The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 247 new series, January 1917)Various
History
The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 247 new series, January 1917)
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
The Germans used this cemetery as a citadel, and the holes which they
made for their guns in the wall, and the breaches in the parapet, are
still untouched. As their army retired the enemy were obliged to withdraw
from this position, and there was a violent struggle, in the course of
which the French regained the enclosure, and used it in their turn.
They fired with full effect from behind the granite tombstones. After
the battle the whole cemetery was a scene of ruin and confusion, but of
this nothing remains now, except the gun-holes and breaches in the wall,
which have not been repaired. All the monuments of the dead, on the
other hand, have been replaced with extreme piety, and, the cemetery not
having been nearly full before, its free spaces have been used to hold
the tombs of officers and men who fell in the battle. I noted, among many
of pathetic interest, the stone erected in memory of Lieut. Quiliquini,
who brought his Tunisian troops, the 8th Tirailleurs, from Sfax. There
seemed something which moved the fancy sorrowfully in the idea of these
loyal Africans who fell to ward off the barbarians’ blow at Paris.
Outside the cemetery local patriotism has fitted up, in a barn, a sort
of rough museum of objects found on the battlefields. No doubt this will
be a great attraction when once the tourist reassembles in his myriads.
At present the solitude is broken only by occasional privileged mourners,
‘brisés d’émotion et de tristesse.’
Proceeding south, we were soon out of the battlefield of the Ourcq, the
frontier being marked at Penchard by another rather garish monument to
the fallen officers. This is the place where three thousand Morocco
troops dashed with memorable fury of attack up the Penchard hill. At this
point the road turns, revealing, far below, to the left, the clustered
houses of Meaux, with its cathedral, seated in a rich glade across a
curve of the silver Marne. The first stage of our pilgrimage was over,
and we paused an hour in the exquisite city of which Bossuet was the
Eagle-bishop. Meaux is celebrated for the miracle which snatched it from
the very jaws of the dog, and prevented it from becoming another Arras,
another Reims. The catastrophe seemed inevitable, when at six o’clock on
September 5 a patrol of Uhlans appeared in the city. All day long they
were close to Meaux, the population of which had given themselves up
for lost three days before. The bombardment of the cathedral actually
began, but, as by the direct interposition of God, no shell touched the
building, and then, under the pressure of the English army, the Germans
retired altogether. The situation of Meaux, with its row of great
seventeenth-century mills on a stone bridge spanning the river—mills
which still produce immense quantities of flour for Paris—is as
picturesque as that of any provincial city in France, and on the occasion
of our recent visit, with its brimming river, its ancient russet mills,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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