charmed air to Brian's story of Meaux's great
romance--as she listens to all Brian's stories. It was you, Padre, who
told it to Brian, and to me, one winter night when we'd been reading
about Gaston, de Foix, "Gaston le Bel." Our talk of his exploits
brought us to Meaux, at the time of the Jacquerie, in the twelfth
century. The common people had revolted against the nobles who oppressed
them, and all the Ile-de-France--adorable name!--seethed with civil war.
In Meaux was the Duchess of Orleans, with three hundred great ladies,
most of them beautiful and young. The peasants besieged the Duchess
there, and she and her lovely companions were put to sore straits, when
suddenly arrived brave Gaston to save them. I don't quite know why he
took the trouble to come so far, from his hill-castle near the Spanish
frontier, but most likely he loved one of the shut-up ladies. Or perhaps
it was simply for love of all womanhood, since Gaston was so chivalrous
that Froissart said, "I never saw one like him of personage, nor of so
fair form, nor so well made."

From Meaux our road (we were going to make Nancy our centre and stopping
place) followed the windings of the green ribbon Marne to
Chateau-Thierry, on the river's right bank. There's a rather thrilling
ruin, that gave the town its name, and dominates it still--the ruin of a
castle which Charles Martel built for a young King Thierry. The legend
says that this boy differed from the wicked kings Thierry, sons and
grandsons of the Frankish Clovis; that he wanted to be good, but "Fate"
would not let him. Perhaps it's a judgment on those terrible Thierry
kings, who left to their enemies only the earth round their
habitations--"because it couldn't be carried away"--that the Germans
have left ruins in Chateau-Thierry more cruel than those of the
crumbling castle. In seven September days they added more _monuments
historiques_ than a thousand years had given the ancient Marne city.

Jim Beckett had written his mother all about the town, and sent postcard
pictures of its pride, the fortress-like, fifteenth-century church with
a vast tower set upon a height. He liked Chateau-Thierry because Jean de
la Fontaine was born there, and called it "a peaceful-looking place,
just right for the dear fable-maker, who was so child-like and
sweet-natured, that he deserved always to be happy, instead of for ever
in somebody's debt." A soldier having seen the wasted country at the
front, might still desc