One of the officers of the St.-Amarin _popote_, Debrix, is the image of the famous Coligny, and so called by his comrades, but he is, it appears, an excellent Papist, while Perdrizet, who, if he had on a suit of mail, might have borne the banner of the Virgin, following Godefroy de Bouillon into Jerusalem, is an equally excellent Protestant, his family having fled to Montbéliard after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and these two are continually being joked about their natural—or unnatural—camouflage. But in these days nobody really cares, alack! alack! what anybody believes, scarcely, alack! what anybody does, especially if they are quiet about it and it doesn’t interfere with the other person’s plans. And that’s why the war will be forgotten just as soon as the newspapers stop talking about it and business looks up and the women get new clothes, which they need. However, as the dead soldiers will mostly be in heaven, their smiles won’t be too unkind, though their language!—if it’s anything like what I’ve discovered they use on earth! I was finally convoyed home by a largish contingent of the sons of Mars. As soon as we stepped from the door we were in ankle-deep mud; the sky, black and flat and close, had a vaultlike heaviness, and the fog was so clinging that I was as if wrapped in some soft, wet stuff. Monsieur and Madame Helmer were kindly waiting up for me, but mercifully let our good-night be short. And here I am with no more thought of sleep than a meadow-lark at dawn, though that’s my only resemblance to the meadow-lark, for I am tired, dead-tired, and my hair is still wet with the mists of the Hartmann. And how shall one sleep who has so lately touched the fringe of the mountain-couch where many soldiers lie? XIII “LES CRÊTES.” “DÉJEUNER” AT CAMP WAGRAM. THE FREUNDSTEIN AND ITS PHANTOMS _November 9th._—This morning at eight-thirty we started out, Captain Perdrizet, Lieutenant Debrix, and I, for the famous trip along the crest of the mountains that, on one side, hang over the valley of the Thur, and on the other fall toward the Germanies. Having beheld with my eyes the first and second line defenses of these crests and of the “Hartmann,” I have come to some slight realization of how men have lived (and died) four winters through on these weather- and shell-swept heights.