ll at the foot of
the eastern extremity, close to the walls. This hole was certainly not
there when I made the circuit of the Cathedral on the previous
evening. It came into existence at 6.40 a.m., and I inspected it at
8.20 a.m., and a newspaper boy offered me that morning's paper on
the very edge of it. A fragment of shell, picked up warm by the
architect in charge of the Cathedral and given to me, is now in my
pocket.

We had a luncheon party at Rheims, in a certain hotel. This hotel
had been closed for a time, but the landlady had taken heart again.
The personnel appeared to consist solely of the landlady and
a relative. Both women were in mourning. They served us
themselves, and the meal was excellent, though one could get
neither soda-water nor cigars. Shells had greeted the city a few
hours earlier, but their effect had been only material; they are
entirely ignored by the steadfast inhabitants, who do their primitive
business in the desolated, paralysed organism with an indifference
which is as resigned as it is stoic. Those ladies might well have
been blown to bits as they crossed the courtyard bearing a dish of
cherries or a bottle of wine. The sun shone steadily on the rich
foliage of the street, and dogs and children rollicked mildly beneath
the branches. Several officers were with us, including two Staff
officers. These officers, not belonging to the same unit, had a great
deal to tell each other and us: so much, that the luncheon lasted
nearly two hours. Some of them had been in the retreat, in the
battles of the Marne and of the Aisne, and in the subsequent trench
fighting; none had got a scratch. Of an unsurpassed urbanity and
austerity themselves, forming part of the finest civilisation which this
world has yet seen, thoroughly appreciative of the subtle and
powerful qualities of the race to which they belong, they exhibited a
chill and restrained surprise at the manners of the invaders. One
had seen two thousand champagne bottles strewn around a
chateau from which the invaders had decamped, and the old butler
of the house going carefully through the grounds and picking up the
bottles which by chance had not been opened. The method of
opening champagne, by the way, was a stroke of the sabre on the
neck of the bottle. The German manner was also to lay the lighted
cigar on the finest table-linen, so that by the burnt holes the
proprietors might count their guests. Another officer had seen a
whole co