O bienheureuse Jeanne d’Arc! que notre France a besoin, à l’heure présente, d’âmes vaillantes, animées de cette espérance que rien ne déconcerte, ni les difficultés, ni les insuccés, ni les triomphes passagers et apparents de ses ennemis; des âmes qui, comme vous, mettent toute leur confiance en Dieu seul; des âmes enfin que les efforts généreux n’effraient pas, et qui, ainsi que vous soldats, se rallient à votre étendard portant ces mots gravés: “Jésus! Maria! Vive labeur!” O Jeanne! ranimez tous les courages, faites germer de nobles héroïsmes et sauvez encore une fois la France qui vous appelle à son secours!
Fidelissima, Picardie! It was in Amiens, in the Library there, that I first saw the emblazoned coat of arms of the province, and those of her famous cities, Péronne, Nesle, St. Quentin, Amiens, Noyon, Ham with its castle, and Corbie, with its crows. I had come by slow train from Paris, and waited perforce for the still slower train which was to drop me that night at Hombleux, the nearest railroad station to our Château. Snow was upon the ground; the sunlight sharp and cold. It cleft the airy spire of the Cathedral out of the blue sky like a diamond-powdered sword. It frosted the delicate azure of the rose window, and high up among the clustered pillars, threw prismic whorls that floated like flowers upon a rippled stream of light. In the Library, it fell upon tooled leather bindings, upon the gorgeous blazons, upon pages illuminated, like the white walls of the Cathedral, with ethereal fruits and flowers. But the day was all too brief. As my train puffed and rumbled away from the city, dusk enveloped the plain till the evening star—or was it an avion?—burned forth. Passengers entered or descended, the last being a batch of Tommies bound for the Cambrai front. They were a noisy, good-natured lot, who slammed their rifles into the racks, trod upon one another’s toes, and wished heartily that “this bloomin’ war was done.” At Chaulnes they got out; an American engineer followed, and I was left alone. In total darkness the train proceeded, the engine as we swung around the curves looking like a dragon, belching fire. Presently, out of the vast level, rose the moon; and with it came those detonations which we, even in our sheltered camp, had learned to associate with its beauty. The Boches were bombing Ham.
Like my day in Amiens is my remembrance of Picardy; the dun plain, the windy sky, the play of light and shadow over both. The blazons given her by history glow anew in the heroisms of to-day. They form a glorious volume, illuminated with flowers as gorgeous as those traced by the monks of Corbie upon the pages of their Books of Chants, bound, as were they, with massive iron bands,—the iron bands of war.
APPENDIX
Before the War
