Germans had turned it into a fortress, and they had to
be shelled out by the French. Poor little Lassigny! It must have had
what the French call "_une beaute coquette_," and the Germans, it
seemed, were loth to leave. When they found that they must go, and in
haste, they boiled with rage. Not only did they blow up all that was
left in the village, but they blew up the trees of the surrounding
orchards. They had not the excuse for this that they needed the trees to
bar the way of the pursuing French army. Such trees as they felled
across the road were the big trees of the forest. Their destruction of
the young fruit trees was just a slaughter of innocents; and I've never
hated war, Padre, as I hated it to-day--above all, German methods of
making war. Even the countless graves on the battlefields do not look so
sad as those acres of murdered trees: blown-up trees, chopped-down
trees, trees gashed to death with axes, trees that strove with all the
strength of Nature to live, putting forth leaves and blossoms as their
life blood emptied from their veins.

The graves of dead soldiers do not, somehow, look utterly sad. Their
little flags stir triumphantly in the breeze, as if waved by unseen
hands. The caps that mark the mounds seem to be on the heads of men
invisible, under the earth, standing at the salute, saying to those who
pass: "There is no death! Keep up your hearts, and follow the example we
have set." The souls of those who left their bodies on these
battlefields march on, bearing torches that have lit the courage of the
world, with a light that can never fail. But the poor trees, so dear to
France, giving life as a mother gives milk to her child!--they died to
serve no end save cruelty.

The sight of them made me furious, and I glared like a basilisk at any
German prisoners we saw working along the good, newly made white road.
On their green trousers were large letters, "P. G." for "Prisonnier de
Guerre"; and I snapped out as we passed a group, "It needs only an I
between the P and the G to make it _perfect!_"

One man must have heard, and understood English, for he glanced up with
a start. I was sorry then, for it was like hitting a fallen enemy. As he
had what would have seemed a good face if he'd been British or French,
perhaps he was one of those who wrote home that the killing of trees in
France "will be a shame to Germany till the end of time."

Only a few days ago Brian learned by heart a poem I read alo