“What do you do when there is shelling?” asked M. Doumer.

“If it is bad we go into the cellar,” was the answer; an answer which implied that peculiar fearlessness of women, who get accustomed to fire easier than men.  These were the fatalists of the town, who would not turn refugee; helpless to fight, but grimly staying with their homes and accepting what came with an incomprehensible stoicism, which possibly had its origin in a race-feeling so proud and bitter that they would not admit that they could be afraid of anything German, even a shell.

“And how did the Germans act?”

“They made themselves at home in our houses and slept in our beds, while we slept in the kitchen,” she answered.  “They said that if we kept indoors and gave them what they wanted we should not be harmed.  But if anyone fired a shot at their troops or any arms were found in our houses, they would burn the town.  When they were going back in a great hurry—­how they scattered from our shells!  We went out in the square to see our shells, monsieur!”

What mattered the ruins of her home?  “Our” shells had returned vengeance.

Arrows with directions in German, “This way to the river,” “This way to Villers-Cotteret,” were chalked on the standing walls; and on door-casings the names of the detachments of the Prussian Guard billeted there, all in systematic Teutonic fashion.

“Prince Albrecht Joachim, one of the Kaiser’s sons, was here and I talked with him,” said the Mayor, who thought we would enjoy a morsel from court circles in exchange for a copy of the Echo de Paris, which contained the news that Prince Albrecht had been wounded later.  The Mayor looked tired, this local man of the people, who had to play the shepherd of a stricken flock.  Afterwards, they said that he deserted his charge and a lady, Mme. Macherez, took his place.  All I know is that he was present that day; or, at least, a man who was introduced to me as mayor; and he was French enough to make a bon mot by saying that he feared there was some fault in his hospitality because he had been unable to keep his guest.

“May I have this confiture?” asked a battle-stained French orderly, coming up to him.  “I found it in that ruined house there—­all the Germans had left.  I haven’t had a confiture for a long time, and, monsieur, you cannot imagine what a hunger I have for confitures.”

All the while the French battery kept on firing slowly, then again rapidly, their cracks trilling off like the drum of knuckles on a table-top.  Another effort to locate one of the guns before we started back to Paris failed.  Speeding on, we had again a glimpse of the landscape toward Noyon, sprinkled with shell-bursts.  The reserves were around their camp-fires making savoury stews for the evening meal.  They would sleep where night found them on the sward under the stars, as in wars of old.  That scene remains indelible as one of many while the army was yet mobile, before the contest became one of the mole and the beaver.