A Dutch army nurse--but in the German Red Cross service--is here for a few days' furlough, and related to Madame X. some horrible details of the battlefield in France, whence she has recently come. It is just one scene of mud and blood--pieces of limbs strewn everywhere and the dead standing straight against masses of bodies, both living and dead. In some towns she saw women and children pinioned with a sword through the breast to the walls of their houses, and in Belgium the women and children were often obliged to hold the hands of the men whom the soldiers shot at random, according to their fancy. Here again are tales that one hears that I cannot assert as facts, though this woman told them as her own experiences. Madame X. received a card from Charles, the young gardener, who is now safe in France training with the Belgian army near Dunkirque. You are doubtless wondering how a card arrived here, as we have had no mail since August 2nd. It was sent to a certain bank in Holland which is not far from the Belgian frontier and a messenger brought it on foot. And I have sent you back a letter, dear people, scribbled at top speed (without capitals, t's crossed nor i's dotted, probably) by the same messenger who takes his life in his hands when he passes the guard at the Dutch frontier again. If letters are found on this person he will certainly be shot, so whether you ever receive my communication will be a matter of history. _October 13th, Tuesday._ The old concierge of the hunting box at Viel Salm (near Malmédy, Germany), who has been dying of tuberculosis for twenty years, arrived here tonight, having walked the whole distance of seventy five kilometres. This shows the faithfulness of the old servant who thought he must come to report the sacking of the villa by the German troops which occurred in the early days of August. The poor man could not have hobbled another step, for he was at the end of his strength and his feet were just two great blisters. He told a shocking tale of the troops, who entirely pillaged the villa. While he went to complain of them at the _Kommandantur_ of the place, others came and what they did not break up, they took off. Pictures, engravings and mirrors were broken, the leather chairs slit up with a sabre--artistically done in the shape of a cross--and porcelain smashed in the middle of the courtyard. You can see by this that pillaging and atrocities began when the troops were hardly over the frontier. In one of the numerous pillaged châteaux around about, an extraordinary bit of literature, in fact a masterpiece, has been found by the châtelaine. A tiny scrap of paper sticking out from a book had these words scribbled on it in German: "I am only a common soldier but I ask pardon for these atrocities, committed by my superior officers." _October 14th, Wednesday._