Although I must refrain most reluctantly from saying anything about the great military personages whom I met in France, and with whom I was so greatly impressed, I may perhaps refer to two French persons of distinction, in no way connected with the war, whom I was privileged to meet. First there is that outstanding personality the Mayor of Hazebrouck, Abbé Lemire. He and I were brought together because he is a clerical municipal dignitary and I was the first clergyman who was ever a mayor in this country. He, however, does more than I have ever been able to do, because he is a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and here in England the doors of the House of Commons are still shut against the clergy. Abbé Lemire was formerly a professor of theology in a seminary and was a man of distinction in his Church. However, since the present influence at Rome he has got out with the authorities and is now excommunicated. The ostensible reason given was that he did not ask Rome's permission to sit as a Deputy. As it was only during the last few years that such a request was made, and as he had been in Parliament for several years before that fresh demand, the Abbé declined to submit. The probability is that he was fairly certain that no permission would be granted, because of the liberality of his opinions. One thing certainly was in the eyes of Rome a grave offence on his part. When the Bill dealing with the separation of Church and State was under discussion, he spoke and voted against it, but when it was passed he did not therefore give up his seat and refuse to serve the Republic any longer. He suggested, when the Bill was in Committee, many amendments which would have greatly eased the financial position of the Church, but these were rejected, mainly because Rome would have no compromise. The short-sighted policy which now prevails at the Vatican, and which has been the cause of the vacillation of the Pope on the subject of the war, has in regard to Abbé Lemire turned him into the hero of all the Liberal Church people of France. He is an extraordinarily winning personality, and as we walked through the streets of his city every woman and child and old man had something to say to him. With one he would discuss the imprisonment of a soldier son in Germany; with another the fact that a married daughter had had a bouncing boy who would be, so prophesied the Abbé, a soldier of France in years to come. To another in deep mourning he had a word of comfort to give; until at last I said to him that he appeared to be not only _le maire_ but also _le père_ of Hazebrouck. He took me round to his house, which is situated close to the church from the altar of which he is repelled by the vicar, and there he introduced me to the only priest in the neighbourhood who is brave enough to be publicly his friend. Such is the man that Rome ostracises and the people idolise. [Illustration: ABBÉ LEMIRE]