I remember one morning (the Marshal did not know I understood any French at all) a General came in and sat with him, and the Marshal, very quietly, gave him times, dates, places where battles would be fought up to the end of December 1918, naming the French, British and American Divisions, and so forth, which would be used in each. When I got back to the Mission, I wrote down some dates and places I remembered, but told no one, and, as far as I could judge, everything went exactly as he said it would till about the middle of October, (p. 079) when the Boche really got on the run. Then things went quicker than he expected. [Illustration: XXXIV. _A German 'Plane Passing St. Denis._] It seemed amazing, the calmness of that old chateau at Bon Bon, yet wires from that old country house were conveying messages of blood and hell to millions of men. What must the little man have felt? The responsibility of it all--hidden in the brain behind those kind, thoughtful eyes. Apparently, his only worry was "Ma pipe." His face would wrinkle up in anger over that. That, and if anyone was late for a meal. Otherwise he appeared to me to be the most mentally calm and complete thing I had ever come across. I would have liked to have painted him standing by his great maps, thinking, thinking for hours and hours. Yes, the three memories I brought away from Bon Bon were maps, calmness, and a certainty that the Allies would be victorious. While I was there General Grant brought me over to Vaux. What a hall! Surely the most beautiful thing of a private nature in existence, with its blue dome and black eagle at the top. I left one evening and stopped in Paris that night. There were two air raids, and in the morning I heard Big Bertha for the first time, and when we left about 10 o'clock, just past St. Denis, a Boche 'plane came over to see where the shells were falling. There was a wonderful service in the Cathedral at Amiens one morning, the first since the bombardment, a thanksgiving for the deliverance of the city from shell-fire. The Boche had been driven further back and the old city was out of shell-range and at peace. It was a lovely morning with a strong breeze, a little sixteenth-century Virgin had been rescued from Albert Cathedral, and it was set up on a pedestal in the middle of the chancel. There was a guard of honour of (p. 080) Australians; birds were flying about above and singing; they had made the interior of the Cathedral their own. Bits of glass kept falling down, and the wind made strange whistling noises through the smashed and battered windows. It was all very impressive. General Rawlinson and his staff came over from Bertangles, a few natives of Amiens came into the town for it, otherwise the whole congregation was British. It was strange! Australian bugles blaring away inside those walls!