"At that I recovered myself.
"'Sir—what may have passed in the streets, I cannot say. But as to the cathedral I formally deny your charge. Since war broke out, I have always had the keys of the belfry. I did not even give them to your soldiers, who made me take them there. Do you wish me to swear it?'
"The officer looked at me.
"'No need. You are a Catholic priest. I see you are sincere.'
"I bowed."
A scene that throws much light! A false charge—an excited reference to Louvain—monstrous threat—the temper, that is, of panic, which is the mother of cruelty. At that very moment, the German troops in the Rue de la Republique were driving parties of French civilians in front of them, as a protection from the Senegalese troops who were still firing from houses near the Paris exit from the town. Four or five of these poor people were killed by French bullets; a child of five forced along, with her mother, was shot in the thigh. Altogether some twenty or thirty civilians seem to have been killed.
Next day more houses were burnt. Then, for a time, the quiet of desolation. All the normal population were gone, or in the cellars. But twenty miles away to the southeast, great things were preparing. The German occupation of Senlis began, as we have seen, on a Wednesday, September 2nd. On Saturday the 5th, as we all know, the first shots were fired in that Battle of the Ourcq which was the western section of the Battle of the Marne. By that Saturday, already, writes the Abbé Dourlent:
"There was something changed in the attitude of the enemy. What had become of the brutal arrogance, the insolent cruelty of the first days? For three days and nights, the German troops, an army of 300,000 men, defiled through our streets. It was not the road to Paris, now, that they asked for—it was the way to Nanteuil, Ermenonville, the direction of the Marne. On the faces of the officers, one seemed to read disappointment and anxiety. Close to us, on the east, the guns were speaking, every day more fiercely. What was happening?"
All that the Curé knows is that in a house belonging to persons of his acquaintance, where some officers of the rear-guard left behind in Senlis are billeted, two of the young officers have been in tears—it is supposed, because of bad news. Another day, an armoured car rushes into Senlis from Paris; the men in it exchange some shots with the German soldiers in the principal place, and make off again, calling out, "Courage! Deliverance is coming!"
Then, on the 9th, just a week from the German entry, there is another fusillade in the streets. "It is the Zouaves, knocking at the doors, dragging out the conquerors of yesterday, now a humbled remnant, with their hands in the air."