At Beaucort we were shown through a castle now occupied as a hospital. It was originally a chateau, and at that time a citadel with moat and draw-bridge.
In company with Mr. Warren, I visited the village blacksmith, being reminded of my boyhood days. He had old-fashioned bellows and, with an assistant, was in a small way finishing up some work for the army.
We arrived at Belfort at about noon, and first saw the "Belfort Lion" by Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is seventy-three feet long, forty-three feet high and is carved in a cliff below the citadel. This statue celebrates the stubborn resistance of the town of Belfort, which has never surrendered, although besieged on numerous occasions. Belfort has been exposed to German guns, less than ten miles away, for two years, and it is much shattered from bombardments. Many of the citizens are still engaged in their ordinary pursuits, but live in the cellars of their domiciles.
We were quartered at the Le Grande Hotel, and could hear the cannons roaring as we sat at luncheon. We were warned not to go out of the hotel without a companion. There was a cave underneath with both an inside and an outside entrance and we were told that in case the shelling was resumed we should get into this cave. There had been, however, no shelling for eight days. The town was shelled immediately after the departure of the Canadian Industrial Commission, which had recently visited Belfort.
[Illustration: The Lion of Belfort.]
The shutters of the hotel were closed at six P. M. I was taken to my room by the chambermaid and handed a candle and a box of matches. With all the lights of the hotel out, the cannon could be heard booming during the entire night. Belfort is under martial law, or, as it is called in France, military control. Just before retiring for the night we were reminded that the city was frequently shelled and that nearly all the inhabitants slept in the caves, a pleasant thought to go to bed with. However, strange to say, I had a most excellent night's rest.
No one was permitted outside the hotel unless he had with him a card to show the police of the town.
Belfort contains numerous monuments. One series of statues is of three generals who defended Belfort during the three sieges successfully resisted. Two of these sieges occurred during the time of Napoleon and one during the Franco-Prussian war, 1870-1871. We walked about in a body, escorted by a military officer and a number of soldiers. We visited a large part of the city and at nearly every corner there were signs showing the entrances to caves and stating the number of persons each cave would hold—all the way from twenty to seventy. Evidence was all around of bombs dropped from aeroplanes by the Germans and shells fired by them from many miles away, there being hundreds of shattered windows and holes in the sidewalks.
We remained in Belfort two nights. The morning after our departure the city was bombarded and some fifteen or twenty people killed.
On Friday, October 6th, we left Belfort in the military autos, under sealed orders, and knew not where we were going. We passed several squads of German prisoners, among them one very large company. We were frequently challenged by sentinels in passing, for miles, along the front of Alsace-Lorraine.