Our way from Paris to these men led across the devastated area of
France. As the chief activity of the French at the time of our
visit was in the Verdun sector, we spent most of our first week
at the front near Verdun. And one evening at twilight we walked
through the ruined city. The Germans had just finished their
evening strafe; two hundred big shells had been thrown over from
their field guns into the ruins. After the two hundredth shell
had dropped it was as safe in Verdun as in Emporia until the next
day. For the Germans are methodical in all things, and they spend
just so many shells on each enemy point, and no more. The German
work of destruction is thorough in Verdun. Not a roof remains intact
upon its walls; not a wall remains uncracked; not a soul lives in
the town; now and then a sentinel may be met patrolling the wagon
road that winds through the streets. This wagon road, by the way,
is the object of the German artillery's attention. Upon this road
they think the revitalment trains pass up to the front. But the
sentinels come and go. The only living inhabitants we saw in the
place were two black cats. It must have been a beautiful city before
the war--a town of sixty thousand and more. It contained some old
and interesting Gothic ecclesiastical buildings--a cloister, a
bishop's residence, a school--or what not--that, even crumbled and
shattered by the shells, still show in ruins grace and charm and
dignity. And battered as these mute stones were, it seemed marvellous
that mere stone could translate so delicately the highest groping
of men's hearts toward God, their most unutterable longing. And the
broken stones of the Gothic ruin, in the freshness and rawness of
their ruin, seemed to be bleeding out human aspiration, spilling
it footlessly upon the dead earth. And of course all about
these ecclesiastical ruins were the ruins of homes, and shops
and stores--places just as pitifully appealing in their appalling