In the Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris), of which he is managing editor, M. Francis Charmes, of the Academie Francaise, replies to a speech made by von Bethmann-Hollweg before the Reichstag, in which the German Chancellor expressed sympathy for the deluded French soldiers, who had not an inkling of the true course which the war was taking. M. Charmes ironically remarks: We do not publish, he [von Bethmann-Hollweg] claims, any of the German dispatches, so that opinion is quite unenlightened as to what is actually happening on the field of battle. One would think, according to M. de Bethmann-Hollweg, that the German dispatches are a source on which one can rely with full confidence, and one would imagine, too, since he had thus reproached us, that the German newspapers published the French dispatches. As a matter of fact, they do not and if it is necessary to hear both sides to know the truth then the Germans are quite ignorant of it. They are indeed very far removed from knowing it, and it is a constant surprise to our officers and our soldiers to discover when they question their prisoners, the profound illusions under which they labor. Dr. von Bode's Polemic Some time ago Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, the well-known director of the Berlin Art Museums and Germany's authority in matters of art, issued a justification of German conduct in Rheims and Louvain, which he supported by a review of Germany's world-contribution to art. "The German Science of Art and the War," was the title of the article. Jacques Mesnil, writing in the Mercure de France, presents a reply to Dr. von Bode's polemic. He brands as infantile the reasoning by which Dr. Bode proves the German soldier incapable of destroying a work of art. The German professor stated that civilization, and with it art, could not have survived were it not for the protection of German militarism. M. Mesnil replies: M. Bode should have been able to separate a little better two things which have nothing to do with each other: strategy and the history of art. He should have explained the conduct of the soldiers by the service which is required of them; he should have pointed out precisely the point of view of the archaeologist as incompatible with that of the warrior and he should have freed of responsibility those who, loving the picturesque old cities and the pure creations of artists, could not sympathize with those who destroy them. Far from this, he has invoked the merits of German science to justify the outrages of the soldiery and in his eyes the fact that German savants have added to the progress of archaeology suffices to prove that the German army is incapable of destroying works of art.