* * * * * [Illustration: PROFFIT FARM BURNT BY THE GERMANS] In front of the graves is one of the entrances of +Proffit Farm+. The view opposite shows a part of the courtyard. This fine farmstead had been marked down and condemned in advance. The Germans had themselves specially guided there from Chauconin. They looted the farmer's house: near the safe was found one of the skeleton keys with which they tried to force it. They then fired the stables and barns, where nearly 20,000 bundles of straw made a gigantic blaze. _Skirting the walls of the farm, the road leads to_ the +Church+, where the Germans installed an ambulance during their short occupation of September 5. The inhabitants who remained in the village were commandeered and had to carry in the German wounded, on ladders, from the surrounding neighbourhood. On the morning of the 6th the French re-occupied Neufmontiers and captured the ambulance (_view below_). [Illustration: GERMAN AMBULANCE IN THE CHURCH] _Running between Proffit Farm and the church, the road slopes down to the brook le Rutel, which it crosses. At the fork of the road, turn to the right. A hundred yards further on is the spot from which the +Panorama A+ seen below_ (6½ km.) was taken, embracing the field of action of September 5. [Illustration: Road to Villeroy Iverny Heights of Cuisy Le Rutel Monthyon Road from Neufmontiers to Iverny Le Rutel Heights of Penchard Castle Park Neufmontiers A. +PANORAMA OF MONTHYON PENCHARD. NEUFMONTIERS+] The advance guard of the Fourth German reserve corps had placed its artillery in the declivities of the heights of Monthyon and Penchard; the infantry troops and machine-guns had advanced into the plain, utilising le Rutel and the Neufmontiers to Iverny road as entrenchments. The first cannon shot of the battle of the Marne was fired on the 5th of September, at noon, from Monthyon at a French battery which was coming out of Iverny, and killed the captain. The fight was sanguinary all that day. The troops of the 55th division tried their hardest to push the Germans back beyond Monthyon but were stopped on the plain by the terrible fire of the machine-guns. At the same time the Moroccan brigade attacked the heights of Penchard and carried them with the bayonet, but it could not maintain its position there and was forced back behind Neufmontiers and Chauconin, which the Germans occupied. This occupation only lasted a few hours for, during the night, the German troops, threatened with being outflanked by the Seventh Corps further north, abandoned their formidable positions at Monthyon--Penchard and the outposts at Neufmontiers--Chauconin. The next morning the French took possession. [Illustration: GREAT GRAVE OF VILLEROY]