At Epernay we wound about the streets till we came to the Hôtel de l’Europe, marked with a star in the guide; but you see no stars when you get into its encumbered, dull little courtyard—as slightly modern as possible—ask for luncheon, any kind of luncheon, and find one can’t have it or anything till twelve, the only fixed thing, except the _consigne_, I have discovered in the war zone. We went across the square to the Café de la Place, where we had _œufs sur le plat_, a yard and a half of thin, crusty bread, a thick pat of yellow butter, and a bottle of Chablis, that poured out pinky into our glasses. After which, reinforced and most cheerful, we went to the Place du Marché, where were many signs of the campaign of August and September, 1914. Among débris of bombarded buildings the fruit-market was being held. Plums, peaches, and apricots were of the most delicious, and we got pounds of them, which later were to be smashed and mashed and to ruin our dressing-bags and our clothes and the motor seats as we bumped along. It all came from Paris except the tiny, sweet, white grapes. Epernay seems banal, driving through it, but if one thinks a bit, all sorts of things flash into the mind. It has a Merovingian past, and has been pillaged innumerable times by innumerable hosts. It belonged to the Counts of Champagne, to Louise of Savoy; Henry IV besieged it in person, and Maréchal de Biron fell by his side. Now thinking of its great champagne industry, into mind come memories of dinner-tables around which sat white-vested, decorated statesmen, even unto the kind that did not prevent war, and lovely women, and the toss of repartee, and flash of jewel and white throat, and all the once-accustomed things no longer ours. As we got out of Epernay a terrible temptation assailed us. Three law-abiding women, by reason of original sin, I suppose, were drawn to take the forbidden road to Reims—Reims, the scarred, the pitiful—Reims, whose cannon sounded even now in our ears—rather than the straight path of duty and _sauf-conduits_ to Paris. “After all, we’re not here to go joy-riding in the war zone,” said one, virtuously; and then prudence, most dismal of virtues, triumphed, bolstered up by a look at a well-guarded bridge, and I told the inspiring story of the principal of the school my mother went to, whose last words to every graduate class were, “What is duty, young ladies?” And the young ladies were expected to respond, “A well-spring in the soul.” It isn’t (and never has been), and our eyes kept sweeping the hill between the Epernay road and that great plain of Champagne in the midst of which is set the broken jewel of France. A military auto passed as we stood there, and an officer waved us onward. We let that hand pointing us to Paris decide. It was the triumph of prudence—plus a lively sense of favors to come. Some one muttered, “Had we been going to take the boat on Saturday, oh, then mayhap, mayhap....”