And these tombs, moreover, have such quantities and quantities of flowers, dahlias, chrysanthemums and roses, that they seem to be covered with one and the same richly decorated carpet. During these days of festival, the rest of the cemetery is also very full of flowers, but it looks dull and colourless compared with that corner sacred to our soldiers. It is this favoured corner which is visible at first sight, from a distance, from all the roads leading to the village, and wayfarers would ask themselves: "What festival can they be celebrating with all those flags fluttering in the air?" Two days before, I remember coming to see the preparations for these ingenious decorations. _Chasseurs_, with their hands full of bunches of flowers, were working there rapidly and thoughtfully, speaking in low tones. In the distance could be heard, though much muffled, the orchestra of the incessant battle in which the magnificent, great voice of our heavy artillery predominated; it seemed like the muttering of a storm all along the distant horizon. It was very gloomy in that cemetery, under an overcast sky, whence fell a semi-darkness already wintry in aspect. But the zeal of these _chasseurs_, who were decking the tombs so well, must yet have solaced the souls of the youthful dead with a little tender gaiety. And what beautiful, moving Masses were sung for them all along the front on the day of their festival. All the little churches--those at least that the barbarians have not destroyed--had been decorated that day with all that the villages could muster in the way of flags, banners, tapers and wreaths. And they were too small, these churches, to hold the crowds that flocked to them. There were officers, soldiers, civil population, women mostly in mourning, whose eyes under their veils were reddened with secret tears. Some of the soldiers, of their own accord, desiring to honour the souls of their comrades with a very special concert, had taken pains to learn the Judgment hymns, the _Dies iræ_, the _De profundis_, and their voices, unskilfully led though they were, vibrated impressively in the unison of plain-song, which the organ accompanied. Indeed what could better prepare them for the supreme sacrifice and for a death nobly met than these prayers, this music and even these flowers? They sang this morning, these improvised choristers, with a solemn transport. Then after Mass, in spite of the icy rain and the muddy roads, the crowds that issued from each church in procession betook themselves to the cemeteries, in attendance on the priests bearing the solemn crucifix. And again, as on the day of the funerals, all the little graves were blessed.