e front facade had
been undergoing repairs and was covered with heavy wooden scaffolding
similar to that which has for several years disfigured St. Sulpice in
Paris. The Cathedral was very famous for its choir-stalls and other
wood-carving, of which there was a great quantity, and the roof which
covered the vaulting was held up by a forest of great timbers many
centuries old.

After the Germans had been driven out of the city they bombarded it
from the hills outside, and their shells lit the straw on the
Cathedral floor. Over it the fire ran swiftly, ignited the chairs
piled against the walls, and then spread to the great masses of carved
woodwork; finally the scaffolding and roof caught fire and the famous
old Cathedral burned in one great conflagration. It has been
particularly famous for three things: its woodwork, its front facade,
and its stained-glass windows. The woodwork went up in smoke, the
front facade was all scorched and disintegrated by the intense heat so
that the surface of the stone detail is blowing off in fine dust,
while the glass to the last particle was shattered by the concussions
of bursting shells. The Cathedral stands like a great skeleton of its
former self. Its flesh, as it were, is gone although few of its bones
are broken.

* * * * *

_Saturday, October 3d._ This is the first war in modern times in which
whole nations have gone to battle; in this conflict every man in a
nation is a soldier. In Napoleon's day France had about the same
population--forty millions--that she now has, but Napoleon's
professional armies numbered, at most, only two hundred thousand men,
while today France has put fifteen or twenty times as many in the
field. In the present war, when an army sustains a 10 per cent. loss
it is not merely 10 per cent. of the army, but actually of the
able-bodied men of the nation.

* * * * *

_Wednesday, October 7th._ A German aeroplane again threw bombs on
Paris today.

* * * * *

_Thursday, October 8th._ Another Taube came today and threw bombs in
the neighborhood of the Gare du Nord. These machines in flight look
very much like sparrow-hawks and have a singularly sinister
appearance.

* * * * *

_Sunday, October 11th._ We had a record-breaking flock of Taubes today
when a number came together and dropped about twenty bombs. Their
combined score w