One enters Senlis from Paris by the main street, the Rue de la République, which the Germans deliberately and ruthlessly burnt on September 2nd and 3rd, 1914. We moved slowly along it through the blackened ruins of houses large and small, systematically fired by the German _pétroleurs_, in revenge for a supposed attack by civilians upon the entering German troops. _Les civils ont tiré_--it is the universal excuse for these deeds of wanton barbarism, and for the hideous cruelties to men, women, and children that have attended them--beginning with that incident which first revealed to a startled world the true character of the men directing the German Army--the burning and sack of Louvain. It is to be hoped that renewed and careful investigation will be made--(much preliminary inquiry has already of course taken place)--after the war into all these cases. My own impression from what I have heard, seen, and read--for what it may be worth--is that the plea is almost invariably false; but that the state of panic and excitement into which the German temperament falls, with extraordinary readiness, under the strain of battle, together with the drunkenness of troops traversing a rich wine-growing country, have often accounted for an honest, but quite mistaken belief in the minds of German soldiers, without excusing at all the deeds to which it led. Of this abnormal excitability, the old Curé of Senlis gave one or two instances which struck me. We came across him by chance in the cathedral--the beautiful cathedral I have heard Walter Pater describe, in my young Oxford days, as one of the loveliest and gracefullest things in French Gothic. Fortunately, though the slender belfry and the roof were repeatedly struck by shrapnel in the short bombardment of the town, no serious damage was done. We wandered round the church alone, delighting our eyes with the warm golden white of the stone, the height of the grooved arches, the flaming fragments of old glass, when we saw the figure of an old priest come slowly down the aisle, his arms folded. He looked at us rather dreamily and passed. Our guide, Monsieur P., followed and spoke to him. "Monsieur, you are the Abbé Dourlent?" "I am, sir. What can I do for you?" Something was said about English ladies, and the Curé courteously turned back. "Will the ladies come into the Presbytère?" We followed him across the small cathedral square to the old house in which he lived, and were shown into a bare dining-room, with a table, some chairs, and a few old religious engravings on the walls. He offered us chairs and sat down himself.