GREAT GRAVE OF VILLEROY
Continuing along the road to Villeroy we come, after about 2 km. to the GREAT GRAVE of which a view is given opposite. It contains the bodies of numerous officers and men who fell in the surrounding fields. At the extreme end of the grave on the right is buried the well-known writer, Charles Péguy, whose death seems to have been the one he desired when writing the following lines, now famous:
Heureux ceux qui sont morts dans les grandes batailles
Couchés dessus le sol à la face de Dieu....
Heureux ceux qui sont morts pour leur âtre et leur feu
Et les pauvres honneurs des maisons paternelles....
Heureux ceux qui sont morts, car ils sont retournés
Dans la première argile et la première terre.
Heureux ceux qui sont morts dans une juste guerre,
Heureux les épis mûrs et les blés moissonnés.
At the fork of the road beyond the grave, go to the right towards Iverny. It is within 200 yards of these cross-roads, in the field on the left of the road, that Lieutenant Péguy was killed, shot through the head while standing amidst his soldiers of the 276th, whom he had ordered to lie down. On arriving at Iverny, turn to the right towards Monthyon. At the entrance to this village, near the farm de l'Hôpital, there is a little pond where the cases of shells abandoned by the Germans were emptied (view on following page).
These cases belonged to the three batteries of 77's which were established on the right of the road behind the farm buildings, in a depression of the ground. We have seen above that these batteries started the cannonade which began the battle of the Marne. Marked down by the French batteries they hastily abandoned the position.
POND WHERE THE GERMANS THREW THEIR SHELLS