"All the same, it is my own home," she said, pointing to the new shack, "it does very well. But my mother could not stand it that everything was gone. We ran away for the few days that the Germans were here. My mother died eight days after we came back."
The 51st Regiment of German Infantry entered the village, and burned it by squirting petrol on piles of straw in the houses. The machine they used was like a bicycle pump—a huge syringe. Of the Town Hall simply the front is standing, carrying its date of 1836. Seventeen steps go up its exterior, leading to nothing but a pit of rubbish.
"For three days I lay hidden without bread to eat," said a passer-by.
An old peasant talked with us. He told us that the Germans had come down in the night, and burned the village between four and six in the morning. A little later, they fired on the church. With petrol on hay they had burned his own home.
"Tout brûlé," he kept repeating, as he sent his gaze around the wrecked village. He gestured with his stout wooden stick, swinging it around in a circle to show the completeness of the destruction. Five small boys had joined our group. The old man swung his cane high enough to clear the heads of the youngsters. One of them ran off to switch a wandering cow into the home path.
"Doucement," said the old man. ("Gently.")
We went to his home, his new home, a brick house, built by the English Quakers, who have helped in much of this reconstruction work. He and his wife live looking out on the ruin of their old home.
"Here was my bed," he said, "and here the chimney plate."
He showed the location and the size of each familiar thing by gestures and measurements of his hands. Nine of the neighbors had lain out in the field, while the Germans burned the village. He took me down into the cave, where he had later hidden; the stout vaulted cellar under the ruined house.