to the place, but the harm done was
insignificant. The most picturesque and melancholy sight was along the
river front, where to head off the enemy's approach the French had been
obliged to blow up those ancient bridges, landmarks of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, for, like the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, they were
lined with houses and mills, whose pointed roofs and apparent beams had
weathered nearly five hundred years! Strange as it may seem, it was
they that resisted the most, and, though the dynamite had severed their
connection with land and shattered their pale-blue window panes, not a
house had collapsed, and as they stood in the sun's dying blaze, they
seemed to say, "Touch me, if you dare!"

Washboats, rowboats, barges and every available means of navigation had
been sunk or put out of working order and though the enemy was hardly
ten miles distant, men and women were busily engaged in setting them
afloat.

Once again all we could do was to stand and gaze at the opposite bank
and after assuring ourselves that there was no possible way of crossing,
we hastily departed for Lagny.

That night we slept in a shed hospitably offered by a lone peasant
woman, and the next morning triumphantly crossed the river and set our
faces homeward.

Branching northward into the open country we chose all the by-roads and
short cuts where our carts would pass, in order to avoid the long
streams of ambulances and ammunition vans, as well as in the hope of
finding better thoroughfares. A drizzling rain had set in the night
before, making the roads, which up until now had been covered with a
thick layer of dust, slippery and uncomfortable. Highways which
heretofore had been seldom trodden, were full of ruts and bumps, and
from Langy to Villiers there was hardly a corner but what showed signs
of the invaders' passage. Over these green and fertile fields whose
crops had proudly waved their heads about the lovely Marne, were strewn
straw and empty bottles in unimaginable quantities. Thousands of
blackened or charred spots dotting the countryside, told of campfires
and hasty bivouacs, and as we silently plodded on towards Charny, the
growing evidences of recent battle met our saddened gaze.

Here a shell had burst on the road, in the midst of a bicycle squadron,
scattering men and machines to the four winds of Heaven. A little
mound, a rough-hewn cross, marked the spot where some sixty soldiers lay
in their last peace