The next day I had my first real news from Meaux. A woman arrived
at Amélie's, leading two dogs tied together with rope. She was a
music teacher, living at Meaux, and had walked over thirty miles, and
arrived exhausted. So they took her in for the night, and the next
morning Père harnessed Ninette and took her and her weary dogs to
Meaux. It was over two hours each way for Ninette, but it was better
than seeing an exhausted woman, almost as old as I am, finishing
her pilgrimage on foot. She is the first person returning to Meaux that
we have seen. Besides, I imagine Père was glad of the excuse to go
across the Marne.

When he came back we knew exactly what had happened at the
cathedral city.

The picturesque mill bridges across the Marne have been partly
saved. The ends of the bridges on the town side were blown up, and
the mills were mined, to be destroyed on the German approach. Père
was told that an appeal was made to the English commanders to
save the old landmarks if possible, and although at that time it
seemed to no one at all likely that they could be saved, this
precaution did save them. He tells me that blowing up the bridge-
heads smashed all the windows, blew out all the doors, and damaged
the walls more or less, but all that is reparable.

Do you remember the last time we were at Meaux, how we leaned on
the stone wall on that beautiful Promenade des Trinitaires, and
watched the waters of the Marne churned into froth by the huge
wheels of the three lines of mills lying from bank to bank? I know you
will be glad they are saved. It would have been a pity to destroy that
beautiful view. I am afraid that we are in an epoch where we shall