To-day there is silence in the basilica, as well as in the deserted square around it; a deathlike silence within these walls, which for so long had vibrated to the voice of organs and the old ritual chants of France. The cold wind alone makes a kind of music this Sunday morning, and at times when it blows harder there is a tinkling like the fall of very light pearls. It is the falling of the little that still remained in place of the beautiful glass windows of the thirteenth century, crumbling away entirely, beyond recovery. A whole splendid cycle of our history which seemed to live in the sanctuary, with a life almost tangible, though essentially spiritual, has suddenly been plunged into the abyss of things gone by, of which even the memory will soon pass away. The great barbarism has swept through this place, the modern barbarism from beyond the Rhine, a thousand times worse than the barbarism of old times, because it is doltishly, outrageously self-satisfied, and consequently fundamental, incurable, and final--destined, if it be not crushed, to overwhelm the world in a sinister night of eclipse. In truth it is strange how that statue of Joan of Arc in the choir has remained standing calm, intact, immaculate, without even the smallest scratch upon her gown. VII THE FLAG WHICH OUR NAVAL BRIGADE DO NOT YET POSSESS _December, 1914._ At first they were sent to Paris, those dear sailors of ours, so that the duty of policing the city, of maintaining order, enforcing silence and good behaviour might be entrusted to them--and I could not help smiling; it seemed so incongruous, this entirely new part which someone had thought fit to make them play. For truth to tell, between ourselves, correct behaviour in the streets of towns has never been the especial boast of our excellent young friends. Nevertheless by dint of making up their minds to it and assuming an air of seriousness, they had acquitted themselves almost with honour up to the moment when they were freed from that insufferable constraint and were sent outside the city to guard the posts in the entrenched camp. That was already a little better, a little more after their own hearts. At last came a day of rejoicing and glorious intoxication, when they were told that they were all going into the firing-line. If they had had a flag that day, like their comrades of the land-forces, I will not assert that they would have marched away with more enthusiasm and gaiety, for that would have been impossible, but assuredly they would have marched more proudly, mustered around that sublime bauble, whose place nothing can ever take, whatever may be said or done. Sailors, more perhaps than other men, cherish this devotion to the flag, fostered in them by the touching ceremonial observed on our ships, where to the sound of the bugle the flag is unfurled each morning and furled each evening, while officers and crew bare their heads in silence, in reverent salute.