Terrible also the German assassination of the land itself. All men love their native land, but the Frenchman's love has a unique quality. He speaks of La Belle France as Dante spoke of Beatrice, as Petrarch spoke of Laura, and the name of France lingers upon his lips as music trembles in the air after the song is sung.
It is love of native land that has made France beautiful just as through affection the lark, after completing its nest, makes it soft and warm by pulling the down out of her own bosom. The French people love France as Millais loved his Gleaners, as Bellini loved the missal he had illuminated, and as that young architect loved the little Roslyn chapel, upon whose delicate capitals he had lavished his very soul. For centuries the enemies of farms, houses, towns and cities have been fire, flood and earthquake. Witness the city of St. Pierre. An interior explosion blew off the cap of the mountain and a flood of gas poured down upon the lovely city, asphyxiated the citizens and left not one house standing. Witness that mighty convulsion in San Francisco that brought thousands of brick buildings crashing down in ruins. Witness the fire in Chicago that turned the great city into piles of twisted iron and ashes. In New Zealand there is a lake called Avernus, the birdless lake. Poisonous gases rise from the black flood of water, and soon the lark with its song, and the eagle with its flight fall into the poisonous flood.
But all these images are quite inadequate to explain the devastation of France upon the retreat of the Germans. About forty miles north of Paris, one strikes the ruined region. Then hour after hour passes, while with slow movement and breaking heart the investigator journeys one hundred miles to the north and zigzags one hundred and twenty-five miles south again, through that ruined region. Centuries ago Julius Cæsar described it as a wild land, rough, with forests filled with wolves. Then the Frenchman entered the scene. He subdued all the wild grasses, drained the valleys and widened the streams into canals. He enriched the fields, surrounded the meadows with odorous hedges and filled swamps with perfumed shrubs. Slowly the Frenchman threw arches of stone across the streams and carved the bridges until they were rich in art, while everything made for use was carried up to beauty. He gave to the roof of the barn its lovely lines; the approach to the house was upon a curved road, the highways were shaded by two rows of noble trees. The stony hillside was terraced, and there the vines grew purple in the sun. How simple was his life! What a sanctuary his little home! With what rich embroidery of wheat he covered all the hills! He was prudent without being stingy, thrifty without being mean. The French peasant saves against old age with one hand and distributes to his children with the other.
What Hate Can Do
And having lavished all their love upon the little farmhouse, the granary and the garden, having pruned these grape-vines with their clusters of white and purple, the time came when each vine seemed like a friend, dear as that miraculous picture was to Baucis and Philemon. For these reasons all France was invested with affection and beauty.
The French peasants loved their land and then lost it. One morning the Hun stood at the gate. The farmers with their pruning knives were no match for Germans with their machine guns, and down they fell under the plum trees they were pruning. The devastated regions of France are like unto a world ruined by devils. The Germans cut down the apples, the pears, and all the peaches. They did not spare the cherry, the quince, the gooseberry and currant, or the vineyards. Gone also all the beautiful bridges—they have been dynamited! Gone all the lovely and majestic Thirteenth Century churches! Gone all the galleries, for some of the finest art treasures in the world have perished.
The land has been put back to where it was when Julius Cæsar described it two thousand years ago—a wild land, and waste, growing up with thorns and thistles. That proclamation on a wall tells the whole story. "Let no building stand, no vine or tree. Before retreating see that the wells and springs are plentifully polluted with corpses and with creasote." The spirit was this, "Since we Germans cannot have this land, no one else shall."
Prince Eitel's Crime
But there is more. One of the historic chateaux is that of Avricourt, rich in noble associations of history. It was one of the class of buildings covered by a clause in the international agreements between Germany, France and the United States and all the civilized nations, safeguarding historic buildings. For many months it was the home of Prince Eitel, the Kaiser's second son.
When a judge and jury held inquiry at the ruins of the chateau, the aged French servant, who understood the electric lighting and had charge of the gas plant during Eitel's occupancy, stated that he heard the German officers telling Eitel Frederick that he would disgrace the German name if he destroyed a building that had no relation to war, that could be of no aid or comfort to the French army, and that he would make his own name, and that of his family, a name of shame and contempt, of obloquy and scorn. But the man would not yield. He brought in his auto trucks and carried to the freight cars every historic object in the splendid chateau. Having pledged himself to leave the building uninjured, the prince stopped his car at the gates of the exit, ran back to this historic house, filled his firebrand, spread the flames upon the halls, waited until the flames were well in progress, and then ordered his men to light the fuse of dynamite bombs. A few days later inquiry was held and testimony of aged servants and little children was taken. The degeneracy of this German Prince as then revealed has not been equalled since the first chapter of Romans catalogued the unnatural crimes of the men of the ancient world. Germany has no artistic sense. Her own poet, Heine, predicts that she will yet pull in pieces her one fine cathedral. The German poet does not think any beautiful thing is safe so long as it is in German hands. This gifted Hebrew had the vision that literally saw the German pounding to pieces the Cathedral at Louvain and Ypres, in Arras, in Bapaume, in St. Quentin, and Rheims.