Today Paris had another visit from a German aëroplane which threw the usual three bombs. One of them fell in the Avenue du Trocadéro near the Embassy. It just missed demolishing the Ambassador and Mr. Frazier who were in an automobile on their way to inspect the buildings and grounds of the German Embassy. They had driven over the spot only two minutes before the bomb struck. I was at the same time on my way to the Embassy, having met them near the Pont d'Alma. I passed along the avenue a minute later and had just turned the corner when the bomb fell, killing an old man and tearing a leg off a little girl. The day was very cloudy and the aviator was above the clouds; for this reason no one seems to have discovered him and he must have thrown his bomb at random. * * * * * _Monday, September 28th._ At lunch today in the Café Royal I overheard a Frenchman remark that although he and all his compatriots greatly esteemed Mr. Herrick, it would nevertheless have been an excellent service against the enemy had he tactfully allowed himself to be annihilated by the German bomb which missed him yesterday. Later in the afternoon I took tea with Mr. Herrick at the _Chancellerie_, and he was much amused when I recounted to him this example of a somewhat equivocal good-will. * * * * * _Tuesday, September 29th._ The damage to Rheims Cathedral was largely the result of fire. The Germans had, during the time they held the city, converted it into a hospital; they had stacked the chairs against the walls and covered the floor deep with straw upon which to lay their wounded. During the spring and summer the front façade had been undergoing repairs and was covered with heavy wooden scaffolding similar to that which has for several years disfigured St. Sulpice in Paris. The Cathedral was very famous for its choir-stalls and other wood-carving, of which there was a great quantity, and the roof which covered the vaulting was held up by a forest of great timbers many centuries old. After the Germans had been driven out of the city they bombarded it from the hills outside, and their shells lit the straw on the Cathedral floor. Over it the fire ran swiftly, ignited the chairs piled against the walls, and then spread to the great masses of carved woodwork; finally the scaffolding and roof caught fire and the famous old Cathedral burned in one great conflagration. It has been particularly famous for three things: its woodwork, its front façade, and its stained-glass windows. The woodwork went up in smoke, the front façade was all scorched and disintegrated by the intense heat so that the surface of the stone detail is blowing off in fine dust, while the glass to the last particle was shattered by the concussions of bursting shells. The Cathedral stands like a great skeleton of its former self. Its flesh, as it were, is gone although few of its bones are broken. * * * * *