The doors being gone, one could look in, over the temporary barrier, to the wreck inside, and by putting a donation into the contribution box for the restauration fund it was possible to enter—­at one’s own risk—­by a side door.  It was hardly worth while, as one could see no more than was visible from the doorways, and it looked as if at any minute the whole edifice would crumble.  However, Amelie wanted to go inside, and so we did.

We entered through the mairie, which is at one side, into a small courtyard, where the school children were playing under the propped-up walls as gaily as if there had never been a bombardment.

The mairie had fared little better than the church, and the schoolroom, which has its home in it, had a temporary roofing, the upper part being wrecked.

The best idea that I got of the destruction was, however, from a house almost opposite the church.  It was only a shell, its walls alone standing.  As its windows and doors had been blown out, we could look in from the street to the interior of what had evidently been a comfortable country house.  It was now like an uncovered box, in the centre of which there was a conical shaped heap of ashes as high as the top of the fireplace.  We could see where the stairs had been, but its entire contents had been burned down to a heap of ashes—­burned as thoroughly as wood in a fireplace.  I could not have believed in such absolute destruction if I had not seen it.

While we were gazing at the wreck I noticed an old woman leaning against the wall and watching us.  Out of her weather-beaten, time-furrowed old face looked a pair of dark eyes, red-rimmed and blurred with much weeping.  She was rubbing her distorted old hands together nervously as she watched us.  It was inevitable that I should get into conversation with her, and discover that this wreck had been, for years, her home, that she had lived there all alone, and that everything she had in the world—­her furniture, her clothing, and her savings—­had been burned in the house.

You can hardly understand that unless you know these people.  They keep their savings hidden.  It is the well-known old story of the French stocking which paid the war indemnity of 1870.  They have no confidence in banks.  The State is the only one they will lend to, and the fact is one of the secrets of French success.

If you knew these people as I do, you would understand that an old woman of that peasant type, ignorant of the meaning of war, would hardly be likely to leave her house, no matter how many times she was ordered out, until shells began to fall about her.  Even then, as she was rather deaf, she probably did not realize what was happening, and went into the street in such fear that she left everything behind her.

From Barcy we drove out into the plain, and took the direction of Chambry, following the line of the great and decisive fight of September 6 and 7.