After our advance into northern France I immediately ordered that art treasures be protected. Art historians and professors were assigned to each army, who traveled about inspecting, photographing, and describing churches, châteaux, and castles. Among them Professor Clemen, Curator of the Rhine Province, especially distinguished himself and reported to me, when I was at the front, on the protection of art treasures. All the collections in towns, museums, and castles were catalogued and numbered; whenever they seemed to be imperiled by the fighting they were taken away and assembled, at Valenciennes and Maubeuge, in two splendid museums. There they were carefully preserved and the name of the owner marked on each article. The old windows of the cathedral of St. Quentin were removed by German soldiers, at the risk of their lives, under English shell-fire. The story of the destruction of the church by the English was told by a German Catholic priest, who published it with photographs, and it was sent, by my orders, to the Pope. At the château of Pinon, which belongs to the Princess of Poix, who had been a guest of mine and the Empress, the headquarters of the general commanding the Third Army Corps was located. I visited the château and lived there. Previously the English had been quartered there and had ravaged the place terribly. The commanding general, von Lochow, and his staff had a great deal of trouble getting it into some sort of shape again after the devastation wrought by the English. Accompanied by the general, I visited the private apartments of the Princess, which, up to then, our soldiers had been forbidden to enter. I found that her entire wardrobe had been thrown out of the clothes presses by the English soldiers and, together with her hats, was lying about on the floor. I had every garment carefully cleaned, hung in the presses, and locked up. The writing desk had also been broken into and the Princess's correspondence was scattered about. At my command, all the letters were gathered together, sealed in a package, placed in the writing desk, and locked up. Afterward, all the silverware was found buried in the garden. According to the villagers this had been ordered as early as the _beginning of July_, so the Princess had known about the war long before its outbreak! I at once ordered that the silver be inventoried, deposited in the bank at Aix-la-Chapelle, and returned to the Princess after the war. Through neutral channels I caused news to be transmitted to the Princess in Switzerland, by my Court Marshal, Freiherr von Reischach, concerning Pinon, her silverware, and my care for her property. No answer was received. Instead, the Princess had published in the French press a letter to the effect that General von Kluck had stolen all her silver.