As he went he was repeating the prayer for the dying. When he reached the spot fixed by the Germans he sent a letter to his mother, then knelt down and said to some people present that he gave his life for France. At six o’clock the Abbé Delebecque fell, hit by twelve German bullets.
A hole fifty centimetres deep was made and he was thrown into it. As the end of his cassock protruded, a civilian came and placed some stones upon it in the form of a cross, and some women threw flowers on the tomb of this martyr. Finally, the Superior of Notre Dame College, who had the German military chaplain lodging with him, with some difficulty got his consent to the body being given back to him, that suitable burial might be given to it.
On the other hand, the Curé Fossin, of Vareddes, was shot on the charge of having signalled to a French troop from the top of his belfry.
In the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle two curés were also shot, M. Thiriet at Deuxville and M. Barbot at Rehainviller.
But the most horrible outrage inflicted upon people dedicated to God was that suffered by two nuns in a commune of the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. They were handed over defenceless to a soldier’s lechery. “The pledges which we have given,” writes the French Commission of Inquiry, which denounces this crime in its report, “prevent our making known the names of the victims of this disgusting exhibition, or of the village in which it took place, but the facts have been revealed to us under oath and in confidence by most trustworthy witnesses, and we take the responsibility of attesting their authenticity.”
CHAPTER XIII
OUTRAGES ON CIVILIANS AND FRANCS-TIREURS
The German Theory of Francs-tireurs
The behaviour of the Germans to civilians gives us the opportunity of considering, before we proceed further, a theory which they promulgated at the outbreak of war, and which referred to the distinction that would be made as regards non-combatants who took up arms against invasion.