arching on Meaux on the Aisne. He had often read
of Meaux; was it not the Bishopric of Bossuet, the stately orator of
Louis XIV? The interest he felt in the question helped to take the
weight from his weary limbs.

At last they crossed the bridge. Sappers had been at work on it for some
time, and the preparations to blow it up after they had passed were
almost complete. The first sight of interest was the railway station,
which was filled with what appeared to the Subaltern to be double-decked
trains. Evidently a French army had detrained here.

The Column swung suddenly round a corner and they were almost staggered
with the sight of the cathedral towering above them. To an eye used
exclusively to the sight of the dour British edifice, there is something
very fascinating about a foreign cathedral such as this. There is
something more daring about the style of architecture, something more
flamboyant, and yet more solid. The cathedral seemed vaguely indicative
of the past grandeur of the Catholic Church. Bathed in the early morning
sunlight it appeared to exult over the mean smallness of the houses that
clustered at its feet.

Beyond the cathedral there is nothing at all extraordinary about Meaux.
Many months afterwards one of his nurses told him in hospital that she
had spent a long time in that very street. She had been with her father,
the erstwhile Colonel of a line regiment, and a specialist in strategy,
who for the pure love of the thing had laboriously gained permission to
stay at Meaux and visit the famous battlefields of the Marne. She said
they had been in the very room where General Joffre met Field-Marshal
French, and had bought the very teapot in which their tea was brewed.
She rather wondered how many more of these "very" teapots had been sold
at fancy prices!

If Von Kluck made a forward thrust at Paris before his sidelong movement
to the south-east, it was undoubtedly made at Meaux, which was the scene
of some terrific combats.

Emerging from the town, the Column branched off in a south-easterly
direction, and ascended the sides of a very steep plateau. Having
reached the flat ground at the top, a midday halt was made in the
pleasant grounds of yet another chateau.

This fresh move was discussed a great deal as the men lay at full length
in the shade of the trees. Evidently there was to be no siege of Paris.
They were marching directly away from Paris. What did it mean? They
would get to Marseilles