We arrived at Dugny at ten o’clock and descended to look about for a suitable place for the installing of a canteen, which was partly our reason for being where we were. There is an old country house in the middle of the little town, with a coat of arms above the door and lions crouching on its gates; behind is a lovely ancient park with linden and elder trees in full blossom, and under them quiet, shady walks. It is used as an ambulance station, and convalescing men were sitting or lying about on the ground. We met the _médecin-chef_, who, however, like all doctors, didn’t care twopence for well soldiers, and was but platonically interested in the canteen matter—just as the military count out the sick and wounded soldiers. It’s all in the point of view. As we stood talking a German aeroplane flew high above Dugny outlined in a perfect sky. Little white clouds of shrapnel from the vertical guns began to burst about it in the clear blue, and there was a louder sound of cannonading as the _avion_ disappeared in some far and upper ether. E. M.’s brother had been once stationed here for months, and she told the story of his meeting unexpectedly his cousin Casimir. They were going different ways with different detachments, and they “held up the war” while they embraced! Smart officers, ahorse and afoot, convoys going to the trenches with rations, great carts full of bread, and ambulating soup-kitchens filled the little street. Verdun was but seven kilometers distant, and the road lay straight before us as we left Dugny. On the horizon the outline of the citadel and the towers of the cathedral showed against the sky. Another endless convoy of ambulances and _camions_ enveloped us in a choking white dust. This is the lining of the front, and it is quite easy to see where the war billions go. We passed into Verdun under the Porte de France, and then went immediately up to the citadel through the old drawbridge, all dating from the days of Louis XIV and Vauban, and it was at Verdun that the sons of Louis the Debonair met to divide the empire of Charlemagne.[4] We got out by the demolished barracks, and M. de S. went to pay his respects to the colonel, who was expecting him. As I descended I saw at my feet a beautiful tiny bird’s nest, which I picked up with a clutching at the heart. The birds went away that first terrible spring of 1916, the colonel afterward told me, but they had come back in great numbers in 1917, and were everywhere building their nests, in spite of the continual bombardments. The citadel was a desolate mass of mortar, stones, rusty barbed-wire entanglements, blackened and broken tree stumps, but everywhere, too, were quantities of undiscourageable new green.