uring
that time the Americans were having their first big "do," and I
remember he was very upset at the Boche getting out of the St. Mihiel
pocket in the way they did, without being caught.

I remember one morning (the Marshal did not know I understood any
French at all) a General came in and sat with him, and the Marshal,
very quietly, gave him times, dates, places where battles would be
fought up to the end of December 1918, naming the French, British and
American Divisions, and so forth, which would be used in each. When I
got back to the Mission, I wrote down some dates and places I
remembered, but told no one, and, as far as I could judge, everything
went exactly as he said it would till about the middle of October, (p. 079)
when the Boche really got on the run. Then things went quicker than he
expected.

[Illustration: XXXIV. _A German 'Plane Passing St. Denis._]

It seemed amazing, the calmness of that old chateau at Bon Bon, yet
wires from that old country house were conveying messages of blood and
hell to millions of men. What must the little man have felt? The
responsibility of it all--hidden in the brain behind those kind,
thoughtful eyes. Apparently, his only worry was "Ma pipe." His face
would wrinkle up in anger over that. That, and if anyone was late for
a meal. Otherwise he appeared to me to be the most mentally calm and
complete thing I had ever come across. I would have liked to have
painted him standing by his great maps, thinking, thinking for hours
and hours. Yes, the three memories I brought away from Bon Bon were
maps, calmness, and a certainty that the Allies would be victorious.

While I was there General Grant brought me over to Vaux. What a hall!
Surely the most beautiful thing of a private nature in existence, with
its blue dome and black eagle at the top.

I left one evening and stopped in Paris that night. There were two air
raids, and in the morning I heard Big Bertha for the first time, and
when we left about 10 o'clock, just past St. Denis, a Boche 'plane
came over to see where the shells were falling.

There was a wonderful service in the Cathedral at Amiens one morning,
the first since the bombardment, a thanksgiving for the deliverance of
the city from shell-fire. The Boche had been driven further back and
the old city was out of shell-range and at peace. It was a lovely
morning with a strong breeze, a little sixteenth-century Virgin had
been rescued from Albert Cathedral, a