But what of the proprietors of these châteaux in our lines? you may ask. The British Army pays for everything it uses, pays rent for the châteaux it occupies, as for the horses or cattle it may (very rarely) requisition. The châtelains have very often gone away until the war is over; sometimes they have been called up to the French or Belgian armies, as the case may be. I have met with cases in which the châtelain has lived in his château during our occupation, and the officers quartered there have dined daily at his table. The position is a little delicate. Our army is an army of gentlemen, and both officers and men have shown in this war that they know how to respect the feelings and property of the civilian population in our zone of operations. But, obviously, considerable tact is required to reconcile some elderly Countess, accustomed all her life to preside over a well-conducted, placid, and scrupulously clean household, with the irruption of a horde of healthy, active men, shod with hobnails (“_Mon Dieu, le parquet!_”), very often muddy (“_O Ciel, mes tapis!_”), and inclined to smoke pipes all over the place. In one case I heard of, a Headquarters Staff, on arriving at a château where they were to establish themselves, found that the owner and his wife, an elderly couple, had not been on the best of terms with their predecessors, a Headquarters Staff that had just moved on. A tactful Staff Captain went out to reconnoitre the ground. He found that their hosts had been a trifle _froissé_ by a lack of understanding on the part of the other British officers who had been quartered there. He laid himself out to make friends with the old couple with some success. One day they mentioned _en passant_ that it was a pity there was only one swan on the lake, and that a female. The Staff Captain took counsel. Presently, with great secrecy, the youngest member of the Staff, who was thought to require a change of air, was despatched to Paris with strict orders only to return with a male swan. The British officer is a resourceful person. In three days the subaltern was back with a gentleman swan in a basket. This graceful present broke the ice between the British officers and their hosts, and when I visited that château, not only did the old couple preside daily at the officers’ mess, but they had also given them the usage of certain rooms which they had resentfully closed to their predecessors.