This is what I see. Before me stretches a great dim interior lit with little bunches of yellow candles. It is in a way a church. But what has happened to it? What horror has seized upon it, turning it into the most hideous travesty of a church that the world has ever known? On the high altar stand empty champagne bottles, empty rum bottles, a broken bottle of Bordeaux, and five bottles of beer. In the confessionals stand empty champagne bottles, empty brandy bottles, empty beer bottles. In the Holy Water fonts are empty brandy bottles. Stacks of bottles are under the pews, or on the seats themselves. Beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy; and again beer, brandy, rum, champagne, bordeaux, burgundy. Everywhere, everywhere, in whatever part of the church one looks, there are bottles--hundreds of them, thousands of them, perhaps--everywhere, bottles, bottles, bottles. The sacred marble floors are covered everywhere with piles of straw, and bottles, and heaps of refuse and filth, and horse-dung. "Mais Madame," cries the burning, trembling voice of the distracted sacristan, "look at this." And he leads me to the white marble bas-relief of the Madonna. The Madonna's head has been cut right off! Then, even as I stand there trying to believe that I am really looking at such nightmares, I feel the little sacristan's fingers trembling on my arm, turning me towards a sight that makes me cold with horror. They have set fire to the Christ, to the beautiful wood-carving of our Saviour, and burnt the sacred figure all up one side, and on the face and breast. And as they finished the work I can imagine them, with a hiccup slitting up the priceless brocade on the altar with a bayonet, then turning and slashing at the great old oil paintings on the Cathedral walls, chopping them right out of their frames, but leaving the empty frames there, with a German's sense of humour that will presently make Germany laugh on the wrong side of its face. A dead pig lies in the little chapel to the right, a dead white pig with a pink snout. Very still and pathetic is that dead pig, and yet it seems to speak. It seems to realise the sacrilege of its presence here in God's House. It seems to say, "Let not the name of pig be given to the Germans. We pigs have done nothing to deserve it." "And here, Madame, voyez vous! Here the floor is chipped and smashed where they stabled their horses, these barbarians!" says the young Lieutenant on my left. And now we come to the Gate of Shame. It is the door of a small praying-room. Still pinned outside, on the door, is a piece of white paper, with this message in German, "This room is private. Keep away." And inside? Inside are women's garments, a pile of them tossed hastily on the floor, torn perhaps from the wearers.... A pile of women's garments! In silence we stand there. In silence we go out. It is a long time before anyone can speak again, though the little sacristan keeps on moaning to himself.