The villages which the Germans had left had a number of civilians, and in accordance with the order of the German Commander, the Mayors put a white flag on the church steeple to warn us against shelling them. I have never seen a happier lot of old people in my life than the French civilians whom we were instrumental in saving after four years of captivity. At Authé our P. C. was in what had once been a village inn. The proprietress was old and little and lively and pious. She gave a warm reception to M. l’Aumonier when she heard that I belonged to the Old Church, and immediately proceeded to make plans for a High Mass next Sunday in spite of my telling her that we would not probably be there more than one night. “I have been doing most of the preaching to the people around here the last four years,” she said. “M. le Curé is old and quiet and he hasn’t much to say; but me, I talk, talk, talk all the time. I tell these people that God sent the German Devils amongst them because of their sins. I preach so much that they have given me a nickname. Do you know what they call me? They call me Madame Morale. And I preach to the Germans, too. I tell them they will all be in Hell if they do not mend their ways.” “What do they say to you?” “Most times they laugh and call me Grossmutter, but some of them swear and get mad. But I preach at them just the same. My sister she does not preach, she just prays.” I went up to see the sister. They must have been both around eighty; and she sat in her chair looking absolutely like Whistler’s picture of his mother, except that the hands were not idle in her lap, but fingered unceasingly a worn rosary. Madame Morale’s piety was not limited to preaching. It included hospitality. We have brought along some fresh supplies of food for our Headquarters Mess; and as soldiers from different outfits kept drifting in to the kitchen looking for water and incidentally anything else they could get, the old lady dipped into our scanty stock, saying, “Here, my poor boys, there is much food here”—until nothing was left.