en been my only consolation in
like times of misery and despair, oh, how I would love to comfort
you--beautiful, faithful, disconsolate Mireille!"

II

Cities, like people, seem to have souls, deep hidden and rarely ever
entirely revealed. How well must one come to know them, stone by
stone, highways, homes and habitants, ere they will disclose their
secret. I have rejoiced too often in the splendid serenity of St. Jean
des Vignes, felt too deeply the charm of those ancient streets, hoped
and suffered too intensely within its confines that Soissons should not
mean more to me than to the average zealous newspaper correspondent,
come there but to make note of its wounds, to describe its ruins.

Fair Soissons, what is now your fate? In what state shall we find you?
What ultimate destiny is reserved for your cathedral, your stately
mansions, your magnificent gardens? What has become of those fifteen
or sixteen hundred brave souls who loved you so well that they refused
to leave you? _Qui sait_?

One arrived at Soissons in war time by long avenues, shaded on either
side by a double row of stately elms, whose centenary branches
stretching upward formed an archway overhead. Then came the last
outpost of Army Police, a sentinel stopped you, minutely examined your
passports, verified their vises, and finally, all formalities
terminated, one entered what might have been the City of Death.

Moss and weeds had sprung up between the cobble stone pavings; as far
as eye could see not a human soul was astir, not a familiar noise was
to be heard, not a breath of smoke stole heavenwards from those
hundreds of idle chimneys: and yet life, tenacious ardent life was
wonderfully evident here and there. A curtain lifted as one passed, a
cat on the wall, a low distant whistle, clothes drying at a window, a
flowering plant on a balcony, sometimes a door ajar, through which one
guessed a store in whose dimly lighted depths shadows seemed to be
moving about; all these bore witness to an eager, undaunted existence,
hidden for the time being perhaps, but intense and victorious, ready to
spring forward and struggle anew in admirable battles of energy and
conscience.

The Hotel du Soleil d'Or offered a most hospitable welcome. It was the
only one open or rather, if one would be exact, the only one still
extant. To be sure there were no panes in the windows, and ungainly
holes were visible in almost all the ceilings, but the curt