The phenomenon was signalled from Perpignan, Montauban, Nantes, le Hâvre, La Réole, Amélie-les-Bains, etc. And so on. Every sort of stupidity was given out on the subject. Well, a star resplendent with light shone every evening in the western sky. It was Venus, the famous Shepherds’ Star. It was seen from every point of France, from Europe, Asia, the United States--and from Cherbourg as well. For three months it reigned on high every evening. It was also at its maximum brilliancy, and so bright that it cast a shadow, as we have said. And nobody at Cherbourg spoke of Venus, nobody compared with Venus the new star situated in the same region of the sky, nobody thought that this mysterious heavenly body might be none other than the radiant planet. Nobody seemed to know that Venus was there![1] The story repeated itself from December 1912 to March 1913. Venus queened it over the first hours of the night, moving ever nearer to us and remaining a little longer every evening above the horizon. On the very rare date recorded by the postmarks as 12-12-12 (12 Dec., 1912), the conjunction of Venus and the Moon attracted general attention, especially as the weather was fine. It was the same at the other conjunctions, January 1912, February 11, and March 11. This association of radiant Venus with the lunar crescent in the evening sky offers to the eyes the most inspiring of spectacles. The sensation caused at Cherbourg in the spring of 1905 by the brilliant star of the evening shining upon the sea and taken for a mysterious instrument of espionage was renewed in 1913, especially in England. Those who saw it, blinded by its radiant beauty, were led to confound the Shepherds’ Star with German airships, and accused them of espionage. One could read, in fact, in the paper, that the authorities on the other side of the Channel were greatly alarmed by the nocturnal flight of mysterious dirigibles which came under cover of the shades of the evening and hovered over British ports. The cars and the balloons themselves were, so it was said, invisible on account of the darkness, but the powerful searchlights thrown upon the earth revealed the unusual presence of the aerial intruder! At the same time we received from Russia similar stories of the fear inspired by Venus among the people, who professed to recognise in its bright light the fires of Austrian aeroplanes spying out the upper atmosphere. In Roumania, Venus was taken for a Russian aeroplane; and in Bessarabia (Russia), rifle-shots were fired at the beautiful planet, in the belief that it was a Roumanian dirigible. Yet it would be sufficient to use quite a small telescope or even a good opera-glass to correct this error, for Venus showed phases which would have immediately completed the identification, and certainly not allowed it to be confused with aerial vehicles.