Crude and illiterate though it was, the letter had a certain noble simplicity. "Tres gentil," I remarked as I returned it to Jeanne, and thought the matter at an end. But Jeanne had not done, and, with much circumlocution and many hesitations, she at last preferred a simple request. I was going to visit the battlefield of the Marne--yes? I assented. Well, perhaps, perhaps Monsieur would visit Paul's grave, and perhaps if he found it he would take a photograph. "Why, certainly," I said, little knowing what I promised. But the request was to have a strange sequel, as you shall hear. Sykes came to say my car was at the door. As I clambered in and turned to wave a farewell, Madame and Jeanne stood on the doorstep to wish me _bon voyage_. "J'espere que vous tuerez plusieurs Allemands," cried Madame in a quavering voice. "Veuillez ne pas oublier, M'sieu'," cried Jeanne wistfully. I waved my hand, and had soon left rue Robert le Frisson far behind me. FOOTNOTE: [8] The town described in this sketch is described not as it is, but as it was some months ago, and nothing is to be inferred from the title as to its present significance. XII MORT POUR LA PATRIE Two days later a French staff-officer greeted me in the vestibule of the Hotel de Crillon at Paris. It was the Comte de G----; he had been deputed by the Ministry of War to act as my escort on my tour of the French lines. He proved to be a charming companion. He was a magnificent figure of a man six feet three inches in height at least, an officer of dragoons, and he wore the red and white brassard, embroidered in gold with a design of forked lightning, which is the prerogative of the staff. A military car with a driver and an orderly in shaggy furs awaited us outside on the Place de la Concorde. It was a sumptuous car, upholstered in green corded silk, with nickel fittings, and displaying on its panels the motto _Quand meme_, and the monogram of a famous actress. It had been requisitioned. The air was cold--there had been frost overnight--but the sun was brilliant. As we threaded our way through Paris and its suburbs, a Paris chastened and resolute, I caught a glimpse of the barges upon the Seine with the women standing on the convex hatches hanging out clothes to dry--and I thought of Daudet and _La Belle Nivernaise_. As more and yet more men are called up to the colours women take their place, until the houses of business are like nunneries--with a few aged Fathers Superior. Having had business the day before at the Societe Generale, I had had occasion to reflect on these things as I stood in the counting-house watching some fifty girl typists at work, the room resounding with the tap-tap of their machines, as though fifty thrushes were breaking snails upon a stone. A wizened little clerk, verging upon superannuation, had beguiled my time of waiting with talk of the war: how his wife from Picardy had lost fifteen of her _parents_, while of four painters and paper-hangers who had