Of the Cercle Militaire on the right bank of the Meuse little is left except the walls, but it is no loss architecturally, and _messieurs les officiers_ are otherwise engaged. The banks of the Meuse are a pitiful sight. The old houses that reach over the water are roofless, bits of mattress hang from broken windows, and heaps of mortar are falling into the river. The great Porte Chaussée of the fifteenth century, with its two huge gray towers, is unharmed. We stopped at the theater for a moment. A big shell last month had made a sort of pudding of it. We crept in through a large aperture, to find the orchestra stalls precipitated onto the stage, and the loges sagging, ready to fall. We then went up into the old, high part of the town, and Colonel Dehaye, a true lover of the arts, in sadness showed us the cathedral and the charming old buildings that surround it. The huge church constructed according to Germanic traditions has two equal transepts, with high and beautiful vaulting, which is now so damaged that the roof at any time may fall. Inside were masses of débris, and nothing was left of the famous stained-glass windows except powdery bits of color on the floor. The colonel had rescued some old Spanish Stations of the Cross, and had put in safety a few other portable things of value. We passed out through the sacristy, which was a scene of disorder, bits of vestment, torn altar-cloths, and books lying about on the floor. “But,” I said, “the Germans didn’t get here?” “Oh,” answered one of the officers, with a smile, “_ce sont nos bons français_.” Then we descended into the crypt, the remains of the church that Pope Eugene III built in the twelfth century. Leading down to it is an old winding stair, with a delicious eighteenth-century wrought-iron railing. An artist in a white blouse, sent to restore some frescoes dating from the twelfth century, was rescuing from too complete destruction a beautiful figure of Christ with something stern and immutable in His look, reminding me of the Christ in the church of San Cosmo and San Damiano in the Roman Forum. We then went into the cloisters, with lovely and diverse _motifs_ on their vaultings, very much damaged in parts, a big shell having landed in the courtyard which they inclose. M. Renouard had stationed himself there with his easel, before a beautiful arrangement of trees and grass and enchanting old statues on mossy pedestals. In front of him was a great heap of fallen masonry, and a beautiful bit of toppling vaulting that the colonel had had propped up by beams, though he said: “_Demain ou après-demain cela ne sera plus_—it’s all at the mercy of a shot.” A sculptured Holy Family, somewhat the worse for _war_, is plastered into one side, dating from the fourteenth century.