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and west (will grapes ever be sweet on those sad hillsides again?) and there's the little river Vesle that runs into the Aisne. There's the Canal of the Aisne and the Marne, too--oh, many wide waters and little streams, to breathe out mist, for Rheims is on the pleasant Ile-de-France. There was so much mist this autumn day that it hid from our eyes for a long time the tall form of the Cathedral which should dominate the plain for many miles; a thick, white mist like the sheet with which a sculptor veils his masterpiece until it's ready to face the world. As we drove on, and still saw no looming bulk, frozen fear pinched my heart, like horrid, ice-cold fingers. What if there'd been some new bombardment we hadn't had time to hear of, and the Cathedral were _gone_? But I didn't speak my fear. I tried to cover it up by chattering about Rheims. Goodness knows there's a lot to chatter about! All that wonderful history, since Clovis was baptized by Saint Remi; and Charlemagne crowned, and Charles the VII, with Jeanne d'Arc looking on in bright armour, and various Capets, and enough other kings to name Notre-Dame of Rheims the "Cathedral of Coronations." I remembered something about the Gate of Mars, too--the oldest thing of all--which the Remi people put up in praise of Augustus Caesar when Agrippa brought his great new roads close to their capital. I think it had been called Durocoroturum up to that time--or some equally awful name, which you remember only because you expect to forget! I hardly dared tell the Becketts about the celebrated archiepiscopal palace where the kings used to be entertained by the archbishops (successors of Saint Remi) while the coronation ceremonies were going on: and the _Salle du Tau_ with its wonderful hangings, its velvet-cushioned stone seats and carved, upright furniture, where the royal guests--in robes stiff with jewelled embroidery--had their banquets from plates of solid silver and gold. It seemed cruel to speak of splendours vanished forever, vanished like the holy oil of the sacred phial brought from heaven by a dove for the baptism of Clovis, and kept for the anointing of all those dead kings! But it was just the time and place to talk about Attila--Attila the First, I mean, of whom, as I told you, I firmly believe the present "incumbent" to be the reincarnation. As Attila I. thought fit to put Rheims to the sword, Atilla II. is naturally impelled by the "spiral" to do his best from a
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