The story of the Abbé Armand, in the 14th battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins, is that of a hero. A simple man, he used to open his heart to his rough comrades, and often in the trenches, under shell-fire, he would recite the Psalms in a clear voice so that they could hear him. On November 17, to the south of Ypres, his company was selected to hold a dangerous position, swept by the heavy guns of the Germans and near the enemy's trenches. All day until the evening the priest and his comrades stayed there, raked by a hideous shell-fire. At last nearly all the men were killed, and on his side of the emplacement the Abbé Armand was left with two men alive. He signalled the fact to those below by raising three fingers, but shortly afterwards a bullet struck him so that he fell and another hit him in the stomach. It was impossible to send help to him at the time, and he died half an hour later on the tumulus surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades. They buried him up there, and that night his loss was mourned, not without tears, by many rough soldiers who had loved the man for his cheeriness, and honoured him for the simple faith, which seemed to put a glamour about the mud-stained uniform of a soldier of France. There were scores of stories like that, and the army lists contained the names of hundreds of these priest-soldiers decorated with the Legion of Honour or mentioned in dispatches for gallant acts. The character of these men was filled with the spirit of Christian faith, though the war in which they sacrificed their lives was an outrage against Christianity itself. The riddle of it all bewilders one's soul, and one can only go groping in the dark of despair, glad of the little light which comes to the trench of the battlefield, because men like these still promise something better than hatred and blood, and look beyond the gates of death, to peace. 10 Not all French soldiers are like these priests who were valiant with the spirit of Christian faith. Side by side with the priest was the apache, or the slum-dweller, or the peasant from the fields, who in conversation was habitually and unconsciously foul. Not even the mild protest of one of these priests could check the flow of richly imagined blasphemies which are learnt in the barracks during the three years' service, and in the bistros of the back streets of France from Cherbourg to Marseilles. But, as a rule, the priest did not protest, except by the example of keeping his own tongue clean. "What is the use?" said one of them. "That kind of thing is second nature to the men and, after all, it is part of my sacrifice."