work. The officer in charge beckons to the
priest, and the priest goes to speak to him.

"Monsieur l'Abbe, we have just buried here twenty-two French soldiers."
He points to a trench freshly dug, into which the earth has just been
shovelled.

"They are Breton soldiers," the officer explains, "and the men of my
burying company are Bretons too. They have just discovered that these
dead men we have gathered from the fields were soldiers from a regiment
recruited in their own district. And _seven_ of them have recognised
among these twenty-two dead, one a son, one a son-in-law, one a brother.
Will you come, Monsieur l'Abbe, and say a few words to these
poor fellows?"

So the Abbe goes to the new-made grave, reads the _De Profundis_, says a
prayer, gives the benediction, and then speaks. Tears are on the strong,
rugged faces of the bare-headed Bretons, as they gather round him. A
group, some little distance off, which is writing the names of the dead
on a white cross, pauses, catches what is going on, and kneels too, with
bent heads....

It is good to linger on that little scene of human sympathy and
religious faith. It does something to protect the mind from the horror
of much that has happened here.

* * * * *

In spite of the storm, our indefatigable guide carried us through all
the principal points of the battle-line--St. Soupplets--Marcilly--
Barcy--Etrepilly--Acy-en-Multien; villages from which one by one, by
keen, hard fighting, the French attack, coming eastwards from Dammartin
to Paris, dislodged the troops of Von Kluck; while to our right lay
Trocy, and Vareddes, a village on the Ourcq, between which points ran
the strongest artillery positions of the enemy. At Barcy, we stopped a
few minutes, to go and look at the ruined church, with its fallen bell,
and its graveyard packed with wreaths and crosses, bound with the
tricolour. At Etrepilly, with the snow beating in our faces, and the
wind howling round us, we read the inscription on the national monument
raised to those fallen in the battle, and looking eastwards to the spot
where Trocy lay under thick curtains of storm, we tried to imagine the
magnificent charge of the Zouaves, of the 62nd Reserve Division, under
Commandant Henri D'Urbal, who, with many a comrade, lies buried in the
cemetery of Barcy.

Five days the battle swayed backwards and forwards across this scene,
especially following the lines of the little streams