"Oh, I forgot, I can't talk French! Mary, you must see me through!" he pleaded.
I hurried to the rescue, and together we walked up to the bishop. Off came Mr. Beckett's hat; and both officers saluted us. One was a general, the other a colonel.
If I'd had time to rehearse, I might have done myself some credit. As it was, I stammered out some sort of explanation and introduced Jim's father.
"I remember young Monsieur Beckett," the bishop said. "He was not one to be forgotten! Besides, he was generous to Meaux. He left a noble present for our poor. And now, you say, he has given his life for France? What is there I can do to prove our gratitude? You have come to Meaux because of his letters? Wait a few minutes, till these brave messieurs have gone, and I myself will show you the cathedral. Oh, you need not fear! It will be a pleasure."
He was as good as his word, and better. Not only did he show the splendid Gothic cathedral, pride of the "fair Île-de-France," but the bishop's house as well. Bossuet had lived there, the most famous bishop Meaux had in the past. It was dramatic to enter his study, guided by the most famous bishop of the present; to see in such company the room where Bossuet penned his denunciation of the Protestants, and then the long avenue of yews where he used to walk in search of inspiration. We saw his tomb, too—in the cathedral (yes, I believe Brian saw it more clearly than we!), one of those grand tombs they gave prelates in the days of Louis XIV: and when the Becketts had followed Jim's example in generosity, we bade adieu to the—oh, ever so much kindlier heir of the great controversialist. I'm afraid, to tell the truth, the little old lady cared more to know that her Jim's favourite cheese—Brie—was made in Meaux, than anything else in the town's history. Nevertheless, she listened with a charmed air to Brian's story of Meaux's great romance—as she listens to all Brian's stories. It was you, Padre, who told it to Brian, and to me, one winter night when we'd been reading about Gaston, de Foix, "Gaston le Bel." Our talk of his exploits brought us to Meaux, at the time of the Jacquerie, in the twelfth century. The common people had revolted against the nobles who oppressed them, and all the Île-de-France—adorable name!—seethed with civil war. In Meaux was the Duchess of Orleans, with three hundred great ladies, most of them beautiful and young. The peasants besieged the Duchess there, and she and her lovely companions were put to sore straits, when suddenly arrived brave Gaston to save them. I don't quite know why he took the trouble to come so far, from his hill-castle near the Spanish frontier, but most likely he loved one of the shut-up ladies. Or perhaps it was simply for love of all womanhood, since Gaston was so chivalrous that Froissart said, "I never saw one like him of personage, nor of so fair form, nor so well made."
From Meaux our road (we were going to make Nancy our centre and stopping place) followed the windings of the green ribbon Marne to Château-Thierry, on the river's right bank. There's a rather thrilling ruin, that gave the town its name, and dominates it still—the ruin of a castle which Charles Martel built for a young King Thierry. The legend says that this boy differed from the wicked kings Thierry, sons and grandsons of the Frankish Clovis; that he wanted to be good, but "Fate" would not let him. Perhaps it's a judgment on those terrible Thierry kings, who left to their enemies only the earth round their habitations—"because it couldn't be carried away"—that the Germans have left ruins in Château-Thierry more cruel than those of the crumbling castle. In seven September days they added more monuments historiques than a thousand years had given the ancient Marne city.
Jim Beckett had written his mother all about the town, and sent postcard pictures of its pride, the fortress-like, fifteenth-century church with a vast tower set upon a height. He liked Château-Thierry because Jean de la Fontaine was born there, and called it "a peaceful-looking place, just right for the dear fable-maker, who was so child-like and sweet-natured, that he deserved always to be happy, instead of for ever in somebody's debt." A soldier having seen the wasted country at the front, might still describe Château-Thierry as a "peaceful-looking place." But it was the first glimpse the Becketts had had of war's abominable destruction. I took up nursing in the south of France before the Zeppelins made much visible impression on London; and as I volunteered for a "contagious" hospital, I've lived an isolated life far from all horrors save those in my own ward, and the few I saw when I went to nurse Brian. Perhaps it was well for us to begin with Château-Thierry, whose gaping wounds are not mortal, and to miss tragic Varreddes. Had Sermaize-les-Bains, which burst upon us later, been our first experience, the shock might have been too great for Mrs. Beckett. As it was, we worked slowly to the climax. Yet even so, we travelled on with a hideous mirage of broken homes, of intimacies brutally laid bare, floating between the landscape and our eyes. We could not get rid of this mirage, could not brush it away, though the country was friendly and fair of face as a child playing in a waterside meadow. The crudely new bridges that crossed the Marne were the only open confessions of what the river had suffered. But the Marne spirit had known wars enough to learn "how sweet it is to live, forgetting." With her bits of villages scattered like strewn flowers on her green flood, she floats in a dream of her adventurous past and the glorious future which she has helped to win for France.
It was hard to realize that the tiny island villages and hamlets on the level shores had seen the Germans come and go; that under the gray roofs—furry-soft as the backs of Maltese cats—hearts had beaten in agony of fear; that along the white road, with its double row of straight trees like an endless army on parade, weeping fugitives had fled.
We were not aiming to reach Nancy that night, so we paused at Épernay. The enemy behaved better there than in most Marne towns, perhaps because Wagner once lived in it, or, more likely, under the soothing influence of Épernay's champagne, which has warmed the cockles of men's hearts since a bishop of the ninth century made it famous by his praise. Nevertheless, there are ruins to see, for the town was bombarded by the Germans after they were turned out. All the quarter of the rich was laid waste: and the vast "Fabrique de Champagne" of Mercier, with its ornamental frieze of city names, is silent to this day, its proud façade of windows broken. Not a big building of the town, not a neighbouring château of a "Champagne baron" has a whole window-pane visible, though three years have rolled on since the cannonading did its work! Nowadays glass is as dear as diamonds in France, and harder to get.
Outside Champagnopolis, in the wide wooden village of hospital huts, a doctor told us a war ghost story. One night the Germans made a great haul of champagne, of a good year, in a castle near by. They had knocked off the heads of many bottles, naming each for a French general of yesterday or to-day, when some officer who knew more history than the rest remembered that Henri IV had taken Épernay in 1592. He named his bottle for Henri de Navarre, and harangued his comrades on the superiority of Wilhelm von Hohenzollern. As the speechmaker cracked the neck with his sword, the bottle burst in a thousand pieces, drenching everyone with wine. A bit of glass struck the electric lamp over the table, and out went the light. For an instant the room was black. Then a white ray flickered on the wall, as if thrown through the window by a searchlight. Out of its glimmer stepped a man, with a long, laughing face and a pointed beard. Round his neck was a high ruff. He wore a doublet of velvet, and shining silk hose. In his hand was a silver goblet, frothing over the top with champagne. "He drinks best who drinks last!" cried he in French, and flung the goblet at the face of him who named the bottle. At the same second there was a great explosion, and only one soldier escaped; he who told the story.