ving some beautiful weather.

Yesterday Amelie and I took advantage of it to make a pilgrimage
across the Marne, to decorate the graves on the battlefield at
Chambry. Crowds went out on All Soul's Day, but I never like doing
anything, even making a pilgrimage, in a crowd.

You can realize how near it is, and what an easy trip it will be in
normal times, when I tell you that we left Esbly for Meaux at half past
one--only ten minutes by train--and were back in the station at Meaux
at quarter to four, and had visited Monthyon, Villeroy, Neufmontier,
Penchard, Chauconin, Barcy, Chambry, and Vareddes.

The authorities are not very anxious to have people go out there. Yet
nothing to prevent is really done. It only takes a little diplomacy. If I
had gone to ask for a passport, nine chances out of ten it would have
been refused me. I happened to know that the wife of the big livery-
stable man at Meaux, an energetic--and, incidentally, a handsome--
woman, who took over the business when her husband joined his
regiment, had a couple of automobiles, and would furnish me with all
the necessary papers. They are not taxi-cabs, but handsome touring-
cars. Her chauffeur carries the proper papers. It seemed to me a very
loose arrangement, from a military point of view, even although I was
assured that she did not send out anyone she did not know.
However, I decided to take advantage of it.

While we were waiting at the garage for the car to be got out, and the
chauffeur to change his coat, I had a chance to talk with a man who
had not left Meaux during the battle, and I learned that there were
several important families who had remained with the Archbishop and
aided him to organize matters for saving the city, if possible, and
protect the property of those who had fled, and that the measures
which those sixty citizens, with Archbishop Marbeau at their head,
took for the safety of the poor, the care for the wounded and dead, is
already one of the proudest documents in the annals of the historic
town.

But never mind all these things, which the guides will recite for you, I
imagine, when you come over to make the grand tour of Fighting
France, for on these plains about Meaux you will have to start your
pilgrimage.

I confess that my heart beat a little too rapidly when, as we ran out of
Meaux, and took the route departmentale of Senlis, a soldier stepped
to the middle of the road and held up his gun--baionette au canon.

We stop