As she turned away he prayed fervently that, even though the pillaging hordes might, in their fury against the inhabitants, devastate the city, the fact that they claimed the same God as their Savior to whose glory the cathedral had been erected would prove its safeguard and protection. But, even as he prayed, a great bomb blazed a trail through the gray light, and hurled itself on the roof of the sacred edifice. It exploded with concentrated fury, tearing off great pieces of the roof and casting them at his feet.
“They’ve found the range!” excitedly exclaimed a man who stood near the archbishop. “Can it be possible that they intend to destroy the cathedral?”
The archbishop was staring with incredulous eyes at the gaping wound the shot had made.
“No,” he declared firmly, without removing his eyes. “It is not possible. This injury is an unfortunate mistake. Sacred edifices are protected by human and moral laws, and, besides, the Cathedral of Rheims, because of its perfection, belongs to all time and all peoples. No one destroys his own heritage.”
Nevertheless, the remembrance of the destruction of Louvain and the desecration of many churches by the Germans since their treacherous entrance into Belgium, when they cast aside men’s faith in their honor, seared itself across his mind. Their acts had disproved their vaunted belief in God which, had it existed, would have shown itself in a reverent solicitude for His dwelling place.
The words had hardly left his lips when a shower of explosives fell on and about the massive structure, hewing out huge lumps of the masonry, which descended in a deluge of stone on the roofs of the adjacent houses.
A glare of light flared behind the great rose-window, throwing for the last time a blaze of glory into the horror-stricken faces below; then it burst into a thousand fragments that shivered to pieces on the pavement of the Square.
Surrounded by the gleaming bits of imprisoned sunshine, Jean Monneuze gazed with wide, unbelieving eyes at the yawning space in the façade. The thought took shape in his mind that this act of profanation could not be true, that it must be some hideous nightmare at which he would scoff in the morning, and he prayed aloud that the awakening would be soon, that he might be relieved of the torture he was undergoing. A voice at his elbow roused him.
“May God curse the Kaiser, and the rest of his breed, for this sacrilege!”
The old vitrier turned quickly, the fury of a mother for her ravished young in his working face. “Amen!” he exclaimed harshly.