In the distance, while the French were playing the Marseillaise on the town square, we could hear the dull thud of shells bursting in the fields outside the city.
In the afternoon a solemn thanksgiving for the relief of the town from the Germans was held in the old cathedral amidst the wreckage of war, Abbé Thuliez, the heroic priest who stayed in the town whilst it was in the occupation of the enemy, officiating. On entering the cathedral it could at once be seen that the Germans had left a trail of ruin over the sacred house of prayer. Seats were broken and overturned, a chair was attached to the sanctuary lamp and hung there idly, the pipes of the organ have been wrenched out and taken away, and candlesticks looted from the altar were found, on the entry of the British, tied up in bundles ready for removal.
Walking through the wide but irregular streets one was forcibly reminded of the cunning of those who had been in occupation. Here and there attached to the doors of houses were notices put up by the British engineers. One says "Dangerous," meaning that suspicious objects in the house are not to be touched lest they explode a booby trap, other houses bear the legend "Suspicious," and a third notice says "O.K.," meaning that the engineers have examined the house, removed anything dangerous and rendered it safe for habitation.
The big Town Hall is blown down and gutted with fire. Nothing remains save the bare walls. The ground floor is littered with rubble, curtains have been taken down and carried away, statuary and pictures have been removed.
We visited a large château on the outskirts of Cambrai, which was once the residence of the German Crown Prince. Inside one could see where the hand of the spoiler had been busy. Chairs and sofas were stripped of their tapestry, valuable books had been taken away and books of lesser value had been tampered with, slashed with knives and destroyed. In an upper corner of this building was a nursery with the children's dolls and rocking horses torn and lacerated, the doll's tea service broken and trampled to the ground.
Outside the house runs a light railway under a line of tall trees. These trees have been cut down and placed on the rails, blocking all transport and destroying the picturesque glory of a beautiful esplanade, on which stands the statue of Baptiste, the first maker of cambric, from which Cambrai has taken its name.
Many ancient towns of France famous in history and acquiring a fame even more lasting in their downfall, were visited by our party in turn. Yesterday it was Peronne, to-day Cambrai, Albert and Amiens to-morrow. Of Peronne and Cambrai we have spoken, but of the history of Albert we can say nothing, knowing so little of its past. And the Albert of to-day is humbled to the dust, its cathedral burned to the ground, its leaning Virgin gone.
On our way back to England we stopped for a night at Amiens, the one-time capital of Picardy, the town in which Peter the Hermit, Apostle of the First Crusade, and Ducange, the greatest of French scholars, were born.
Amiens was up till quite recently the objective of enemy guns and the dumping ground of bombs emptied from German aeroplanes. At the present time the refugees were again returning and many were already busy at the work of putting the city once again in order. But great harm has been done to Amiens, and here and there blocks of houses are levelled to the ground. Even the cathedral, begun in the early years of the thirteenth century, has not escaped the missiles of war. A German shell has come through the roof, but by good luck the shell was a dud and did no injury to the place beyond breaking a few tiles on the roof and smashing a flag on the floor.
Shells have fallen all round the building, smashing many houses in the immediate neighbourhood and particularly outside the main entrance, where a café has been levelled to the ground. In the big building itself a great deal of stained glass has been broken, its walls and flying buttresses are scarred and pitted with splinters from bursting shells. Within, the choir stalls of the Cathedral, the high altar, the pictures, pillars and statuary are protected by high sand-bagged walls that reach almost to the roof. It is said that the Germans did their utmost to spare the building. But judging by the number of houses in the vicinity knocked down by shell fire and broken by bombs, it looks as if the Germans tried to save the sacred pile by just missing it with the narrowest possible margin.