"No; everything quiet here," came the reassuring answer.
An art exhibition within sound of the guns at the front by the well-known Munich artist, Ernst Vollbehr, the Kaiser's own war painter with the —nth army, was another real novelty. The long-haired painter, wearing the regulation field gray uniform, brought his portfolio of sketches into the billiard hall of the headquarters and showed them with sprightly running comment:
"Here is the library of Brimont. You can see most of the books lying on the ground. It wasn't a comfortable place to paint because there were too many shells flying around loose. Here is the Cathedral of Dinant. Very much improved aesthetically by the shells knocking the ugly points of the towers off. Here is a picture of Rheims Cathedral looming through the fog, as seen from the German lines. I painted this picture of the battle of the Aisne from a captive balloon. Here is a picture of the surrender of Maubeuge, showing two of the 40,000 French prisoners. I can usually paint better during a battle because there's nobody looking on over my shoulder to distract my attention. I have about 140 sketches done in all. His Majesty has most of them now, to pick out those he wants painted. This sketch of a pretty young Frenchwoman is 'Mlle. Nix zu Macken,' so nicknamed by some sixty-odd hungry but good-natured Landsturm men quartered in a tavern of a French village, where she was the only woman left. Every time they made signs indicative of a desire for food she would laugh and say in near-German, 'Nix zu macken,' and that's how she got her name."
Painter Vollbehr was authority for the following Kaiser anecdote:
"One day as the Kaiser was motoring along a chaussée he met a herd of swine under the guardianship of a bearded Landsturm man, who drove them rapidly to one side to keep them from being prematurely slaughtered by the imperial auto. As the motor slowed up the Kaiser asked him if he was a farmer by profession. 'No; professor of the University of Tubingen,' came the answer, to the great amusement of the Over War Lord."
Human Documents of the War
Swift Reversal to Barbarism
By Vance Thompson.
[From The New York Sun, Sept. 13, 1914.]