A sight that at other times would have collected half of Rheims and blocked traffic, in the excitement of the bombardment failed to attract.  The Germans were using howitzers.  Where shells hit in the street they tore up the Belgian blocks for a radius of five yards, and made a hole as though a water-main had burst.  When they hit a house, that house had to be rebuilt.  Before they struck it was possible to follow the direction of the shells by the sound.  It was like the jangling of many telegraph-wires.

A hundred yards north of the cathedral I saw a house hit at the third story.  The roof was of gray slate, high and sloping, with tall chimneys.  When the shell exploded the roof and chimneys disappeared.  You did not see them sink and tumble; they merely vanished.  They had been a part of the sky-line of Rheims; then a shell removed them and another roof fifteen feet lower down became the sky-line.

I walked to the edge of the city, to the northeast, but at the outskirts all the streets were barricaded with carts and paving-stones, and when I wanted to pass forward to the French batteries the officers in charge of the barricades refused permission.  At this end of the town, held in reserve in case of a German advance, the streets were packed with infantry.  The men were going from shop to shop trying to find one the Germans had not emptied.  Tobacco was what they sought.

They told me they had been all the way to Belgium and back, but I never have seen men more fit.  Where Germans are haggard and show need of food and sleep, the French were hard and moved quickly and were smiling.

One reason for this is that even if the commissariat is slow they are fed by their own people, and when in Belgium by the Allies.  But when the Germans pass the people hide everything eatable and bolt the doors.  And so, when the German supply wagons fail to come up the men starve.

I went in search of the American consul, William Bardel.  Everybody seemed to know him, and all men spoke well of him.  They liked him because he stuck to his post, but the mayor had sent for him, and I could find neither him nor the mayor.

When I left the cathedral I had told my chauffeur to wait near by it, not believing the Germans would continue to make it their point of attack.  He waited until two houses within a hundred yards of him were knocked down, and then went away from there, leaving word with the sentry that I could find him outside the gate to Paris.  When I found him he was well outside and refused to return, saying he would sleep in his car.

On the way back I met a steady stream of women and old men fleeing before the shells.  Their state was very pitiful.  Some of them seemed quite dazed with fear and ran, dodging, from one sidewalk to the other, and as shells burst above them prayed aloud and crossed themselves.  Others were busy behind the counters of their shops serving customers, and others stood in doorways holding in their hands their knitting.  Frenchwomen of a certain class always knit.  If they were waiting to be electrocuted they would continue knitting.