ganised.

General Petain asked me at once to tell him what I desired. I asked his
permission to go to Rheims. He at once took up a paper which permitted
me to enter the war zone, and endorsed it with the request to General
Debeney in Rheims to allow me to penetrate with my companions into the
city. He then turned to me again and asked me with a knowing smile if
that was all I required--for his headquarters were hardly on the direct
road to Rheims! I hesitated to express my real wish, when my good
counsellor and friend, with whom I was making the journey, the
Commandant Jean de Pulligny, answered for me--"I feel sure it would be a
great happiness and honour if you would allow us, General, to go to
Verdun." General Petain appeared slightly surprised, and turning to me,
asked, "Do you thoroughly realise the danger? You have crossed the
Atlantic and faced submarines, but you will risk more in five minutes in
Verdun than in crossing the Atlantic a thousand times." However, seeing
that I was really anxious to go, and that it might be of great service
to me in my future work to have seen personally the defence of Verdun,
he added smilingly: "Well, then, you can go if you wish, at your own
risk and peril." He then telephoned to General Nivelle the necessary
permission for us to enter Verdun.

I doubt whether General Petain realises the respect in which he is held
in all the civilised countries of the world. Probably he does not yet
understand that people would come thousands of miles to have five
minutes' audience with him, for he inquired if we were in any hurry to
continue our journey, and added with charming simplicity--"Because if
not, and you do not mind waiting an hour, I shall be glad if you will
lunch with me."

We lunched with General Petain and his etat-major. A charming and most
interesting addition to the party was M. Forain, the famous French
caricaturist, and now one of the chief instructors of the French Army in
the art of _camouflage_--the art of making a thing look like anything in
the world except what it is! He has established a series of schools all
along the French front where the _poilus_ learn to bedeck their guns and
thoroughly disguise them under delicate shades of green and yellow, with
odd pink spots in order to relieve the monotony. Certainly the
appearance of the guns of the present time would rejoice the heart and
soul of the "Futurists." It was most interesting to hear him describe
the work in