In that name many in France are working. Such a one is Paul Viller, curé of Triaucourt. The burning of the village is the world's end for a peasant, because the village was his world. When the peasants of Triaucourt saw their little local world rocking, they turned to the curé. He was ready.
"It is better to run," said the Mayor; "they kill, those Germans."
As the curé said to the German lieutenant who tried to force him up the bell-tower, "That ascension will give me the vertigo," so he felt about running away: his legs were not built for it. He would like to "oblige," but he was not fashioned for such flights.
Curé Viller is 55 years old, short and ruddy and sturdy. In his books and his travel, and wellgrounded Latin education, he is far removed from the simple villagers he serves. But he has learned much from them. He has taken on their little ways. He has their simplicity which is more distinguished than the manners of cities. With them and with him I felt at home. That is because he was at home with himself, at home in life. His house was full of travel pictures—Brittany fishermen and nooks of scenery. He had the magazine litter, scattered through all the rooms, of a reading man who cannot bear to destroy one printed thing that has served a happy hour. His volumes ranged through theology up to the history of Thiers. His desk was the desk of an executive, orderly, pigeon-holed, over which the transactions of a village flow each day. A young priest entered and stated a case of need. The curé opened a little drawer, peeled off five franc notes from a bundle, and saw the young man to the door. It was as clean-cut as the fingering of a bank-cashier. The only difference was the fine courtesy exchanged by the men.
The curé talked with us about the Germans. We asked him how the peasants felt toward them, after the burning and the murders.
"I will tell you how the village electrician felt," replied he. "He came back after the troops had left and took a look about the village.
"'If I ever get hold of those Germans, I'll chew them up,' he said to me.
"'Some of them are still here,' I replied.
"'Show them to me quick,' he demanded.