Whether he meant it or not, his sacrilege stands as a fitting expression of his philosophy, the philosophy of the brute, the religion of the granite rock and the iron cannon-ball.
He told his own story here. Side by side in those two monuments the contrast is made, the causes are placed. One is the cause of the cross, the cause of men willing to die for brotherhood; the other is the cause of those who are willing to kill to conquer.
And these two monuments, side by side on the Baupaume Road, stand out as one of the Silhouettes of Sacrilege.
Then there is St. Gervais. On Good Friday afternoon a Hun shell pierced the side of this beautiful cathedral as the spear-thrust pierced the side of the Master so long ago. On the very hour that Jesus was crucified back on that other and first Good Friday the Hun threw his bolt of death into the nave of this church, and crucified seventy-five people kneeling in memory of their Saviour's death.
I was in that church an hour after this terrible sacrilege happened. Never can one forget the scene. I dare not describe it here in its awful details.
The entire arches of stone that held up the roof had fallen in from the concussion of the gases of the shell. Three feet of solid stones covered the floor. Men and women were being carried out. Silk hats, canes, shoes, hats, baby clothes, an expensive fur, lay buried in the stone and dirt.
As I stood horrified, looking on this scene of death and destruction, the phrase came into my heart:
"And the veil of the temple was rent in twain."
And this scene, too, shall remain as one of the Silhouettes of Sacrilege.
But perhaps the worst Silhouette of Sacrilege that the film of one's memory has brought away from France is that of a certain afternoon in Paris.