as a healthy irritant in days of peace, and are a public danger in days
of war.

* * * * *

But this is digression. I had set out to say something of a day's
experience of the French front, though I shall write with a fuller pen
when I return from the Argonne. It was for Soissons that we made,
passing on the way a part of the scene of our own early operations,
including the battlefield of Villers Cotteret--just such a wood as I
had imagined. My companion's nephew was one of those Guards' officers
whose bodies rest now in the village cemetery, with a little British
Jack still flying above them. They lie together, and their grave is
tended with pious care. Among the trees beside the road were other
graves of soldiers, buried where they had fallen. 'So look around--and
choose your ground--and take your rest.'

Soissons is a considerable wreck, though it is very far from being an
Ypres. But the cathedral would, and will, make many a patriotic
Frenchman weep. These savages cannot keep their hands off a beautiful
church. Here, absolutely unchanged through the ages, was the spot where
St. Louis had dedicated himself to the Crusade. Every stone of it was
holy. And now the lovely old stained glass strews the floor, and the
roof lies in a huge heap across the central aisle. A dog was climbing
over it as we entered. No wonder the French fight well. Such sights
would drive the mildest man to desperation. The abbe, a good priest,
with a large humorous face, took us over his shattered domain. He was
full of reminiscences of the German occupation of the place. One of his
personal anecdotes was indeed marvellous. It was that a lady in the
local ambulance had vowed to kiss the first French soldier who