is much more concerned with the task of clothing and feeding Gerbeviller.  For two thirds of the population have already “come home”—­that is what they call the return to this desert!  “You see,” Soeur Julie explained, “there are the crops to sow, the gardens to tend.  They had to come back.  The government is building wooden shelters for them; and people will surely send us beds and linen.”  (Of course they would, one felt as one listened!) “Heavy boots, too—­boots for field-labourers.  We want them for women as well as men—­like these.”  Soeur Julie, smiling, turned up a hob-nailed sole.  “I have directed all the work on our Hospice farm myself.  All the women are working in the fields—­we must take the place of the men.”  And I seemed to see my pink peonies flowering in the very prints of her sturdy boots!

May 14th.

Nancy, the most beautiful town in France, has never been as beautiful as now.  Coming back to it last evening from a round of ruins one felt as if the humbler Sisters sacrificed to spare it were pleading with one not to forget them in the contemplation of its dearly-bought perfection.

The last time I looked out on the great architectural setting of the Place Stanislas was on a hot July evening, the evening of the National Fete.  The square and the avenues leading to it swarmed with people, and as darkness fell the balanced lines of arches and palaces sprang out in many coloured light.  Garlands of lamps looped the arcades leading into the Place de la Carriere, peacock-coloured fires flared from the Arch of Triumph, long curves of radiance beat like wings over the thickets of the park, the sculptures of the fountains, the brown-and-gold foliation of Jean Damour’s great gates; and under this roofing of light was the murmur of a happy crowd carelessly celebrating the tradition of half-forgotten victories.

Now, at sunset, all life ceases in Nancy and veil after veil of silence comes down on the deserted Place and its empty perspectives.  Last night by nine the few lingering lights in the streets had been put out, every window was blind, and the moonless night lay over the city like a canopy of velvet.  Then, from some remote point, the arc of a search-light swept the sky, laid a fugitive pallor on darkened palace-fronts, a gleam of gold on invisible gates, trembled across the black vault and vanished, leaving it still blacker.  When we came out of the darkened restaurant on the corner of the square, and the iron curtain of the entrance had been hastily dropped on us, we stood in such complete night that it took a waiter’s friendly hand to guide us to the curbstone.  Then, as we grew used to the darkness, we saw it lying still more densely under the colonnade of the Place de la Carriere and the clipped trees beyond.  The ordered masses of architecture became august, the spaces between them immense, and the black sky faintly strewn with stars seemed to overarch an enchanted city.  Not a footstep sounded, not a leaf rustled, not a breath of air drew under the arches.  And suddenly, through the dumb night, the sound of the cannon began.