“On the marble flags, heaps of straw everywhere, heaps of bottles, rubbish and filth. On the forms, on the chairs, bottles and still more bottles, champagne, beer, rum, bordeaux, burgundy and brandy. In all directions wherever we cast our eyes, to whatever part of the church we looked, there were nothing but bottles by the hundred, by the thousand, perhaps; everywhere bottles, bottles, bottles. “But the sacristan in a trembling voice appealed to me. ‘Madame, do look!’ and he showed me a white marble bas-relief representing the Virgin. They had quite broken the head of the Virgin! “A little further away there were splendid wood carvings, representing an episode in the life of Christ. They burnt the face and half the body of Christ! Why? For the mere pleasure of destruction, as they slashed with the sword or bayonet the tapestries and costly lace which covered the altar. On the walls hung priceless paintings, the work of Flemish old masters. These they cut along the frames. “They brought a pig into a little chapel, to the right of the nave, and killed it there. “On all sides the walls and flagstones bore the marks of prancing horses which had been stabled in the sanctuary.” A pyx was taken away by the Germans from the church of Hofstade. A Belgian priest found the gilt copper foot of it on the way into the village. All the precious stones which adorned it had been taken away, and the Germans also kept the upper part of silver gilt. In France, likewise, churches were desecrated, and the Germans used that of Betz as a barracks. When they had gone, one could see in it straw mattresses lying on the flagstones, empty bottles in rows on the altar steps, the remains of food on the forms and chairs, a leg-of-mutton bone thrown into the font, etc. On the 25th October a battalion of the 123rd infantry regiment of Wurtemburg Landwehr entered the village of Seugern, at the bottom of the Guebwiller valley and, on a signal from their leader, immediately set fire to it. The latter, a lieutenant, reserved for himself the church, which he entered at the head of ten men. In obedience to their officer’s orders the gang started operations by destroying the organ, then broke down the confessionals and the high altar, and, making a heap of images in the nave, drenched them all with petrol. A single Catholic soldier refused to take part in this infamous work. He was, therefore, disarmed and shot the following morning. The arrival of the French Chasseurs Alpins fortunately prevented the church, which had been polluted, from being devoured by fire as well.