Wednesday, September 23d. A little sadly I took supper this evening at the Café du Commerce where the members of the atelier used to meet in the days of student life. As I was eating, who should walk in and sit down beside me but my friend Daumal, sous-massier of the atelier when war broke out, whom I had not seen since he departed for the front as a private.
He is now Sergeant Daumal of the First Line Regiment, wounded at Longwy and just out of the hospital, homeward bound on a two weeks’ convalescent leave. As he described it, “une de ces marmites à 28-centimètres” had exploded a little distance from him. Although he had not been struck by any fragments, the shock had rendered him so thoroughly unconscious that for a day he had been passed over by the ambulance orderlies as dead and had finally been discovered by a burying squad to be not in need of a grave but of a hospital.
The bombardment of Rheims Cathedral has stirred France to indignation, but apparently not nearly as much as it has stirred the outside world. The capacity of the French for being “stirred to indignation” has lost some of its elasticity by this time. It is an action so vivid, so neat, so concise, that it turns the sympathies of neutrals more than a thousand “routine” accounts of burnings and killings. They bombarded Rheims Cathedral! These four words need no elaboration. I myself find it difficult to keep that neutral equilibrium which is necessary in an Attaché who wishes to observe as much and as correctly as possible. Whitney Warren, the architect, and several Attachés are to be sent to Rheims in a day or two to make an investigation.
Sunday, September 27th. I examine indigent Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians every morning, and during the afternoon take special cases to the police, and write up accounts.
Today Paris had another visit from a German aëroplane which threw the usual three bombs. One of them fell in the Avenue du Trocadéro near the Embassy. It just missed demolishing the Ambassador and Mr. Frazier who were in an automobile on their way to inspect the buildings and grounds of the German Embassy. They had driven over the spot only two minutes before the bomb struck. I was at the same time on my way to the Embassy, having met them near the Pont d’Alma. I passed along the avenue a minute later and had just turned the corner when the bomb fell, killing an old man and tearing a leg off a little girl. The day was very cloudy and the aviator was above the clouds; for this reason no one seems to have discovered him and he must have thrown his bomb at random.