I have the honor to report that I went this morning to Notre Dame to examine the damage caused by the bomb thrown yesterday afternoon on to the cathedral by a German aviator. The bomb struck the lower part of the west slope of the top of the north transept, tearing the lead, breaking a piece of the wooden frame, and smashing by its explosion the crown of the pinnacle which cuts the balustrade at the right of the flying buttress intermediary in the sexpartite vault of the transept. Other effects of the explosion were the striking of some stones and the leads of the dormer window which carries the frame of a clock, as also some small windows. The fragments of the pinnacle fell on the roof of the lower slope, where they made a deep imprint on the lead cover without breaking it through. The projectile was not an incendiary bomb, since the wood splintered by it bears no trace of fire. To resume, the damage is, fortunately, quite unimportant. The order has been given to set aside all the fragments of stone belonging to the decoration of the pinnacle, remains of crockets, ornaments, &c. (Signed) PAUL BOESWILLWALD. _With all the friends of civilization and of art, we think that the question of the slightness of the damage caused by this Taube is not to be considered at all. But the fact of this Taube having accomplished such a raid with the sole design of bombarding a cathedral in a peaceful city, 100 kilometres off from the military operations--is it not the most patent and evident demonstration of the kind of Neronian dilettantism which, along with calculation, inspires the crimes of the barbarians?_ APPENDIX III. No. 1. WHAT OUR PROVINCIAL CITIES ARE. _Here is a page published by Anatole France apropos of the bombardment of Soissons:_ I had just read in a newspaper that the Germans, who have been bombarding Soissons these four months, have dropped eighty shells on the cathedral. A moment later chance brought before me a book of M. Andre Hallays, where I find these lines, which I take pleasure in transcribing: "Soissons is a white city, peaceful and smiling, that raises its tower and pointed spires at the edge of a lazy river, at the centre of a circle of green hills. The city and the landscape make one think of the little pictures that the illuminators of our old manuscripts lovingly painted.... Precious monuments show the whole history of the French Monarchy, from the Merovingian crypts of the Abbaye de Saint-Medard to the fine mansion erected on the eve of the Revolution for the Governors of the province. Amid narrow streets and little gardens a magnificent cathedral extends the two arms of its great transept; at the north is a straight wall, and an immense stained-glass window; at the south, that marvelous apse where the ogive and the full centre combine in so delicate a fashion." ("Around Paris," Page 207.)