With all the friends of civilization and of art, we think that the question of the slightness of the damage caused by this Taube is not to be considered at all. But the fact of this Taube having accomplished such a raid with the sole design of bombarding a cathedral in a peaceful city, 100 kilometres off from the military operations—is it not the most patent and evident demonstration of the kind of Neronian dilettantism which, along with calculation, inspires the crimes of the barbarians?
Appendix III.
No. 1.
WHAT OUR PROVINCIAL CITIES ARE.
Here is a page published by Anatole France apropos of the bombardment of Soissons:
I had just read in a newspaper that the Germans, who have been bombarding Soissons these four months, have dropped eighty shells on the cathedral. A moment later chance brought before me a book of M. André Hallays, where I find these lines, which I take pleasure in transcribing:
"Soissons is a white city, peaceful and smiling, that raises its tower and pointed spires at the edge of a lazy river, at the centre of a circle of green hills. The city and the landscape make one think of the little pictures that the illuminators of our old manuscripts lovingly painted.... Precious monuments show the whole history of the French Monarchy, from the Merovingian crypts of the Abbaye de Saint-Médard to the fine mansion erected on the eve of the Revolution for the Governors of the province. Amid narrow streets and little gardens a magnificent cathedral extends the two arms of its great transept; at the north is a straight wall, and an immense stained-glass window; at the south, that marvelous apse where the ogive and the full centre combine in so delicate a fashion." ("Around Paris," Page 207.)
That charming page from a writer who dearly loves the cities and monuments of France brought tears to my eyes. It charmed my sadness. I want to thank my colleague for it publicly.
The brutal and stupid destruction of monuments consecrated by art and the years is a crime that war does not excuse. May it be an eternal opprobrium for the Germans!