of Amance, we had passed some three or four hundred French soldiers at work.  They looked with wide eyes of astonishment at the two ladies in the military car.  When we reached the village, Prince R——­, the young staff officer from a neighbouring Headquarters who was to meet us there, had not arrived, and we spent some time in a cottage, chatting with the women who lived in it.  Then—­apparently—­while we were on the ridge word reached the men working below, from the village, that we were English.  And on the drive down we found them gathered, three or four hundred, beside the road, and as we passed them they cheered us heartily, seeing in us, for the moment, the British alliance!

So that we left the Grand Couronne with wet eyes, and hearts all passionate sympathy towards Lorraine and her people.

No. 10

June 1st, 1917.

DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,—­In looking back over my two preceding letters, I realise how inadequately they express the hundredth part of that vast and insoluble debt of a guilty Germany to an injured France, the realisation of which became—­for me—­in Lorraine, on the Ourcq, and in Artois, a burning and overmastering thing, from which I was rarely or never free.  And since I returned to England on March 16th, the conduct of the German troops, under the express orders of the German Higher Command, in the French districts evacuated since February by Hindenburg’s retreating forces, has only sharpened and deepened the judgment of civilised men, with regard to the fighting German and all his ways, which has been formed long since, beyond alteration or recall.

Think of it!  It cries to heaven.  Think of Reims and Arras, of Verdun and Ypres, think of the hundreds of towns and villages, the thousands of individual houses and farms, that lie ruined on the old soil of France; think of the sufferings of the helpless and the old, the hideous loss of life, of stored-up wealth, of natural and artistic beauty; and then let us ask ourselves again the old, old question—­why has this happened?  And let us go back again to