The city was left entirely in ruins (Plate 7 is a view from the wall at the South Gate), not a single building standing with walls and roof, or in any condition that could be called habitable. The ruined tower (Plate 8), of which the foundation dates from 1201, is all that remains of the once beautiful Cloth Hall, and the Cathedral of St. Martin behind it is just as completely destroyed. It is to be hoped that after the celebrations of July, 1920, the miserable restaurants with their flaunting advertisements, which seemed to smother the tragic ruins with their commonplace banalities in 1919, may be done away with. It cannot be impossible to find means by which the natural interest of visitors, for too many of whom the salient is the grave of friends and relatives, can be gratified without vulgarising ground which for generations to come will be sacred in memory to the Allies whose soldiers fought there, and whose sons it was who formed the "thin red line" which was for so long the chief barrier to hold back the German hordes from the north of France, and, in effect, from our own country. It must be remembered, in looking at such views as Plates 7 and 8, that the clear spaces in the foreground are only clear because all the buildings upon them have been destroyed, wiped out. Before the war these spaces were closely built upon, covered all over with houses. In Plate 7 are seen two or three "reconstructions" started after the ground had been cleared of the mass of brick and stone rubbish with which it was thickly covered until the end of the fighting. It is hardly necessary to say that the general tidiness of the ground in the Grande Place (Plate 8) belongs to a time months after the Germans had been driven finally out of range. During the war there was neither time nor opportunity to clear away the débris, which covered road and building sites alike. * * * * *