Meanwhile the Curé, knowing nothing of what was happening to the Maire, had been thinking for his parishioners and his church. When the bombardment began he gathered together about a hundred and twenty of them, who had apparently no cellars to take refuge in, and after sheltering them in the Presbytère for a time, he sent them with one of his _vicaires_ out of the town. Then--to continue his narrative: "I went to the southern portal of the cathedral, and stood there trembling at every burst of shrapnel that struck the belfry and the roof, and running out into the open, at each pause, to be sure that the church was still there. When the firing ceased, I went back to the Presbytère. "Presently, furious sounds of blows from the _place_. I went out. I saw some enemy cyclists, armed with fragments of stone, breaking in one of the cathedral doors, another, with a hatchet, attacking the belfry door. At the sight of me, they rushed at me with their revolvers, demanding that I should take them to the top of the belfry. 'You have a machine gun there!' 'Nothing of the sort, monsieur. See for yourselves.' I unlocked the door, and just as I put my foot on the first step, the fusillade in the town began. The soldiers started. 'You are our prisoner!' cried their chief, turning to me, as though to seize me. "'I know it. You have me in your hands.' I went up before them, as quickly as my age allowed. They searched everywhere, and, of course, found nothing. They ran down and disappeared." But that was not the end of the Abbé's trouble. He was presently sent for to the German Headquarters, at the Hotel du Grand Cerf, where the table spread for thirty people, by the order of M. Odent, was still waiting for its guests. The conversation here between the Curé and the officer of high rank who spoke to him is worth repeating. From the tenor of it, the presumption is that the officer was a Catholic--probably a Bavarian. "I asked leave to go back to the Presbytère. "'Better stay here, Monsieur le Curé. You will be safer. The burning is going on. To-morrow, your town will be only a heap of ruins.' "'What is our crime?' "'Listen to that fusillade. Your inhabitants are attacking us, as they did at Louvain. Louvain has ceased to exist! We will make of Senlis another Louvain, so that Paris and France may know how we treat those who may imitate you. We have found small shot (_chevrotines_) in the body of one of our officers.' "'Already?'--I thought. How had there been any time for the post-mortem? But I was too crushed to speak. "'And also from your belfry we have been fired on!' "At that I recovered myself. "'Sir--what may have passed in the streets, I cannot say. But as to the cathedral I formally deny your charge. Since war broke out, I have always had the keys of the belfry. I did not even give them to your soldiers, who made me take them there. Do you wish me to swear it?' "The officer looked at me.