And he takes us to luncheon at the Lion d'Or, the little inn where the wife of the proprietor still stays to serve any "mission of the French gouvernement." Then he shows us the famous champagne cellars of the Etablissement Pommery. Here one hundred feet below the ground, in the chalk caves built a thousand years ago by the Romans, are twelve miles of subterranean passageways with thirteen million bottles of the most celebrated champagne in the making.
The superintendent pours out his choicest brand: "Vive la France and the Allies," he says, lifting his glass. He talks more English than the captain can. He is telling us of when the Germans entered Rheims. "Four officers," he says, "came riding ahead of the army. And I met them by chance just as they arrived in the market place of Rheims."
"What did you do?" asks the New York correspondent of the London Daily Mail. "I wept," says the Frenchman, simply and impressively. "Gentlemen," he adds solemnly and sadly, "I hope you may never meet some day four conquering Chinamen riding up Broadway."
I find myself catching my breath suddenly at that. And I am glad when the captain hums a gay little French tune and holds out his glass a second time: "Give us again 'Vive la France.'"
The sun is dipping red in the west when we turn to leave Rheims and Joan of Arc bravely flying the French flag before its crumbling cathedral. There is the rumble of guns once more at the front. Then
