The staff and Paul Renouard, the painter, were waiting, and we sat down immediately to an excellent dinner, though the colonel said it was entirely _à l’improviste_. There were flowers on the table, too, but these I did suspect were specially for us. The colonel remarked, with the _hors-d’œuvre_, that he would take us to the battle-field after dinner, to the famous Fort de Souville, and the repast, instead of a meal, became the prelude to a supreme climax. The arrival of General Pershing was the first subject of conversation, accompanied by the most courteous and appreciative remarks; one of the officers told of the first day when the Stars and Stripes had appeared in the field with the other flags, and of the cheers that went up. And they drank to the United States, and we drank to France; they praised the work of women, and spoke of the immense moral and practical aid of the entry into the war of the United States. Whether it would shorten the conflict was another question. To the captain sitting opposite I said: “If the soul of the war has a special dwelling-place it is Verdun,” and told him how the thought of America turned about it those days of February and March of 1916. “But,” I added, “there was a time when I thought they might get through.” The commandant answered quickly from the other end of the table: “Ah, madame, there was a time when we thought they might get through, _mais ‘ils n’ont pas passé—ils ne passeront pas.’_” And then I quoted the beautiful phrase of the _Commentaires de Polybe_:[5] “_Et Verdun y en ruines, avec ses soldats, debouts, toujours dans la tempête, comme il n’y en a jamais eu de plus beaux ... avec Nivelle, et avec Pétain, avec l’image de Raynal qui vient roder la nuit dans les décombres de Vaux et avec le paraphe de Castelnau sur cet autre Couronné...._” We ended a most pleasant repast, with its great under throb, by coffee and tilleul and a little glass of cassis (black-currant cordial), the native liqueur. Then, on into a room where we pulled up our coat-collars so no white would show, slung the bags containing the gas-masks across our chests, left our flowers, parasols, and other impedimenta, and went out through the long, dim now empty hall to get into the autos. We waited half an hour for ours, which had performed the seemingly impossible feat of getting lost in Verdun. The officers began to get impatient, and M. de S. to make bitter remarks about his chauffeur; the colonel to walk up and down. The commandant said, “_Du calme_,” and the colonel answered that only sous-lieutenants _savent avoir du calme_. “_Ils sont étonnants_,” said another officer with four stripes on his arm. Finally our man appeared, with a story no one listened to, Colonel Dehaye getting in with us, the other officers leading the way in his auto.