Yesterday at Lamballe we met a convoy of Prussian prisoners. They were going, under a strong guard, to work on the railway. At the sight of the gang my heart leapt within me. Standing up in the car I lost all control of myself, and shouted: "Bandits, savages, assassins, down with the Kaiser!" I was trembling with rage and emotion to think that here I had before my eyes those brutes who had killed women and children, girls and old men, for no reason at all--simply for the pleasure of killing. My friends were as much moved as I was, and even after the prisoners had passed we kept on shouting, "_A bas l'Allemagne_," and "_Vive la France!_" They marched by, unmoved, with a contemptuous and disdainful expression on their brutal faces. Only a very few of them looked as if they came from a decent class--the rest were savages. Really, when one is near them, one feels a regular surge of hate. IX--THE BREAKING HEARTS OF THE MOTHERS OF FRANCE _December 31._--The wintry wind is blowing keenly and violently. The year is dying, and I am thinking of those out there in the trenches who are playing at "_Qui perd gagne_." How sorrowfully they must be thinking of their loved ones! and I am thinking also of the unutterable sadness of everything around my son. The pagans used to sprinkle lustral waters on towns defiled by inexpiable wars, to appease the anger of the gods. Who can tell us what ritual we can perform to allay the anger of God and wipe out the traces of so much blood? What is my son doing on this last evening of the year, on this December 31st which soon will be torn from this year's calendar like the last leaf from a tree that thenceforward remains black and withered. * * * * * The papers are full of stories of German atrocities. The naked bodies of some women were found stripped and empaled on German bayonets near a farm, their breasts had been cut in pieces, and other unspeakable details revealed the Sadism which prevails among the Kaiser's soldiers. Is his madness infectious? and has it spread to his Army?--or are these massacres due to the brutes being drunk? A Red Cross nurse who had looked after a wounded prisoner, an officer, was warmly thanked by him several times. His thanks were charmingly expressed in excellent French. He even went so far as to promise to send her a little souvenir when he went back to his country. Soon afterwards, when he had recovered, he did go back, and the nurse thought no more about it, until one day she received a parcel from the German officer.