Founded by François Premier near the old town which was burned with its church full of worshipers, in a fit of anger by Louis VII during his war with the Count of Champagne. To expiate this crime he undertook the Second Crusade. Much black ribbon of canal knotted about, one end of which leads from the heart of France to the Rhine. An endless train of troops going to the front, men pressed together, sardine- and herring-like, in each compartment—it made my soul sick—just human masses weighed down by accoutrement and literally wedged in. A lively dispute between a thick-set _poilu_ and one of the station employees on behalf of a slight, blond, very young soldier. “_Quoi, vous osez engueuler un poilu de quinze ans?_” And the following crescendo mounts to the broken panes of the station roof, “_Embusqué, cochon, salaud, vache!_”[21] There was no answer of protest from the official. And Vitry-le-François is where Napoleon almost took prisoner the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the Austrian General Schwarzenberg in 1814, and in 1914 it was bombarded by the Germans, and now American troops pour through it. CHAPTER VIII THE CHÂLONS CANTEEN HÔTEL DE LA HAUTE MÈRE DIEU, CHÂLONS, _October 17th, 1.30 a.m._ Lodged at last with the “High Mother of God.” On arriving, dined in a low-ceilinged, dingy, dowdy room, but the acetylene lights, the uniforms and decorations of the officers, made something brilliant, which half veiled the knowledge of the dark night outside, the approaching winter, the continuing war. Afterward, I slipped out with my little electric lamp, through the Place de la République, almost empty; low and splendid stars hung over the town. In the rue des Lombards, St.-Alpin was a dark mass, and from its tower the hour was striking a quarter to nine o’clock. I turned into the long, perfectly black rue de Marne. Not a single light, nor any passer-by. I flashed my little lamp to find the curb. There came a click of wooden-soled shoes from a side street, and a thick voice said, “_Ah, la dame, pourquoi si vite?_” I passed on like the wind, trembling, down the deserted street, but when I flashed the lamp to find another curb, something heavy and stumbling got nearer. And then I didn’t dare to turn the light on, and I took the wrong turning, and found myself in what seemed a wilderness of mud and trees, with the click of those following wooden-soled feet behind, and any woman who has been terrified, she scarcely knows why, will understand. Finally I stopped behind a dark mass of trees, with something sucking about in the mud, and mumbling half-suspected words, and finally retreating. At that moment a soldier appeared, a gigantic shadow of himself as he struck a match to light his cigarette, and I asked: “Is this the rue du Port de Marne?” He answers, “You have missed your way; you are by the canal,” and he puts me onto the road again, and then I turn and grope my way to the little house by the Marne.