Noyon also was reconquered I do not know how many times, and La Fère retaken with bayonets. Once the news really seemed worthy of belief. The Germans had put it up in Laon: "La Fère has been in a cowardly manner retaken by the French." We thought it true. Really, now, who would make up such an adjective? The Germans had certainly used it. On inquiry it was found that the adjective, like the news, had been invented, and the bill had never existed at all. Glorious feats were just as frequent on the front near us. "The Route des Dames ... you know?... The French have held it since yesterday. And to-night they have carried the village of Ailles." "Really, I thought they took it last week." "Last week it was a false report; to-day the thing is certain." And the Allies! Think how they worked! "Seventy thousand Russians have just landed at Antwerp. The English are shelling Hamburg. Our Northern army is advancing, yes, it is...; deliverance will come from the North." Ah, the secret of making legends is not lost! Popular imagination invents hundreds of them. But nowadays they cannot live long. Books and newspapers cut their wings as soon as they are hatched, and the poor things flutter an instant, and then die. But imagine a corner of a country like ours, perfectly isolated from the rest of the world for some ten years, and deprived of all news, all writings; suppose the peasants should be questioned long after upon the events of the present war, from their statements you might compose the most beautiful epic poem ever heard. As in the good old time, its title would be, "The Gestes of the French by the Grace of God." Frenchmen, my brothers, I know you were splendid. You fought like lions, like the heroes that you are. Your glorious feats are too numerous to be counted. It was our despair not to know them. But, in revenge, we invented feats for you, fresh ones every day. Once, for instance, the French, masters of the stone-quarries of Paissy, made good use of a secret passage, and leaping unexpectedly from out of the ground, flick, flack, flick, spread death and dismay among the Germans; then, like jacks-in-the-box, they disappeared as if by magic. Struck with consternation, the Germans would have thought themselves dreaming had not too many proofs testified to the reality of the brief apparition. And what do you think of the _chasseurs à pied_ who, behind a hedge at Malva, planted a forest of poles with a cap on the top of every one, and then, when the enemy with loud cries were in the very act of rushing upon this trap, shot them down to the very last man?