At last I had found it. I had spent a mournful morning at Ypres seeking out the procureur du roi, and I had sought in vain. He was nowhere to be found. Ypres was a city of catacombs, wrapt in a winding-sheet of mortar, fine as dust, which rose in clouds as the German shells winnowed among the ruins. The German guns had been threshing the ancient city like flails, beating her out of all recognition, beating her into shapes strange, uncouth, and lamentable. The Cloth Hall was little more than a deserted cloister of ruined arches, and the cathedral presented a spectacle at once tragic and whimsical—the brass lectern still stood upright in the nave confronting a congregation of overturned chairs as with a gesture of reproof. The sight of those scrambling chairs all huddled together and fallen headlong upon one another had something oddly human about it; it suggested a panic of ghosts. Ypres is an uncanny place.
We returned to Poperinghe, our way choked by a column of French troops, pale, hollow-eyed, their blue uniforms bleached by sun and rain until all the virtue of the dye had run out of them. Before resuming our hunt for the procureur du roi—who, we now found, had removed from Ypres to Poperinghe—we entered a restaurant for lunch. It was crowded with French officers, with whom a full-bosomed, broad-hipped Flemish girl exchanged uncouth pleasantries, and it possessed a weird and uncomely boy, who regarded A——, the Staff officer accompanying me, with a hypnotic stare. He peered at him from under drooping eyelids, flanking a nose without a bridge, and my companion didn't like it. "He is admiring you," I remarked by way of consolation, as indeed he was. "What do you call it?" said A—— petulantly to a R.A.M.C. officer who was lunching with us. The latter looked at the boy with a clinical eye. "Necrosis—syphilitic," he said dispassionately. "And he's handing us the cakes!" A—— exclaimed with horror. "Fetch me an ounce of civet." We declined the cakes, and, having paid our addition, hastily departed to resume our quest of the procureur.
Eventually we found the legend set out above. It was a placard stuck on the door of a private house. We entered and found ourselves in a kitchen with a stone floor; japanned tin boxes, calf-bound volumes, and fat registers, all stamped with the arms of Belgium, were grouped on the shelves of the dresser. A courteous gentleman, well-groomed and debonair, with waxed moustaches, greeted us. It was the procureur du roi. With him was another civilian—the juge d'instruction. They politely requested us to take a seat and to excuse a judicial preoccupation. The juge d'instruction was interrogating an inhabitant of Poperinghe. The procureur explained to me that the prévenu (the accused), who was not present but was within the precincts, was charged with calomnie[27] under Section 444 of the Code Pénal. "But," I exclaimed in astonishment, "are you still administering justice?" "Pourquoi non?" he asked in mild surprise. It was true, he admitted, that his office at Ypres had been destroyed by shell-fire, the maison d'arrêt—in plain English, the prison—was open to the four winds of heaven, and warders and gendarmes had been called up to the colours. But justice must be done and the majesty of the King of the Belgians upheld. The King's writ still ran, even though its currency might be limited to the few square miles which were all that remained of Belgian territory in Belgian hands. All this he explained to me with such gravity that I felt further questions would be futile, if not impertinent. I therefore held my tongue and determined to follow the proceedings closely, being not a little curious to observe how the judgment would be enforced.
The witness took the oath to say the truth and nothing but the truth ("rien que la vérité"), concluding with the solemn invocation, "Ainsi m'aide Dieu." The parties had elected to have the proceedings taken in French.
"Your name?" said the judge, as he studied the procès-verbal prepared by the procureur.
"Jules F——."
"Age?"
"Cinquante-cinq."
"Profession?"
"Cordonnier."