An older one, whose naturally flashing eye was slightly restrained only by the solemnity of the occasion, gave us the equally classic, “_Maidre corpeau sur un arbre bergé_.” He hadn’t been caught so young, and the old Adam in the shape of his German accent was heavy upon him. Then, standing in a row, they sang “_Le Chant du Départ_,” that greatest of all the wars’ marching songs, and the childish voices cut my heart like a knife, and tears were loosened, and through their blur I seemed to see the march of the generations of Alsace adown the ages, fulfilling the shifting, cruel destinies of border peoples. Ghosts of the Thirty Years’ War, of the Napoleonic wars, of 1870, and of 1914, and of the other dateless struggles that have ravaged their rich valleys, come before me. I weep and weep, and my handkerchief is a microscopic, damp, gray ball. I have an idea that pride of sex alone restrained the blue-clad men from tears. Peace, lovely Peace, desired like the morning, was arising, but her light was to shine on rivers of blood, running through such black ruins that her glory and her sweetness, and even her hope, hurt with a great hurt, and I thought again on those who, empty-armed, must yet rejoice.... Afterward I strolled along the banks of the pebbly Thur with the commandant and Captain Saint-Girons. There is a river-path leading under balconied, red-roofed houses, or by gray walls, and there is an old round tower having a caplike roof with a point on the top, and against it are silhouetted a poplar and a sycamore. Nearly everywhere the lovely gray lace spire of the cathedral shows above roof or tree or chimney; and it is said that though Strasbourg’s cathedral is higher and Friburg’s is wider, Thann’s is the loveliest.[16] When the Mission had its headquarters at Thann, the commandant and Captain Saint-Girons were wont to walk along this path in the afternoon, holding a sort of tribunal, receiving petitions, granting favors, righting differences that may occur even among the delivered, quite after the fashion of Saint-Louis receiving the petitions of his people under the great tree. The river flows through the heart of the lovely old town, badly bombarded in spots. To our left as we walked rose the deep-colored hills in the full afternoon burnishing of their deep rusty reds and pale gilts. As we pass up the steep winding road we meet the Duc de Trévise, under-lieutenant, with a sketch in his hand of a shell-shot historic corner of Thann, the commandant wishing to save at least a memorial wherever he can. Furthermore, Thann was black-spotted with our negro troops. Sometimes I stopped and spoke, sometimes I waved as I passed, just to see the full, white-toothed smile against the exotic background. [Illustration: THANN. LA VIEILLE TOUR]