  With the French Armies, April 20, 1918 The great fire at Rheims has nearly burned itself out. Having thrown in a week 50,000 explosive and an unknown number of incendiary and gas shells, the German gunners ceased as suddenly and inexplicably as they had begun, and when I entered the city this morning the silence of death brooded over it. The written word is powerless to describe such a spectacle, and it is no more adequate for being unmeasured. But when men of faith, men who love the old and beautiful, write under the fresh, stunning impression of such a sight, is it strange that some loose phrases escape them? I am very familiar with the ruins of Rheims. From the first bombardment, which destroyed the exquisite sculptures of the north tower and the façade of the cathedral three and a half years ago, I have been able to watch the mischief extending step by cruel step. At first, with normal British reluctance to credit the outrageous or incomprehensible, one was chiefly concerned to find out whether, after all, there was not some sort of military excuse. I severely cross-examined every one who could be supposed to know anything about the matter. There never was any shadow of excuse. It remained only to record from time to time the progress of a crime as deliberate as any in the annals of the war, and in its own kind particularly damnable—a blackhearted crime such as a Comanche chief or a Congo cannibal would not have had the wickedness to conceive. And if there be still any rationalist obstinate enough to ask for the reason why of this last outburst of vandalism, I can only hazard the guess that it may have been planned, like the long-distance bombardments of Paris, as a terroristic accompaniment of the Hindenburg offensive. It may have been supposed that the tales of the refugees would help to demoralize Paris and the rest of the country. So little after these terrible years has the boche learned of the people he set out to conquer. Well, the Cathedral of St. Louis is not falling. Wonderful was the work of the builders. More buttresses, pinnacles, gargoyles, and stone railings have been shattered, more statues chipped, and rain, entering freely by a large rent in the roof, has worked invisible damage since my last visit in November. The cathedral has been struck again. The uplifted sword of Joan of Arc in the bronze equestrian statue before the cathedral has been cut in half. If this were all, we should have after the war at least a worthy memorial to leave to posterity. It is said that it would now cost a million sterling to restore the finest Gothic fane in France. I hope nothing of the kind will be attempted, nothing more, that is, than the construction of a new roof, new windows, doors, and furnishings, and the necessary strengthening of the structure. For as it stands, gashed and discolored, the vast shell has a strange magnificence and a piteous loveliness like that of some of the broken splendors that remain to us from the ancient world. Let Rheims speak to the future generations as the ruins of the Acropolis and the Forum have spoken to our fathers and us. But the city itself raises a different and a more difficult problem. It is now no exaggeration to say that as a whole it is destroyed beyond hope. Till a fortnight ago large parts of it were not beyond the possibility of repair. Remember that Rheims was not a small town like Ypres or Arras, but a wealthy and dignified community of 120,000 souls, occupying a space equal to one-fifth of that of Paris. There is now from end to end probably not a single house whose walls are not more or less broken. The northern and eastern quarters were already in ruins. |
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