"'That, Monsieur, is the blood of the French gendarme who was killed at eleven this morning, but he did not go alone.' The priest pointed to two more recumbent figures clad in the bluish-grey of the Kaiser's legions. There they lay stiff and cold as the effigies around them. All three had perished by the same shell. Civilian doctors of Rheims moved amongst the wounded, who for the most part maintained an attitude of stoical indifference to everything around them. We moved around collecting fragments of the precious glass which the Kaiser had so unexpectedly thrown within our reach. We were brought back to realities by hearing the unmistakable whistle of an approaching shell, followed by a deafening explosion, and more fragments of glass came tumbling from aloft. The weary war-worn Teutons instinctively huddled closer to the Gothic arches. A dying officer, his eyes already fixed in a glassy stare on the sunlight above, gave an involuntary groan. We heard outside the crash of falling masonry. The shell was followed by another, and more breaking glass. Our chauffeur came hastening in with the Virgin's broken arm in his hands. A fragment of shell had broken it off outside. We lingered long gazing at this strange scene. "Outside the guns were thundering all round Rheims." It was after this that the cathedral was set on fire by the shells. FOOTNOTES: [29] This incident was narrated by the special correspondent of the _Berliner Tageblatt_. [30] Letters from the front published in the Berlin newspapers leave no doubt on this point. One such account described how a French shell in the Battle of the Marne wrecked an ambulance wagon loaded with bottles of wine--an instance of French contempt for civilised warfare! In 1870-71 the Germans impoverished Rheims by heavy requisitions. [31] The windows of Rheims Cathedral were filled with stained Venetian glass dating from the 12th century and impossible to replace. [32] The interior of Rheims Cathedral was furnished with sixty-six large pieces of priceless old tapestry, representing scenes in the life of Christ, the story of the Virgin, and scenes from the life of St. Paul, the latter after designs by Raphael. These tapestries had been removed to a place of safety. CHAPTER X REVIEW OF RESULTS Had the fighting round Rheims and the fighting north of the Aisne no result? Were these combats, vast as they were, merely drawn combats? By no means. North of the Aisne the British gained the eastern end of the ridge; round Rheims the French won all the eastern side of the theatre of hills, with the exception of Nogent l'Abbesse, and also the eastern side of the transverse gap. Those results were both decisive and important. They were decisive and important because they achieved strategical purposes vital to the Allied campaign. Let us try to make that clear.