perhaps in the old days or frank materialists—­watched him curiously and were thoughtful after their watchfulness.  It was easy to see that he was eager to give up his life as a sacrifice to the God of his faith.  His courage had something supernatural in it, and he was careless of death.  Then, again, he was the best comrade in the company.  Never a grumble came from his lips, though he was as cold and wet and hungry as the others.  He did a thousand little acts of service to his fellow soldiers, and especially to those who were most sullen, most brutal or most miserable.  He spoke sometimes of the next life with a cheerful certainty which made death seem less than an end of things, and he was upborne with a strange fervour which gave a kind of glory to the most wretched toil.

Not a week passed without some priest being cited in the Order of the Day.

“Corporal Delabre Alphonse (priest of the diocese of Puy) and Private Miolane Antoine (priest of the diocese of Clermont) belonging to the 292nd Regiment of Infantry, distinguished themselves throughout the battle by an untiring gallantry and devotion, going to collect the wounded in the line and afterwards spending their nights in assisting the wounded and dying.”

That is one notice out of hundreds which I had in official documents.

“M. l’Abbe Martin,” says another, “having been wounded in the hand by a bursting shell, remained at his post in the line of fire, prodigal in his help to the wounded and in his consolations to the dying.”

The Abbe Bertrand, vicar of St. Germain de Coulamer, was mobilized on the outbreak of war, and for his gallantry in the field promoted successively to the ranks of sergeant, sergeant-major, sub-lieutenant, and lieutenant.  He fell on November 4 at the battle of Audrechy, leading his men to the assault.  A few days before his death he wrote:  “I always look upon this war as an expiation, and I am proud to be a victim.”  And again:  “Oh, how cold the rain is, and how severe the weather I For our faith in France I have offered God to let me be wet and soaked to the very bones.”

The story of the Abbe Armand, in the 14th battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins, is that of a hero.  A simple man, he used to open his heart to his rough comrades, and often in the trenches, under shell-fire, he would recite the Psalms in a clear voice so that they could hear him.  On November 17, to the south of Ypres, his company was selected to hold a dangerous position, swept by the heavy guns of the Germans and near the enemy’s trenches.  All day until the evening the priest and his comrades stayed there, raked by a hideous shell-fire.  At last nearly all the men were killed, and on his side of the emplacement the Abbe Armand was left with two men alive.  He signalled the fact to those below by raising three fingers, but shortly afterwards a bullet struck him so that he fell and another hit him in the stomach.  It was impossible to send help to him at the time, and he died half an hour later on the tumulus surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades.  They buried him up there, and that night his loss was mourned, not without tears, by many rough soldiers who had loved the man for his cheeriness, and honoured him for the simple faith, which seemed to put a glamour about the mud-stained uniform of a soldier of France.