Masses at six and eight for the troops, preaching
in English. Assisting at the ten o'clock Missa, Cantata Parochialis was
always a source of devotion and unusual interest. Promptly at 9:30 the
tower bells, in triple chime, would ring out, echoing near and far, o'er
meadow and hill. By path and trail and through the cobbled streets would
come the people--old men and women, white with the snows of many
winters; middle-aged women invariably clothed in the black of
widowhood--France had then been bleeding and dying three
years--fair-cheeked, dark-eyed modest maidens--type of Evangeline of
Grand-Pre--handsome little boys and girls, the kind with which Raphael
frames his Madonnas. Kneeling for a little prayer at the grave sides in
the church yard--pleasantly exchanging with neighbors the "bon jour" and
the "bonheur"--they make their way into the church, up the aisles
chiseled by Time itself, to the pew generations of their name have
worshiped in.

Mass is beginning. At the head of the procession, emerging from the
Sacristy, marches the Master of Ceremonies, a venerable man of
patriarchal mien, clothed in quaint cassock of black velvet, richly
trimmed with silver braid, resonantly striking the stone pavement with
official staff and responding in aged, yet pleasing voice to the
Gregorian Chant of Celebrant and Congregation. Handsome little boys--all
garcons are handsome--in acolytical splendor of purple and cardinal,
with the daintiest of "calottes," come singing their way into your heart
in a way to delight our own Father Finn of the Paulist choristers. The
village cure--Monsignor of the Diocese of Sens--in those rich full tones
that centuries of congregational singing have given to France, gives
voice to the Ceremonial Beauty "ever ancient yet ever new." Very little
need, there, for books; most young and old sing Introit, Credo, Preface
and Agnus Dei from memory, artistically exact in pronunciation,
expression and tempo.

If there was distraction for our troops at all, it was perhaps at the
collection. Not that the giving of their centimes or francs was
distracting, rather was it the manner of Collection a la Francais. It is
taken up by the most handsome young ladies of the congregation--our
American Tag Days were perhaps suggested by it. Marching before the
Mademoiselles and striking sharply on the pavement with his staff,
solemnly comes the aged Master of Ceremonies. No prayers so absorbing
nor slumber so profound, but t