Do you wish me to swear it?'
"The officer looked at me.
"'No need. You are a Catholic priest. I see you are sincere.'
"I bowed."
A scene that throws much light! A false charge--an excited reference to
Louvain--monstrous threat--the temper, that is, of panic, which is the
mother of cruelty. At that very moment, the German troops in the Rue de
la Republique were driving parties of French civilians in front of them,
as a protection from the Senegalese troops who were still firing from
houses near the Paris exit from the town. Four or five of these poor
people were killed by French bullets; a child of five forced along, with
her mother, was shot in the thigh. Altogether some twenty or thirty
civilians seem to have been killed.
Next day more houses were burnt. Then, for a time, the quiet of
desolation. All the normal population were gone, or in the cellars. But
twenty miles away to the southeast, great things were preparing. The
German occupation of Senlis began, as we have seen, on a Wednesday,
September 2nd. On Saturday the 5th, as we all know, the first shots were
fired in that Battle of the Ourcq which was the western section of the
Battle of the Marne.
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