Their insolent arrogance culminated in a certain aide-de-camp, who arrived post-haste to say that the Palace must be instantly made ready to receive an Excellence _par excellence_. A man of imagination this aide-de-camp, for when at his command M. Mourey showed him over the palace and pointed out the gaps in the collections made by the soldiers’ pilfery, he said with an all-explanatory air, “But why didn’t you get souvenirs ready for the officers?” The Excellence whom this right Brandenburger heralded was no less than the Kaiser himself, and M. Mourey is convinced that it is to the Imperial intention that the safety of Compiègne is owing. It may be: but we prefer to think that honourable foes such as Von Kluck and Von Marwitz had their share in the unusual consummation.[61] “The Irish Nuns at Ypres” gives an account of their experiences by a member of the Community. In a review (May 27, 1915), the _Times_ Literary Supplement says: For us in England it is hard to realise the feeling of sickening anxiety with which, on October 7, these defenceless ladies witnessed the arrival in Ypres of the devastators of Belgium. On this occasion, apart from a certain amount of looting, the Germans behaved “pretty civilly,” and the Abbey had nothing to complain of but want of bread. Another French account of the invaders in Northern France is given by Gabriele and Margerita Yerta, “Six Women and the Invasion.” Their experiences were variable. “It is clear,” writes a reviewer in the _Nation_, “that Herr Major, and ‘Barlu,’ and ‘Crafleux’ and the two ‘model Prussians,’ who replenished the house with coal and provisions, and offered the ladies game they had shot, only sinned by their over-gallantry. But things changed for the worse with the coming of a hundred Death’s Head Hussars and Lieutenant von Bernhausen.... Nothing very outrageous is recorded, but there was dragooning, inquisition, drunkenness. Bernhausen’s reign lasted two months.” As to outrages on women, Madame Yerta writes: “To be sure there were rapes, but, thanks be to God, these were few, and they took place at the beginning of the invasion.... I must confess that many a woman was the victim of her own imprudence.” The book is, naturally, fiercely anti-German, its facts are, however, those of any war story.