loveliest and gracefullest things in French Gothic. Fortunately, though
the slender belfry and the roof were repeatedly struck by shrapnel in
the short bombardment of the town, no serious damage was done. We
wandered round the church alone, delighting our eyes with the warm
golden white of the stone, the height of the grooved arches, the flaming
fragments of old glass, when we saw the figure of an old priest come
slowly down the aisle, his arms folded. He looked at us rather dreamily
and passed. Our guide, Monsieur P., followed and spoke to him.
"Monsieur, you are the Abbé Dourlent?"

"I am, sir. What can I do for you?"

Something was said about English ladies, and the Curé courteously turned
back. "Will the ladies come into the Presbytère?" We followed him across
the small cathedral square to the old house in which he lived, and were
shown into a bare dining-room, with a table, some chairs, and a few old
religious engravings on the walls. He offered us chairs and sat
down himself.

"You would like to hear the story of the German occupation?" He thought
a little before beginning, and I was struck with his strong, tired face,
the powerful mouth and jaw, and above them, eyes which seemed to have
lost the power of smiling, though I guessed them to be naturally full of
a pleasant shrewdness, of what the French call _malice_, which is not
the English "malice." He was rather difficult to follow here and there,
but from his spoken words and from a written account he placed in my
hands, I put together the following story:

"It was August 30th, 1914, when the British General Staff arrived in
Senlis. That same evening, they left it for Dammartin. All day, and the