The draperies had hung there
since August 1914--"Since every son of Rheims who is brought home is as
noble as the one who comes to-day, and alas! nearly every day brings us
one of our children."
We lunched in the hotel before the cathedral, where each shell-hole has
an ordinary white label stuck beside it with the date. The landlord
remarked: "If you sit here long enough, and have the good luck to be in
some safe part of the building, you may be able to go and stick a label
by a hole yourself."
After lunch we went out to the Chateau Polignac. To a stranger it would
appear to be almost entirely destroyed, but when M. de Polignac visited
it recently he simply remarked that it was "less spoilt than he had
imagined." This was just one other example of the thousands one meets
daily of the spirit of noble and peasant _de ne pas s'en faire_, but to
keep only before them the one idea, Victory for France, no matter what
may be the cost.
We went later to call on the "'75," _chez elle_. Madame was in a
particularly comfortable home which had been prepared for her and where
she was safe from the inquisitive eyes of the Taubes. The men of the
battery were sitting round their guns, singing a somewhat lengthy ditty,
each verse ending with a declamation and a description of the beauty of
"la belle Suzanne." I asked them to whom Suzanne belonged and where the
fair damsel resided. "Oh," they replied, "we have no time to think of
damsels called 'Suzanne' now.
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