Nancy—as you proved for yourself _de visu_, and as you state in the course of your book—is a _ville ouverte_, without any fortifications. It does not contain a single military establishment. The barracks, which are full of soldiers in time of peace, were emptied on the first day of the war, and were all converted either into hospitals or else into homes of refuge for women and children, refugees whom I gathered in from the destroyed communes. Not one cannon, not one shell, not one soldier is housed in the town. And yet, by means of a long-range gun, mounted at a distance of about 33 kilometres, the Boches are sending us shells of 800 kilos., which fall from a height of 8000 metres and crush a house like a walnut. They have no military objective. What, then, is their purpose? Their intention is twofold. In the first place they wish to “terrorize”; these people are fools, they will never understand that they inspire not fear but horror, and that by acts of this kind they are sowing not terror but hatred. In the second place, they hope to kill, in this great industrial town, a few women and children. This object they can obviously attain more easily than the other; it lies within the reach of every artilleryman, however poor a gunner he may be, who takes a large town as his target. So far this statement tells you nothing that you did not know before. It is a long time since the Boches gave us their first samples. Every one is acquainted with their methods. To-day it is only of set purpose that it is possible to ignore them. The bombardment, without any military reason, of open towns with no garrison, has become, on the part of the Germans, an everyday affair. But these last bombardments of Nancy show a particularly studied nicety, full of the most delicate refinement.