I went back to the
Presbytere.

"Presently, furious sounds of blows from the _place_. I went out. I saw
some enemy cyclists, armed with fragments of stone, breaking in one of
the cathedral doors, another, with a hatchet, attacking the belfry door.
At the sight of me, they rushed at me with their revolvers, demanding
that I should take them to the top of the belfry. 'You have a machine
gun there!' 'Nothing of the sort, monsieur. See for yourselves.' I
unlocked the door, and just as I put my foot on the first step, the
fusillade in the town began. The soldiers started. 'You are our
prisoner!' cried their chief, turning to me, as though to seize me.

"'I know it. You have me in your hands.' I went up before them, as
quickly as my age allowed. They searched everywhere, and, of course,
found nothing. They ran down and disappeared."

But that was not the end of the Abbe's trouble. He was presently sent
for to the German Headquarters, at the Hotel du Grand Cerf, where the
table spread for thirty people, by the order of M. Odent, was still
waiting for its guests. The conversation here between the Cure and the
officer of high rank who spoke to him is worth repeating. From the tenor
of it, the presumption is that the officer was a Catholic--probably
a Bavarian.

"I asked leave to go back to the Presbytere.

"'Better stay here, Monsieur le Cure. You will be safer. The burning is
going on. To-morrow, your town will be only a heap of ruins.'

"'What is our crime?'

"'Listen to that fusillade. Your inhabitants are attacking us, as they
did at Louvain. Louvain has ceased to exist! We will make of Senlis
another Louvain, so that Paris and France may know how we treat those
who may imitate you. We have found small shot (_chevrotines_) in the
body of one of our officers.'

"'Already?'--I thought. How had there been any time for the post-mortem?
But I was too crushed to speak.

"'And also from your belfry we have been fired on!'

"At that I recovered myself.

"'Sir--what may have passed in the streets, I cannot say. But as to the
cathedral I formally deny your charge. Since war broke out, I have
always had the keys of the belfry. I did not even give them to your
soldiers, who made me take them there. Do you wish me to swear it?'

"The officer looked at me.

"'No need. You are a Catholic priest. I see you are sincere.'

"I bowed."

A scene that throws much light! A false charge--an excited reference to
Louvain--monstrou