nce in the shelter
of the citadel and we were safe. Though German shells of large caliber
were falling in the city at frequent intervals, the casemate in which
we lunched was so far beneath the surface of the earth that the sound
of the explosions did not reach us. It was as though we were lunching
in a New York subway station: a great, vaulted, white-tiled room
aglare with electric lights. We sat with General Dubois and the
members of his immediate staff at a small table close to the huge
range on which the cooking was being done, while down the middle of
the room stretched one of the longest tables I have ever seen, at
which upward of a hundred officers--and one civilian--were eating.
This lone civilian was a _commissaire_ of police, and the sole
representative of the city's civil population. When the Tsar bestowed
the Cross of St. George on the city in recognition of its heroic
defense, it was to this policeman, the only civilian who remained,
that the Russian representative handed the badge of the famous order.

The _dejeuner_, though simple, was as well cooked and well served as
though we were seated in a Paris restaurant instead of in a besieged
fortress. And the first course was fresh lobster! I told General
Dubois that my friends at home would raise their eyebrows
incredulously when I told them this, whereupon he took a menu--for
they had menus--and across it wrote his name and "Citadel de Verdun,"
and the date. "Perhaps that will convince them," he said, passing it
to me. By this I do not mean to imply that the French commanders live
in luxury. Far from it! But, though their food is very simple, it is
always well cooked (which is very far from being the case in our own
army), and it is appetizingly served whenever circumstances permit.

After luncheon, under the guidance of the general, I made the rounds
of the citadel. Here, so far beneath the earth as to be safe from even
the largest shells, was the telephone-room, the nerve-centre of the
whole complicated system of defense, with a switchboard larger than
those in the "central office" of many an American city. By means of
the thousands of wires focussed in that little underground room,
General Dubois was enabled to learn in an instant what was transpiring
at Douaumont or Tavannes or Vaux; he could pass on the information
thus obtained to General Nivelle at Souilly; or he could talk direct
to the Ministry of War, in Paris. I might add that one of the most
di