given a new energy to our troops, because the
battery to which we owe this success did not have a single man wounded.
The Germans seem to be forty years behind the times. They go on just as
in 1870. With childish and barbarous imagination they see
_francs-tireurs_ everywhere and can't yet believe that we have a regular
army quite close to the frontier.

They arrive in a village toward 8 in the morning; three French dragoons
are there as patrols. When the German column is within range, the three
dragoons bring down the Colonel and dash off at full gallop from the
other end of the village. The Germans are furious and swear that they
have been attacked by _francs-tireurs_, and that they are going to
inflict punishment. They seize the cure, a notable inhabitant, and two
or three peasants, and take them off to be present at the burning of
their houses, while waiting to be executed themselves.

I have this story from the cure, who arrived to us absolutely done, with
his cassock in rags, without a hat on, after a day of shocks such as he
has certainly never had in his life before. Although he has got the
superb beard of a missionary, they made him march with the chasseurs,
hitting him with the butts of their rifles till the moment when the
French shrapnel arrived. Then it was _sauve qui peut_. Our brave cure
saw all his butchers fall around him. When the noise had finished, five
unarmed German chasseurs rushed toward him crying with their great,
thick accent, "Catholics, Catholics!" They were Poles who were flying
from the army and coming over to our lines. "With my own arms," said the
cure proudly, "I made five prisoners."

Altogether bewilderment, softness, and indifference on the part of the
men; vanity, cruelty, and foolery on the part of the officers. Those are
the virtues which they offered us on first acquaintance. Just compare
them with ours!

Two Letters From the Trenches

[From The London Times, Oct. 25, 1914.]

_A Canadian officer attached to the British forces writes as
follows on Sept. 27:_

It has been very fortunate for me having a recommendation to Gen. C. He
said that he would welcome all the French-speaking Canadians with
military knowledge that crossed the Atlantic. I keep my rank of
Lieutenant and am attached to the ---- Guards, which does scouting,
patrol, and reconnoissance duty in areas prescribed by the Brigadier. We
have plenty of most interesting work, which suits me down to