of soap,
playing cards and songs. Oh, lighthearted sons of France, it can be
truly said that death held no terrors for you, since from Barcy to
Soissons the ground you loved and so valiantly defended was strewn white
with hundreds of thousands of tender ditties and _chansons de route_.

From Vareddes we passed on to Congis, the only living soul we met being
a little old white-haired parish priest, who had set himself the task of
blessing each new-made grave.

"If this rain continues some of them will be so effaced in a fortnight
that we shall never find them. See--this cross is but two bits of
straw, bound together by a shoe string!"

And he held up the fragile ornament for my inspection.

"These are more durable," and he showed another relic made of a bayonet
sheath, crossed on the blade itself!

"And you--Monsieur le Cure--bow is it you are here?"

"Alas--would to God they had taken me in the place of our boys! Seven
of them, Madame, carried off as hostages. I was too old to be of use!"

"And the women?"

The poor little man hung his bead.

"Twere better they had died!"

I understood and shuddered.

"God speed you, my daughter, and never cease to thank Him for preserving
you!"

Again we went our way.

Lizy-sur-Ourq, which we reached in the late forenoon, presented a more
animated, though hardly more pleasing spectacle. On the tracks in front
of the station dozens of flat cars and freight trains had been purposely
run together. Some had telescoped, others mounted high in piles, one
upon the other, their locomotives as well as their contents being
smashed and damaged--the whole scene presenting the aspect of a gigantic
railway wreck.

On the steps of the station, seated gun in hand, three soldiers sat
playing a game of cards. Across the street a sentry mounted guard in
front of a large door over which floated a Red Cross flag.

"What's in there?" I asked.

"Prisoners and wounded."

"Can I be of any assistance?"

"Hardly--only flesh wounds."

I peeked into the courtyard.

In one corner lounging upon the ground were a dozen untidy, unshaven
men, whom I recognized by their uniforms to be Germans. One man cast an
insolent glance toward me and turned his back. Two others smiled and
pointed toward the bread they held in their hands. On some straw in a
couple of drays lay five or six individuals, their arms in slings, their
heads bandaged.

"Nothing serious," explained a sergeant. "We're