"Mais Madame," cries the burning, trembling voice of the distracted sacristan, "look at this."
And he leads me to the white marble bas-relief of the Madonna.
The Madonna's head has been cut right off!
Then, even as I stand there trying to believe that I am really looking at such nightmares, I feel the little sacristan's fingers trembling on my arm, turning me towards a sight that makes me cold with horror.
They have set fire to the Christ, to the beautiful wood-carving of our Saviour, and burnt the sacred figure all up one side, and on the face and breast.
And as they finished the work I can imagine them, with a hiccup slitting up the priceless brocade on the altar with a bayonet, then turning and slashing at the great old oil paintings on the Cathedral walls, chopping them right out of their frames, but leaving the empty frames there, with a German's sense of humour that will presently make Germany laugh on the wrong side of its face.
A dead pig lies in the little chapel to the right, a dead white pig with a pink snout.
Very still and pathetic is that dead pig, and yet it seems to speak.
It seems to realise the sacrilege of its presence here in God's House.
It seems to say, "Let not the name of pig be given to the Germans. We pigs have done nothing to deserve it."