At Dornans you are only a few miles north of
the Marshes of St. Gond, where General Foch, after some perilous
moments, won his brilliant victory over General Billow and the German
Second Army, including a corps of the Prussian Guards; while at Chalons
I look up from a record I am reading of the experiences of the Diocese
during the war, written by the Bishop, to watch for the distant
cathedral, and recall the scene of the night of September 9th, when the
German Headquarters Staff in that town, "flown with insolence and wine,"
after what is described as "an excellent dinner and much riotous
drinking," were roused about midnight by a sudden noise in the Hotel,
and shouts of "The French are here!" "In fifteen minutes," writes an
officer of the Staff of General Langle de Gary, "the Hotel was empty."
At Epernay and Chalons those French officers who were bound for the
fighting line in Champagne, east and west of Reims, left the train; and
somewhere beyond Epernay I followed in thought the flight of an
aeroplane which seemed to be heading northwards across the ridges which
bound the river valley--northwards for Reims, and that tragic ghost
which the crime of Germany has set moving through history for ever,
never to be laid or silenced--Joan of Arc's Cathedral.
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