aisle. We tried to
catch the sparks in our hands as they fell, and such of the German
wounded as were able to walk helped us. But the first spark that fell on
the pile set it blazing. There was time to think of nothing but getting
out the wounded.

"They screamed horribly. We carried many of those that could not walk,
while others dragged themselves painfully along to the side door in
the north aisle. Those who had only hand and arm wounds helped their
comrades. We got out all except thirteen, whose bodies were left behind.

"When at last I came out of the flaming building I found the whole body
of wounded huddled together around the doors. Opposite to them was
a furiously hostile crowd of civilians of the town and a number of
soldiers with their rifles already leveled.

"I sprang forward. 'What are you doing?' I cried.

"'They shall all burn,' shouted the soldiers in answer. 'They shall go
back and burn with the cathedral or we will shoot them here.'

"'You are mad!' I exclaimed in reply. 'Think of what this means. All the
world will hear of the crime the Germans have committed here, and if you
shoot these men the world will know that France has been as criminal in
her turn. Anyhow,' I said, 'you shall shoot me first, for I will not
move.'

"Unwillingly the soldiers lowered their rifles and I turned to six
German, officers who were among the wounded and asked if they would do
what I told them to. They said they would and I asked them to tell their
men to do the same. Then I formed them up in a solid body, those who
could walk unaided carrying or helping those who could not. I put myself
at the head and we set off to the Hotel de Ville, which is only a few
hundred yards away.

"Well, then the crowd, mad with grief and rage, set on us. I can't
describe it. You have never seen anything so dreadful as that scene.
They beat some of the Germans and some of them they got down.

"'Can't you help me!' I called to a French officer I caught sight of.

"'You will never get to the Hotel de Ville like this,' he replied, so I
forced my wounded through the gateway of a private house and we managed
to close the gates after us.

"They had been roughly handled, some of them, and they stayed there a
day and a night before we could move them again."

[The damage done to the cathedral at Rheims, by the way, though by no
means slight, inexpressibly sad and truly regrettable, was not nearly
so great as was indicated by many early