English aristocracy took their full share of the killing. Also, in the
seventeenth century, Bossuet was Bishop of Meaux. Finally, in the
twentieth century, the Germans just got to Meaux, and they got no
further. It was, so far as I can make out, the nearest point to Paris
which they soiled.

I could not go even to Meaux without formalities, but the formalities
were simple. The dilatory train took seventy minutes, dawdling along
the banks of the notorious Marne. In an automobile one could have
done the journey in half the time. An automobile, however, would
have seriously complicated the formalities. Meaux contains about
fourteen thousand inhabitants. Yet it seems, when you are in it, to'
consist chiefly of cathedral. When you are at a little distance away
from it, it seems to consist of nothing but cathedral. In this it
resembles Chartres, and many another city in France.

We obtained a respectable carriage, with a melancholy, resigned
old driver, who said:

"For fifteen francs, plus always the pourboire, I will take you to
Barcy, which was bombarded and burnt. I will show you all the
battlefield."

With those few words he thrilled me.

The road rose slowly from the canal of the Ourcq; it was lined with
the most beautiful acacia trees, and through the screen of the
acacias one had glimpses of the town, diminishing, and of the
cathedral, growing larger and larger. The driver talked to us in faint
murmurs over his shoulder, indicating the positions of various