Marne to the Rhine, the Rhine to the Marne. The name has a
wicked sound in these days--Rhine-Marne; and at Vitry-le-Francois of all
places. The men from over the Rhine destroyed as much as they had time
to destroy of the charming old town planned by Francis I, and named for
him. All the villages round about the new Huns broke to pieces, like the
toy towns of children: Revigny, sprayed from hand pumps with petrol, and
burnt to the ground: Sermaize-les-Bains, loved by Romans and Saracens,
obliterated; women drowned in the river by laughing German soldiers,
deep down under yellow water-lilies, which mark their resting place
to-day: everywhere, through the fields and forests, low wooden crosses
in the midst of little votive gardens, telling their silent tale.

Ah, but it is good that Mother Beckett saw Chateau-Thierry first, or she
might have covered her eyes and begged to go back to Paris! Here all
speaks of death and desolation, save the busy little hut-villages of the
Quakers. The "Friends" quietly began their labour of love before the
Battle of the Marne was ended, and they're "carrying on" still. The
French translate them affectionately into "_les Amis_."

It was at Bar-le-Duc that I met disaster face to face in so strange a
way that it needs a whole letter to tell you what happened.

CHAPTER VIII

There were so many things to see by the way, and so many thoughts to
think about them, that Father Beckett and Brian decided on an all night
stop at Bar-le-Duc. The town hadn't had an air raid for weeks, and it
looked a port of peace. As well imagine enemy aeroplanes over the
barley-sugar house of the witch in the enchanted forest, as over this
comfortable home of jam-makers!

"Jim always asked for currant jam of Bar-le-Duc on his birthdays, ever
since he was a little, little boy," Mrs. Beckett remembered aloud. "And
even when he was grown up! But then, he wouldn't wait for birthdays. He
wanted it every day for breakfast; and for tea at those grand New York
hotels, where I wouldn't go without him, any sooner than in a lion's
den. Oh, it will be nice to stay at Bar-le-Duc! If there's been a jam
factory blown up, we'll help build it again, to please Jim."

Father Beckett was shrewdly of opinion that the jam factories could take
care of themselves, which rather disappointed his wife. She was vaguely
disappointed too, in Bar-le-Duc. I think she expected to smell a
ravishing fragrance of Jim's favourite _confiture_