"Those who were not indignant, or even surprised, when our enemies in Flanders summoned water as a weapon against us, have no cause to be indignant when we make air our ally and employ it to carry stupefying (_betaeubende_) gases against the enemy. What the Hague Convention desired to prevent was the destruction without chance of escape of human lives _en masse_, which would have been the case if shells with poisonous gas were rained down on a defenceless enemy who did not see them coming and was exposed to them irremediably. The changing forms of warfare make new methods of war continually necessary." Rheims Cathedral By Pierre Loti This article by Pierre Loti (Captain Viaud) originally appeared in L'Illustration as the last of a series of three entitled "Visions of the Battle Front," and is translated for THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY by Charles Johnston. To see it, our legendary and marvellous French basilica, to bid it farewell, before its fall and irremediable crumbling to dust, I had made my military auto make a detour of two hours on my return from completing a service mission. The October morning was foggy and cold. The hillsides of Champagne were on that day deserted; with their vines with leaves of blackened brown, damp with rain, they seemed all clad in a sort of shining leather. We had also passed through a forest, keeping our eyes alert, our weapons ready, for the possibility of marauding Uhlans. And at last we had perceived the immense form of a church, far off in the mist, rising in all its great height above the plots of reddish squares, which must be the roofs of houses; evidently that was it. The entrance to Rheims: defences of every kind, barriers of stone, trenches, spiked fences, sentinels with crossed bayonets. To pass, the uniform and accoutrements of a soldier are not enough. We must answer questions, give the pass-words.... In the great city, which I had not visited before, I ask the way to the cathedral, for it is no longer visible; its silhouette which, seen from a distance, so completely dominates everything, as a giant's castle might dominate the dwellings of dwarfs, its high gray silhouette seems to have bent down to hide itself. "The cathedral," the people reply, "at first straight on; then you must turn to the left, then to the right, and so on." And my auto plunges into the crowded streets. Many soldiers, regiments on the march, files of ambulance wagons; but also many chance passers-by, no more concerned than if nothing was happening; even many well-dressed women with prayer-books in their hands, for it is Sunday.