twin towers and the rose window won't give you
a sense of unbelievable tragedy, or an instinct to
speak not at all or in whispers. That is because
the horror of Rheims from the front is a matter
of detail. The left hand tower rises in the shade
of ashes. The semblance of figures, featureless
and stripped, nevertheless have something human
about them. They are like victims of the ancient
trial by fire. Instinctively one glances at the
brave little bronze figure on horseback which
miraculously has survived each bombardment.
More than ever Joan of Arc belongs here. Her
attitude with fag uplifted is one of inspired command. She seems about to lead the wraiths of
the cathedral to a stern reckoning.
We entered the desolate structure. I removed my hat. A staff officer shrugged his shoulders.
"That is not necessary," he said. “So many men have been killed in here that the edifice is no longer consecrated.”
His comment expressed, perhaps, more than its intention. For there is a depressive feeling within whose source is certainly more remote than the emptiness and the battered walls and pillars. The emptiness reaches you first of all. The aisles are vast, the open spaces apparently endless. Pigeons, flying between the tracery of the eyeless windows and about the roof, accent the sense of
