We must look closer to perceive under the surface the explanation of the anomaly; everywhere, people seated or standing observed a patient discipline in using only one side of the street: the one exposed to the direct shock of the shells. Only a city long exposed to bombardment could conceive such a mechanical precaution. It is a protection, because the shell, in falling, bursts; its splinters fly in the opposite direction to that taken by the projectile.
We soon saw the working out of the principle. Attracted by an open shop, we made some purchases at our leisure. A sinister shriek crossed the sky, and a racket followed. “They are bombarding,” calmly remarked the young woman who served us. She listened. “It is at the cathedral.” Then she continued, most unconcernedly: “Let us see! Some braid? It is at the other counter. You get the buttons here, and the wool and the thread. Is that all you wish? That makes a franc sixty.”
Another roar, this time nearer. The street was immediately deserted. So quickly that a stranger could not observe the action, every passer-by disappeared. Every one went underground, somewhere, into an open cellar. It happened as naturally and quickly as in ordinary times when people find shelter from a sudden shower. They knew that the hour to seek cover had arrived. The shower of steel would last until evening, and would not cease until a new quarter was obliterated. It was the turn of one faubourg, therefore the others would escape this time. Consequently, outside the zone attacked, existence might continue as usual.
Already the rescue squads were running in the direction of the falling shells, as resolute and well disciplined as when at drill. Duty called them. They responded, “Present,” without fear or hesitation: down there people were dying under the ruins of their homes. The stretcher-bearers rescued the injured in the midst of the tumult. If they had been praised for their heroism, they would have resented the praise as an insult.
When recovered from our first astonishment, Berthet and I set out. This martyred city, so tragic and so calm, seemed to us superhuman. We found it beautiful. We felt a desire to weep, to cry out, as we looked at its reddened walls, its yawning windows and wrecked roofs. We went about gently, as one walks in a place of suffering and sorrow. In our rather aimless wandering, reverent as in a sacred place, we came suddenly in front of the cathedral.
It rose before us like a queen, at the turn of the street. The lofty façade, stained by fire in shades of gold and blood, lifted its proud head to the sky. The towers were like two arms stretched imploringly toward heaven: one reddened by fire, the other clothed by the centuries in the blue veil which shrouds ancient monuments. Between them the shattered rose-window seemed to moan distractedly: a silent sob. That dumb mouth in that fire-reddened face seemed to cry with such hatred, with such anguish, that we stopped, gripped by the sight.
It was there that the great Crime had written its name! There, where France had inscribed the most sacred things of her history; there, by the cradle of the nation, on the book always open, the assassin had left his thumb-print; his infamy remained inscribed in each gaping wound, on each fallen statue. The high towers attested to heaven the execrable violence. The roof was gone, like the scalp which the savage tears from the head of his victim. The eyes of God could search to the flagstones and judge with one glance the foul deed.
Outside the church the Place was gloomy, but sublime. By an effect of fatality, it had become the dwelling-place of the holy relics driven from the interior. The tabernacle was no longer in the heart of the cathedral, but scattered in fragments around it: the choir encircled the church. Fragments of stained-glass replaced the organ-pipes, and the wind moaned through the leaden groins, and chanted the dirge of the sacred spot.
Cathedral! Church thrice holy! The murderer tried to destroy thee: he has given thee eternal life. He tried to gag and choke thee: but the voice from thy tortured throat resounds higher and clearer throughout the world. In his stupidity he believed he could annihilate thee: instead, he has glorified thee. Cathedral! A song in stone, a hymn—hymn too ethereal for the human ear to catch; a poem of beauty and light, which the sodden Boche thought to efface, but which stands resplendent, a witness of his shame, before humanity and eternal righteousness. Divine, immortal cathedral! Men have never created a human prayer more sublime than art thou, bombarded. The German shell believed it had power to destroy thee. It has crushed thine arches and broken thy wings. Thou hadst no need of wings to soar. As a spirit of light thou hast floated above the city; now thou rulest over the city the war, and France; as a symbol, thou art resplendent over all the world. Rheims, thou wert the shrine of France; broken, thou art become her emblem. Thou art no longer ours alone. Thy majesty rises unshaken, triumphant, a divine intelligence facing savage cruelty; a barrier touched, but not destroyed, defying bestiality.
We had no words to express our emotions. We walked about, in silent exaltation. From its purple shroud, still smoking, the enormous basilique spoke to us. Great scenes in history were enacted in its sacred precincts: all the sacred kings, the noble sons of France; Clovis baptized by St. Remy; Charles VII led by Jeanne d’Arc, whose bronze image still defies the enemy from the porch of the church; Charles X, last king anointed in this august place—all, all were there as restless phantoms; powerful, saintly, silent, looking on. We were satiated with emotion, bewildered by a hundred beauties: the light through the broken arches, the fragments of art treasures in the dust at our feet, the scintillating glass on the flagstones. We went away, fairly giddy with its impassioned grandeur.