The other day in the Gare du Nord, waiting for a train, there was a stunning Belgian officer--not a private--he was a captain in one of the crack regiments. His excitement was terrible, he was almost beside himself with anguish and with anger. In a little village he had seen one woman violated by seven Germans in the presence of her husband; then the husband shot, the woman shot and her little baby cut in four pieces on a butcher's block. You can hardly call this the common course of war. He was a Belgian gentleman, and I should consider this a document of truth. But there are so many that I cannot prolong, and will not--what is the use? Every now and then a people needs to be wiped off the face of the earth, or a contingent blotted out that a newer and finer civilization shall prevail. Certainly this is the case with Germany. They say here that the Emperor and Crown Prince will be tried by law and sentenced to death as common criminals, the Emperor as a murderer and the Crown Prince as a robber, for his goods trains were stacked with booty and loot. Think of it, a Prince! Everywhere the Germans pass they leave their filthy insults behind them, in the beautiful châteaux and in the delicate rooms of the French women--the indications of their passing, not deeds of noble heroism that can be told of foes as well as of friends, but filthy souvenirs of the passing of creatures for whom the word "barbarism" is too mild! * * * * * Here is a more spiritual picture. Robert Le Roux, jun., was buried yesterday. You will have read in the previous pages here the story of his exploits on the battlefield--the closing of his young life in bravely leading his troops up the hill to certain death. And yesterday I went to St. Germain to his funeral. The last time I had seen young Robert he was a little boy, in short breeches and socks. His mother brought him to Versailles and he played with us in the garden there--a strong, splendid-looking young French boy. Now I was going to his funeral, and he was engaged to be married, with all his hopes before him, and on this same train was his little fiancée, in her long crêpe veil, broken-hearted; and his little sister, and the father, who had followed his son's campaign with such ardor and such tenderness; and his uncle, Dr. D., of whom I spoke previously--the splendid sergeant-major whose only son had just been killed by the enemy. A train of sorrow!--and only one of so many, so many. The church at St. Germain is simple and very old. The doors were all hung with heavy snow-white cloth, and before the door stood the funeral car drawn by white horses, all in white, and instead of melancholy hearse plumes there were bunches of flags, and over all hung the November mist enveloping, softening, and there was a big company of Cuirassiers guarding the road.