with
child-like curiosity into gaping window-eyes; a silent old gardener
raking the one patch of lawn buried under blackened tiles and tumbled
bricks. The man's figure was bent, yet I felt that there was hope as
well as loyalty in his work. "They will come back home some day," was
the expression of that faithful back.

In the exquisite beauty of the forest beyond Senlis there was still--for
me--this note of hope. "Where beauty is, sadness cannot dwell for ever!"
As we rushed along in the big car, the delicate gray trunks of
clustering trees seemed to whirl round and round before our eyes, as in
a votive dance of young priestesses. We saw bands of German prisoners
toiling gnome-like in dim glades, but they didn't make us sad again. _Au
contraire!_ We found poetical justice in the thought that they, the
cruel destroyers of trees, must chop wood and pile faggots from dawn to
dusk.

So we came to Compiegne, where the French army has its headquarters in
one of the most famous chateaux in the world.

CHAPTER XX

It took a mere glance (even if we hadn't known beforehand) to see that
noble Compiegne craved no Beckett charity, no American adoption.

True, German officers lived for twelve riotous days in the palace, in
1914, selecting for home use many of its treasures, and German
"non-coms." filled vans with rare antiques from the richest mansions;
still, they had no time, or else no inclination, to disfigure the town.
The most sensational souvenir of those days before the Marne battle is a
couple of broken bridges across the Oise and Aisne, blown up by the
French in the hour of their retreat. But that strange sight didn't break
on our eyes as we entered Compiegne. We seemed to have been transported
by white magic from mystic forest depths to be plumped down suddenly in
a city square, in front of a large, classical palace. It's only the
genie of motoring who can arrange these startling contrasts!

If we took Brian's advice, and "played" that our autos were
old-fashioned coaches; if we looked through, instead of at, the dozen
military cars lined up at the palace gates; if we changed a few details
of the soldiers' uniforms, the gray chateau need not have been Army
Headquarters in our fancy. For us, the Germans might cease from
troubling and the war-weary be at rest, while we skipped back to any
century we fancied.

Of course, Louis XV, son-in-law of our old friend Stanislas of Lorraine,
built the chateau; and Nap