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The Marne
Historic a7id Picturesque
The Spirit of the Marne
[Paffe 321]
Reproduced by special permission of the sculptor — M. Francois Cogne
The marne
Historic and Picturesque
By
JOSEPH MILLS HANSON
Author of The Conque&t of the Missouri
Illustrations by J. Andre Smith
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1922
Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1922
Published October, 1922
Copyrighted in Great Britain
Printed in the United States of Amepica
2^
Gil
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A River of History i
II The Cradle of the Marne 7
III Langres the Ancient 17
IV Past Blue Bassigny Hills 48
V Chaumont-en-Bassigny 62
VI Chiefly for Those Who "Fought the Battle of Chau-
mont" 69
VII Where Dreams the Still Canal 115
VIII Joinville-en-Vallage 128
IX Art in the Iron Industry 133
X St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 143
XI Vitry-le-Frangois and the First Battle of the Marne 159
XII The Champagne Pouilleuse 174
XIII Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend .... 180
XIV The Scourge of God 192
XV The Liquid Gold of Champagne 201
XVI In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 214
XVII The Reach of Dormans 225
XVIII The Rock of the Marne 233
XIX Where Dwelt the Sluggard Kings 243
XX Fishermen's Paradise 252
XXI Dream Country 261
XXII Meaux 281
XXIII Ile-de-France 292
XXIV The Playmate of Paris 306
304SS36
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Spirit of the Marne Frontispiece
The Valley of the Marne from the base of the ramparts,
Langres lo
Grotto of Sabinus by the source of the Marne lo
The very name of Rolampont has in it the breath of romance 52
Damremont Barracks, Chaumont, American General Head-
quarters 60
Champ de Mars and the Chateau Gloriette, Chaumont . . 60
The old Donjon garden, overlooking the valley of the Suize,
Chaumont 70
The Tour Hautefeuille and St. Jean's twin spires, Chaumont 70
At Condes the Marne runs deep and still 76
Rue Victor Mariotte, Chaumont 76
Choignes with Chaumont in the distance yy
Choignes on the Marne yy
The Rue Saint Jean, Chaumont 104
Where Chamarandes drowses beneath the Chaumont hill . 105
The " lavoir " by the river is an institution in every Marne
village 140
The narrow, crooked streets around the church, Joinville . 148
Timbered houses. Hauteville 148
St. Dizier 149
Vitry-le-Franqois has wide, straight streets 160
The mills at Vitry-le-Frangois 160
A battlefield of the Marne 161
Sector of the Marne battlefield near Mezy 161
Illustrations
PAGE
The Cathedral of St. Etienne at Chalons 182
Men, women and children gather the ripe grapes . . . .210
French fishermen fish — and never catch anything! . . .218
Chatillon-sur-Marne 218
Charteves, white-walled beneath its riven church tower . . 234
Charteves. Two-man rifle pit in foreground 234
Chateau-Thierry itself, eloquent with traditions .... 244
Hill 204, looking toward Chateau-Thierry 244
A street in Chateau-Thierry 245
A "dug-out" and listening post in the famous Bois de Belleau 248
The Abbey Tower, Essomes 254
Charly's main street unrolls its white ribbon toward Paris . 255
Garden walls washed by the river, La Ferte-sous-Jouarre . 268
St. Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux 268
Ussy-sur-Marne from the meadows 269
Lizy — tucked into the last bend of the Ourcq River . . . 274
Pomponne — with Lagny across the river 274
The confluence of the Ourcq and the Marne 275
The Chateau at Lizy-sur-Ourcq 275
The charming old town of Meaux 290
The ancient mills and the ruins of the Market Bridge, Meaux 290
Charenton, where the Marne enters the Seine 291
The placid river at Chelles 291
Le Moulin de Doubes, Noisiel Z^^
The Marne, deeply green, near Nogent 310
The river road — Nogent 3^0
First glimpse of the Seine bridges and distant Paris . . .318
The Marne on the outskirts of Paris 3^8
The Marne
Historic and Picturesque
THE MARNE
HISTORIC AND PICTURESQUE
CHAPTER I
A RIVER OF HISTORY
ALTHOUGH it can scarcely be maintained, as a few
enthusiasts would have us believe, that rivers have been
the most important factors in the making of human history,
it is hardly an exaggeration to say that they have affected its
course more profoundly than any other natural features of
the earth save the oceans themselves. One need regard for
but a moment the influence upon human events of such streams
as the Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Rhine, the Danube,
the St. Lawrence, or the Mississippi to acknowledge the meas-
ure of their power in shaping the course of wars and political
relations and, consequently, the destinies of nations.
It is obvious that in a populous country a great river must
modify the existence of the peoples living adjacent to its banks,
if only by reason of its volume, which renders it a military
obstacle in war, a vehicle of commerce in peace, and a natural
boundary of political significance at all times. But it is not
always the great watercourses which play leading roles in the
march of events. The Metaurus, in Umbria, is little more
than a brook ; the Nebel, at Blenheim, is a mere marshy rivulet.
Yet by his failure to make good his retirement across the
Metaurus, Hasdrubel suffered defeat in the battle which lost
the supremacy of the world to Carthage and gave it to Rome,
while, centuries later, by forcing his passage of the Nebel,
I
2 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Marlborough put a period to the victorious career of the armies
of the France of Louis the Magnificent.
In a similar sense, but in a far greater degree, it is a river,
small by comparison with hundreds of other watercourses,
which through centuries has been involved in such momentous
and decisive events, affecting the whole course of Western
civilization, that it has come to seem an instrument of Divine
Providence and has acquired a fame transcending that of any
other stream in the world. That river is the Marne. It is the
purpose of the present writer to tell as much of the picturesque
beauties, the moving romance, and the soul-stirring history of
this placid little stream, wandering among its green-carpeted
hills, its nestled villages, and its poplar-shaded valleys, as can
be compressed within the limits of a single volume — a delicate
task, because an adequate narrative of it could hardly be de-
tailed in a dozen. The river upon whose selfsame banks the
chains of Asiatic conquest in western Europe have been broken
and the chains of affection and mutual esteem between western
Europe and America have been forged ; upon whose selfsame
hills flashed, two thousand years ago, the spears of the Roman
legions and, in 19 18, the rifles of the French poilu and the
Yankee doughboy, is not one whose story can be narrated in
a few paragraphs. But how closely its creeping waters have
woven together the past and the present may, perhaps, be sug-
gested, however imperfectly, in the following pages.
Physically considered, the Marne is a stream about 525
kilometers, or 328 miles, in length and it drains a watershed
of 4,894 square miles. Its source is on the eastern slope of
the plateau of Langres, about four miles south of the city of
that name, in the Department of the Haute-Marne. Rising
at an elevation of 381 meters (1250 feet) above sea level,
it runs in a northerly course through the Department of the
A River of History
Haute-Marne, turns west near St. Dizier and crosses the De-
partment of the Marne, receiving the waters of the Blaise
River between St. Dizier and Vitry-le-Frangois. Just before
reaching Vitry, where the Saulx River empties into it, it turns
northwest, passes Chalons, and resumes a westerly course
which it continues past Epernay, turning then somewhat south-
west as it traverses a corner of the Department of the Aisne
past Chateau-Thierry. Continuing across the Department of
Seine-et-Marne, in which it passes Meaux and receives the
tributary waters of the Petit Morin, the Ourcq, and the Grand
Morin, it crosses the Department of Seine-et-Oise and finally
enters the Department of the Seine, within which it discharges
into the River Seine at Charenton, a suburb of Paris.
In its course the Marne traverses a country much diver-
sified in character, as will hereafter be shown. But neither in
length nor in the extent of its watershed is it at all imposing
as a river. The Rhone, the largest river lying exclusively
within France, is 505 miles long and has a basin of 37,798
square miles; the Rhine has a length of 805 miles with a drain-
age area of 75,cx)o square miles, while the Hudson, a few miles
shorter than the Marne, yet carries off the rainfall of a dis-
trict nearly three times as large. Compared to the gigantic
Missouri-Mississippi, with its 4,221 miles of channel and its
watershed nearly as great as all western Europe exclusive of
Germany and Austria, the Marne is a brook. Yet its signifi-
cance in history has been infinitely greater than the combined
influence of all the other rivers mentioned. That such is the
case does not appear to have been merely the result of accident.
A glance at the map of Europe shows, standing between
Italy, they project a nobstructing rampart as far as the Medi-
and the conglomerate which was recently Austria on the east,
the huge bulk of the Alps. To the south, between France and
4 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Italy, they project an obstructing rampart as far as the Medi-
terranean, to the east they diminish but gradually in the Tyrols.
To the northwest the Jura lies like a curving outwork between
the valley of the Rhine and those of the Doubs and the Saone,
which are virtually extended parts of the valley of the Rhone.
Still farther beyond the valley of the Doubs-Saone lies, west
of the Rhine, the mass of the Vosges Mountains and, extending
southwest from them in a curve beyond that of the Jura, more
sweeping but less elevated, are the Monts Faucilles, west of
Epinal, the plateau of Langres, the Cote-d'Or, southwest of
Dijon, and other plateaus reaching southwest through Bour-
gogne and Lyonnais.
Around the massive redoubt of nature formed by the
Alps and the Jura, through the lowlands of the Doubs Valley
which make, at Belfort, a pass to the valley of the Rhine,
is one of the regions where the waves of warfare between
central and western Europe have washed most persistently.
Sometimes its lower, outstanding spurs have been overrun,
more rarely its very fastnesses have been painfully pene-
trated but, in the main, the feet of contending armies have
swept past its base on every side. Caesar rested his right
flank in security upon it when he went to the conquest of
northern Gaul and, clearing a base line on the valley of the
Rhone, struck out toward the English Channel. Along its
northern slopes and over the broad, open countries beyond,
the successive waves of barbarian invaders from the east
have always thrown themselves forward upon France. Swing-
ing around this buttress, the Romans met, upon the banks
of the Rhine, those Germanic hordes which all their power
could never crush and which finally overcame Rome itself.
Moving along its northern base through the Pass of Belfort,
across the Rhine and into the valley of the Danube, Napoleon
A River of History
led his armies when, periodically, he found it expedient to
flank invaders out of Italy or otherwise to humble the nations
to the east. Indeed, for centuries before Napoleon's time
armies operating in both directions had utilized that pass in
their advances or retreats because it offered the only available
road for avoiding the Alps on the south and the Vosges on
the north.
Again, north of the Vosges which stand to block invasion
of France like a rock in a harbor mouth, come open grounds
which, falling away gradually to the coastal plains of Fland-
ers, have always been a fairway for invading armies in either
direction. The Rhine, springing from the Alps, is and ever
has been the natural dividing line between central Europe
and France. But neither France nor Gaul before her nor Rome
could always stop invasion on that line when it came in par-
ticularly heavy force.
The World War has demonstrated that distribution in
depth is the best defense and that the true battle position lies
far enough behind the front line to permit of the latter taking
up the first shock of the enemy's attack and forcing him to
come before the main positions with his initial momentum
expended. In former days the theory may not have been
clearly understood, but the course of events frequently forced
the conclusion. It seems, therefore, a fair hypothesis of the
importance of the Marne in history to state that its deep-cut
valley, curving northwestward and westward from the pla-
teau of Langres, 75 miles within the Pass of Belfort, to Paris,
lies at such a distance from the Rhine as to constitute it the
natural battle position against particularly strong attacks from
the east. Whether or not the hypothesis will bear analyzing,
the fact remains that at several of the most critical junctures
in the near and distant past, the Marne has proved the stum-
The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
bling-block over which aggressors from the East have fallen.
Under what circumstances they have fallen, through what
vicissitudes the people of the valley have passed during the
centuries, and what is the appearance and the nature of this
lovely river which is a vein of the fair flesh of France, we
may now consider.
CHAPTER II
THE CRADLE OF THE MARNE
GOING down the wide, white Roman road which, clear-
ing the frowning gateway and the drawbridge of the
Langres Citadel, stretches away southward across the airy
uplands of the plateau, one is struck by three outstanding
features of his surroundings, the perennial loveliness of the
countryside, the breathing presence of antiquity and, on every
hand, the evidences of military construction and occupation.
The ancient Roman highway, but one of many converging
upon the fortress hill of Langres, lies along the plateau like
a ribbon through the grain fields, which fall away abruptly
on the east into the broad valley of the Marne and more
gradually on the west to the patches of woodland which flank
the road to Dijon. Behind one, St. Mammes Cathedral,
eight hundred years old, rears its square, gray towers above
the ramparts of Langres and it needs no practiced eye to dis-
cern that the masonry which stands, half revealed, on many
of the surrounding hills, flat-topped and abrupt as Montana
buttes, are parts of the massive forts, now superannuated,
which formerly made of Langres one of the chief strongholds
of France as, indeed, in a strategic sense it still is.
These first impressions of natural beauty, antiquity, and
martial strength, which are characteristic of the Marne
throughout its length, are particularly noticeable as one ap-
proaches the covert glen wherein the river keeps its shyly
hidden source, which the Roman road passes at a distance of
a few hundred yards. Just before reaching it one skirts
directly one of the old strongholds. Fort de la Marnotte,
standing like a very guardian over the cradle of the stream,
7
2— Oct. 22. '
8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
half hidden in the bushes which have grown up around it.
Its angled walls stare dumbly across the deep moat and the
poppied pasture grounds encompassing it to the river valley
and the blue hills beyond. The fort bears ample evidence
that it has suffered its share in the late war as an object of
experiments in the busy training areas that centered at Lan-
gres, for the bottom of the moat and the lip of the glacis are
netted with rusty barbed-wire entanglements, while here and
there gaping holes in the ground or the masonry show where
the shells of practicing artillery have burst. Perhaps at Fort
de la Marnotte some of the gunners, American and French,
learned the accuracy which later on and farther down the
river helped to send the Germans reeling back from the region
of Chateau-Thierry across the hills of Orxois.
Turning down a little byroad which follows through the
bushes a shallow depression on whose sunny side lies a long,
narrow strip of well-tilled field, one comes in a moment to
the edge of the plateau, dropping off so sharply to the valley
that the tree tops from below wave almost against one's feet.
A path winds steeply down between shoulders of stone to a
shady little glen half surrounded by the gray, overhanging
rocks and here, from a tangle of vines and shrubs, issues the
trickle of crystal water which is the infant Marne.
With the delicate sentiment characteristic of the French
in such matters, the government of the Department of the
Haute-Marne has, in 1877, protected from pollution the spring
of the historic river by enclosing it in a stone vault with a
little opening in front whence the tiny stream dances away
among the pebbles down the valley. Behind the source a gray
shoulder of cliff towers up, embowered in tree branches and
beside it a tiny vineyard, hardly five meters square, takes the
sunshine of the summer afternoons.
The Cradle of the Marne 9
Only a few steps away, in the other face of the curving
wall of rock is the spot which is, after the source itself, the
chief point of interest hereabout and the one which renders
the Marne, at its very birth, a creature of romance. It is the
Grotto of Sabinus, a cave in the rock having two entrances,
the one looking south, the other east. The interior is very
irregular in outline but it is perhaps fifty feet deep, twenty
feet wide, and seven feet high. Near the east entrance is a
rough pillar, left evidently by the cutting away of the sur-
rounding stone.
The story, one of the most romantic in all history, goes
that in the year 71, a. d., which was during the reign of Ves-
pasian as emperor of Rome, Julius Sabinus, chief of the Lin-
gones, a Gallic tribe whose capital was Langres, or Andema-
tunum as it was then called, with other Gallic chiefs revolted
against the authority of Rome. Through his grandmother,
who had been a very beautiful Gallic maiden in the favor of
Julius Caesar, Sabinus claimed to be the grandson of the con-
queror. Young, wealthy, handsome, and with all the ambi-
tion of his great ancestor, he conspired with other discon-
tented leaders to create rebellion among the Roman legions
on the Rhine, he himself aspiring to become emperor in
Vespasian's stead.
Fired with this mad scheme, he returned to Langres,
stirred up his countrymen by his eloquence to raise a half-
armed and undisciplined army of nearly 70,000 men and led
it headlong southward toward Besangon, destroying towns
and laying waste the country on the way. Soon, however,
his motley host began to meet with reverses. Fearing to be
enveloped by the legions of the Roman general, Cerealis, who
was marching from Italy to the German frontier, Sabinus
abandoned his army and fled to his country house at Giselles,
10 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
near Laignes and immediately thereafter, with only two
faithful freedmen as companions, to the cave at the source
of the Marne, then deeply hidden among the primeval forests.
From here he caused one of his servants to go to his wife,
Eponina, and inform her that he had killed himself.
Eponina, who was famed through the country as well for
her virtues as for her beauty, on receiving this news was so
overcome by grief that she wept without ceasing for three
days and nights, neither sleeping nor eating during that time.
Sabinus was informed of this by his servant, and fearing that
his wife would die of grief, he sent word to her that he still
lived and informed her of his hiding place. Thereafter for
seven months Eponina visited him almost nightly at the
grotto, returning to her home before morning and so cleverly
continuing her role of the sorrowing widow that no one sus-
pected that her husband was still living.
In the meantime, the other leaders of the rebellion, less
timorous than Sabinus, whose greatest virtue seems to have
been his deep devotion to a wife who far outshone him in
every other worthy element of character, had kept their army
together, returned to Treves and near that city delivered bat-
tle to the legions of Cerealis. The latter defeated them
utterly, the rebellion was crushed, and Langres gave its sub-
mission to Rome. Shortly after, Sabinus, hoping to obtain
pardon for his share in the revolt, made a secret journey to
Rome with the intention of throwing himself upon the mercy
of Vespasian. He soon learned, however, that there was little
prospect of his receiving clemency and, fearing to be appre-
hended and executed, he fled again to his cave by the Marne.
Now ensued nine long years during which Sabinus
remained there, his faithful wife being with him most of the
time, but sallying forth at intervals to obtain news of condi-
The valley of the Marne from the base of the ramparts, Langres
[Page 5]
Grotto of Sabinus bv the source of the Marne
[Page 9]
The Cradle of the Marne il
tions at Rome and to learn whether prospects were any
brighter for the pardon of her husband. While they were
existing thus, Eponina gave birth to twins, whom she reared,
to paraphrase the poetical words of one French historian, as
a lioness rears her whelps, hidden from the light of day and
nursed in the entrails of the earth. At the end of the nine
years by some unlucky accident the Romans discovered the
hiding place of Sabinus and his family. They were surprised
in the cave and taken prisoners. Eponina and her children
would have been left in Gaul by the Romans and, indeed,
Sabinus himself seems to have mustered the courage to beseech
his wife to remain behind. But her devotion would not per-
mit it; with her children she accompanied her husband to
Rome. When they were brought into the presence of Ves-
pasian, Eponina threw herself at his feet and weeping plead
for her husband's life. " These," said she, holding her chil-
dren up before the emperor, "are the fruits of my exile. I
have nourished them in a cave in order that we might be
more numerous to bring to you our supplications."
Her eloquence moved even Vespasian to tears, but he was
inexorable regarding the fate of Sabinus; the would-be
usurper must be executed. At last Eponina, seeing that
pleadings were in vain, arose and with dignity demanded
that she be permitted to die with Sabinus. "Grant me this
grace, Vespasian," said she, " for thy aspect and thy laws
weigh upon me a thousand times more heavily than life in
darkness and under the earth."
Her biting scorn stung the emperor to grant her request;
with Sabinus she and her infants were led to death. It has
been well said that it was because of the devotion of his wife
that Sabinus' name has been preserved among those of heroes.
But the name of the superb Gallic matron has also lived down
12 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the ages and will live as the worthy prototype of that galaxy
of heroines which, led by Jeanne d'Arc, has given to the
womanhood of France such a glorious place in history.
To return to the center of interest of this romance of the
long-dead past, the grotto by the source of the Marne, one
finds on walking a few feet from its entrance along the path
skirting the foot of the cliff, a shrine chiseled in the face of
the rock containing, behind an iron grating, a small figure of
the Virgin. Both here and within Sabinus' cave the smooth
face of the stone bears what seems from a casual inspection
a fairly complete penciled roster of the American Expedi-
tionary Forces and also of the mobilized army of France. As
often happens in this form of publicity, however, it was an
American who achieved the crowning triumph by getting his
pencil in some way far enough between the bars of the grating
to inscribe " Don Morrison, Lawrence, Kansas," upon the;
pedestal supporting the Virgin. Scattered here and there
under the trees empty "corned willie" or "gold fish" cans
testify to the popularity of the spot as a place of relaxation
when the Army Schools at Langres were overflowing with
American soldier students.
From the long, low entrance to the Grotto of Sabinus the
view extends southeast and east down gentle slopes of grain
and pasture, interspersed with clumps of trees and an occa-
sional solitary oak, across the closely embowered buildings of
the farm de la Marnotte and the red roofs and church tower
of Balesmes to the orderly rows of poplars which, in the far
distance, trace the highroads to Corlee and St. Vallier. Fol-
lowing down the hillside to the farm de la Marnotte, the
first habitation along the thickly peopled Marne, one may
learn not without interest that in its fields, thickly starred
with flaming poppies and the blue of cornflowers, have been
The Cradle of the Marne 13
unearthed within modern times Roman baths, the foundations
of Roman buildings, and many coins of the same epoch.
Pursuing still the same descending road, one comes pres-
ently past stone walls and hedges into the rambling street of
Balesmes, the first village on the Marne. Between the scat-
tered houses of the hamlet and the apple trees bending over the
walls and now and then beneath tiny bridges, the infant stream
murmurs over the rocks, sometimes almost losing itself under
the overhanging branches of rose bushes, heavy with bloom,
or swaying tufts of water grass. Here and there a few step-
ping-stones across it are sufficient means of communication
for the dwellers in neighboring houses, for it is scarcely six
feet wide or more than five or six inches deep. Nevertheless
in Balesmes the Marne receives its first tributary, another
brooklet of about its own volume. The village church lifting
its square Romanesque tower upon a little knoll in the center
of the town has in its flagged floor, tombstones dating from
1619, for Balesmes, like nearly every French hamlet, has its
bit of history. Along the Marne lies an old mill built on the
site of an ancient hospital which was founded there in 11 80
by the Brothers Hospitallers of the Order of St. John and
which passed in 1250 to the Order of Malta, while near the
church was formerly a fortified stronghold belonging to the
Priory of St. Geosmes.
This St. Geosmes, or Sancti Gemini, though some kilome-
ters back from the Marne, was such an important factor in the
early history of this region that it deserves a brief description.
The hamlet of this name lies just west of Fort de la Marnotte
on the Langres-Dijon road, at the junction of two of the
ancient Roman highways. Tradition says that it was the
scene in the second century, a. d., of the martyrdom of three
Christians who were triplet brothers: Speusippi, Meleusippi,
14 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and Eleusippi. By all the logic of euphony they should have
hailed from Mississippi but the record is clear that they were
born in Langres. They had been converted from paganism
by St. Benigne and were the first Christians in this region to
suffer martyrdom by fire. Later they were canonized under
the name of the Saints Jumeaux, meaning twins, whence the
modernized St. Geosmes. In honor of the martyrs there was
established here an abbey which became very rich, the prior
of it being lord of seven neighboring parishes. In this church
in 859 was held an ecclesiastical council in the presence of
Charles i, the Bald, and in it St. Geofrid, Abbot of Wirem-
theuse, in Ireland, was buried in 1716 after his death at
Langres as he was returning from a journey to Rome.
Because the tire of an automobile on the way to the
American Tank Center at Bourg, a few kilometers farther
down the road, gave out at precisely this point one day in
the summer of 19 18, the writer had a chance to enter St.
Geosmes Church under interesting circumstances. At that
time the church was in use as a hospital for wounded men of
some of the French colonial units from North Africa and the
nave and transepts were full of cots on which were lying
these coal-black soldiers, attended by a few French poilus.
The interior, dark with age, shows a construction seen only
in some of the most ancient churches antedating the eleventh
century, the side walls sloping outward very perceptibly from
floor to ceiling, producing a curious appearance as if the roof
were collapsing. One of the French soldiers, anxious to dis-
play all there was to be seen, produced a candle, unlocked
and lifted a ponderous trapdoor in the floor and led the
way down a long flight of clammy stone steps to a Roman
crypt beneath the church containing some massive and hand-
somely carved pillars and several stone sarcophagi whose
The Cradle of the Marne 15
frigid aspect made a shell hole seem an acceptable place of
interment by contrast. Only a small portion of the Roman
crypt remains accessible, the rest of it having been filled up
with rocks during the French Revolution — a curiously labo-
rious method, it would seem, of showing contempt for re-
ligious things.
If one goes out of Balesmes on the poplar-shaded road
running northeast and then turns northwest by the crossroad
toward Corlee and Langres, he crosses just short of Corlee
the deep cut of the Marne and Saone Canal and looking along
it, sees at a distance of a quarter of a mile the entrance to
the tunnel through which it runs, for more than 5 kilometers,
beneath the heights of the Langres Plateau to issue finally at
its southern end in the head of the valley of the Vingeanne
River which it then follows to the Saone. The canal tunnel
passes directly beneath Balesmes where occurs, therefore, the
curious phenomenon of the Marne, whose impounded floods
farther down stream furnish water for the canal, flowing in
its natural bed above the latter. Through the tunnel water
communication is maintained between streams emptying
respectively into the English Channel and the North Sea on
the one side and into the Mediterranean on the other, for the
Marne, the Meuse, and the Saone all have their sources near
together in the highlands of the Department of the Haute-
Marne and all are connected by canals.
The square church tower of Corlee, rising on the hill
slope just beyond the canal as if guarding, like a shepherd his
flock, the clustered red roofs of the village in the hollow below^
lies just short of a slight crest from which suddenly, across
the grain fields and meadows, Langres again appears, its
cathedral and fortress walls sharply silhouetted against the
northwestern sky. From whatever standpoint viewed and
l6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
whether scenically or historically, Langres, at whose feet
the Marne comes into being, is not and never has been incon-
spicuous. Leaving the trickling river and the much more
pretentious canal in the valley, the road climbs up the hillside
through the Faubourg des Anges, passes beneath one of the
double archways of the Porte des Moulins and entering the
narrow thoroughfare of the Rue Diderot between solid masses
of antique houses, leads into the heart of the town whose birth
no chronicle records because that event is shrouded in the
twilight of prehistoric Gaul.
CHAPTER III
LANGRES THE ANCIENT
SOMEONE once ventured a guess at the age of Langres.
It was probably as good a guess as any other investi-
gator can offer. The Abbe Mangin, who flourished about
1765 as grand vicar of the Diocese of Langres, remarked in
one of his learned works that "one is led to believe that it
was perhaps built a little time after the Deluge and after the
rash enterprise of the Tower of Babel had miscarried."
Others have ascribed its foundation to one Longo, King of
the Celts about 1800 b. c. At all events, Langres is un-
doubtedly of Celtic origin and of a very early date as has
been proven by the numerous objects such as statues, vases,
urns, tombs, and building foundations which have been ex-
cavated there. It is said, moreover, that excavations have
disclosed the fact that the hill on which the city stands, 1,550
feet above sea level, is many feet higher than it originally
was owing to the building of town after town upon the ruins
of its predecessors as these came to destruction in the almost
unnumbered wars of the passing centuries.
A contingent of Lingones, the Gallic tribe inhabiting the
country of which Andematunum, later Langres, was the capi-
tal and the metropolis, accompanied the expedition of the
Bellovici which crossed the Alps and descended upon the
plains of northern Italy in 615 b. c, in the time of Tarquin
the Elder. Other Lingones penetrated the Iberian Peninsula
and settled in the most fertile parts of what is now Spain.
In 58 B. c, the year in which Julius Caesar moved into
Transalpine Gaul, turned the Helvetii back into Switzerland
at the passes of the Rhone and Bibracte (Autun), and defeated
17
l8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the invading Germans tinder Ariovistus in the GaUic plain of
Alsace and drove them before him across the Rhine, he found
the Lingones robust warriors and their hilltop city, as it always
has been, a stronghold worth controlling. He sought and
obtained alliance with them so that this warlike tribe, curi-
ously enough, at the most important juncture of its history
became peaceably subject to Rome without the bloody subju-
gation on the battle field which was the fate of most of the
Gallic tribes. Caesar did the Lingones many favors during
the years of his Gallic wars, frequently staying in their coun-
try himself and making there the winter quarters of the
legions. They, in turn, furnished him with an excellent and
numerous cavalry which he employed not only in Gaul but
later in the civil war with Pompey and in his conquests of
Italy and Spain.
The great Roman master of strategy made of Langres
itself a stronghold and the center of a system of strongholds
of which he saw the full advantages. Holding this point,
as he himself proved a little later, he would be in a position
to quell any revolt in case conquered Gaul should rise against
him, while it was, moreover, an excellently placed base for
operations against the Germans on and beyond the Rhine.
The hilltop of Langres he entirely surrounded with a strong
wall, having a wide and deep ditch and high towers at fre-
quent intervals. The outlying stations, oppidums or
intrenched camps, generally capable of being used as winter
cantonments for troops, were most often situated at the junc-
tions of two or more roads but always in positions so tacti-
cally defensible that even the later leaders of the Middle
Ages, comparatively ignorant of military art, could see their
advantages and built their feudal castles on, or near, the
ruins of the Roman works.
Langres the Ancient 19
Under Julius Caesar, or his successors, was laid out the
system of Roman roads, the greatest in all Gaul, which
radiated in every direction from Langres, twelve of them in
all binding the country together in a military sense and fur-
nishing convenient communications. So substantially were
they built that many of them today are still in use. Striking
nearly always straight across the country, images, as has been
expressively said, of the inflexible Roman will which went
straight to its object regardless of obstacles, from Langres
these roads reached, the first to Toul, Metz, and Treves, the
second to Naix-aux-Forges, near Bar-le-Duc, and thence to
Reims, and Treves, the third to the Rhine by Avricourt and
La Marche, the fourth to the valley of the jMouzon, the fifth
to Bourbonne, the sixth to the Rhine by way of Basle, the
seventh to Besangon, the eighth to Lyon by the existing road
to Dijon, the ninth to Alessia and Autun, the tenth to Sens,
the eleventh to Reims by Bricon and the twelfth to the valley
of the Blaise by Faverolles and Marnay.
These roads and many other public works in Langres and
vicinity were built largely by the legions of Julius Caesar at
times when they were in rest between actual campaigns, the
practice of "manicuring the roads" with "resting" troops
evidently being as popular then as it was two thousand years
later. Caesar's generosity with fatigue details was especially
the result of his gratitude to the Lingones for their neu-
trality during the formidable revolt of the Gauls led by Ver-
cingetorix, in 52 b. c. This uprising burst forth as the
result of a great Gallic council held at Autun. Caesar and his
army at the time were at Sens. Vercingetorix, with forces
much superior in point of numbers, moved northeast from
Autun by Dijon in the direction of Langres with the object
of cutting the Roman line of retreat upon the Rhone and
20 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Italy. He accomplished this object, but Caesar, after pre-
venting by quick maneuvering considerable bodies of Gallic
levies from joining Vercingetorix, directed his own march
from Alessia upon Langres, desirous of putting this strong
place, which was neutral and therefore a safe base, in his rear
and then delivering battle as soon as possible. Before the
enemy could get astride his road he gained his communica-
tions with Langres and deploying by the right flank on the
heights of Prauthoy and Selongey, faced the Gallic Army as
it was debouching from the valley of the Vingeanne River.
The Roman kept the tactical defensive, repulsed the enemy's
impetuous attack and then, advancing his left flank at the
right moment, forced the Gauls into a retreat which, pressed
by the Romans, became a disastrous rout. The legions pur-
sued closely, penned up the enemy in Alessia and in the
famous siege of that place, ending in the surrender of Ver-
cingetorix, completely quelled the rebellion.
The Lingones, whose passive aid contributed not a little
to the success of the Roman arms, however they may have
been accused by conscience for their inglorious attitude dur-
ing the desperate struggle of their country against its con-
querors, profited materially thereby and remained in Roman
favor long after the passing of the first Caesar. Langres
became the headquarters of administration and supply of a
large military district, a financial center for the collection of
public revenues, and a provincial capital of importance. Among
the buildings erected in the city under Augustus and Diocle-
tian were a capitol, an amphitheater, several temples, and a
college of augurs. An arch of triumph attributed to Marcus
Aurelius after his war with the Germans still exists, beauti-
fully preserved, as the walled-up "Gallo-Roman Gate" famil-
iar to all American soldiers who were stationed at Langres,
Langres the Ancient 21
beside the National Road from Chaumont as it climbs the
hillside on the west of the town. The concentration of high-
ways at Langres gave to the city, great commercial advantages
and after the abortive revolt of Sabinus, in 71 a. d., the city
was so large, that after rendering its submission to the Ro-
mans, it was able to appease their anger by offering to Domi-
tian, the proconsul of Gaul, a contingent of seventy thousand
soldiers for the Imperial armies.
But the prosperity of Langres as a Gallo-Roman metropo-
lis declined as the Roman Empire sank toward its dissolution,
and as its strong hands relaxed, Gaul became a prey to the
barbaric invasions and the internal disorders which marked
the beginning of the Dark Ages. No longer upon the Rhine
the eagles of the legions overawed those eternal enemies of
Gaul and of later France who dwelt beyond its rushing waters.
The first army, or horde, of German and Vandal invasion
under the leadership of the ferocious Chrocus, surged across
the frontier about the middle of the third century a. d. In
the year 264 they reached and began the siege of Langres.
The inhabitants, knowing that they could expect no mercy
. from their assailants, resisted with the courage of despair,
but to little purpose. The Lingones at this day, in advance
of many of the Gauls, were already thoroughly Christianized,
the first martyr of the faith in the city having been put to
death in 165 while the first bishop, St. Senateur, came into
power about the year 200. Pressed now by savage enemies
the people, at the end of their material resources, turned to
their bishop, St. Didier, a man celebrated for his virtues and
his piety. He held a parley with Chrocus and besought him
to have mercy upon the people of the city, offering himself to
be burned alive as a sacrifice to save them from massacre.
The barbarian chief spurned the offer and St. Didier returned
22 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
into the city, shut himself in the cathedral and devoted him-
self to prayer. Shortly the enemy forced one of the gates
and the warriors spreading through the streets began a whole-
sale slaughter. Again the bishop, in his robes of office,
appeared before Chrocus and plead for the people. The only
reply of the German commander was to order the death of
the bishop and of all his Christian followers. As he knelt
in prayer the head of the prelate was shorn off with a sword
and his blood spurted over the prayer-book which he clasped
in his hands. A thousand years later according to popular
belief the blood of the martyr bishop was still bright upon
this relic, which was preserved and became an object of pil-
grimage to crowds in search of healing. Langres was sacked
by the barbarians and its first cathedral was reduced to ruins,
but Chrocus, after ravaging all the surrounding country,
upon advancing to Aries for the purpose of destroying that
city, was at last defeated and killed.
It required a long time for Langres to recover from the
effects of Chrocus' attack, but under the judicious rule of
the Roman governor, Constance Chlore, it had regained some-
thing of its earlier population and prosperity when, after the
lapse of thirty-six years, the Germans, undismayed by va-
rious minor defeats at the hands of the Romans and con-
stantly growing stronger as their adversaries grew weaker,
again broke across the Rhine and swept westward. Langres
•was their chief objective and Constance Chlore hastened to
the aid of the city. Upon his arrival, the enemy being close
to the place, he rashly declined to await the reinforcements
for which he had sent and which were rapidly approaching
and attacked the Germans at once with very inferior num-
bers.
The result was that he was defeated, he himself wounded.
Langres the Ancient 23
and his trcwDps driven in rout toward Langres. The gates
having been closed, the wounded Roman leader was gotten
into the city only with the greatest difficulty, being hoisted to
the top of the wall in a basket let down with ropes. Once
inside, however, he was not too badly injured to take com-
mand of the Langrois, all of whom able to bear arms had,
meanwhile, assembled in haste. His reinforcements, like-
wise, arriving under the walls about five hours after his disas-
trous preliminary combat, the Roman general placed himself
at the head of the whole force and again advanced from the
city.
The Germans, confident that their victory was already as
good as won, had camped on the opposite hills of the Marne
near the still-existing village of Peigney, where they were hold-
ing high carousal. The Gallo-Roman forces crossed the river
and attacked them furiously. This time the effort was com-
pletely successful, the Germans according to no doubt grossly
exaggerated legend, leaving 60,000 dead upon the field of
their rout but, at all events, being driven precipitately out of
the country. The name of Peigney itself is thought to be a
corruption of the Latin word pngna, meaning "battle," while
scattered over the plateau between the Marne, the Liez, and
the Neuilly brook, on which the conflict occurred, numerous
bones and weapons have been found in modern times.
It is worth remembering that in the course of its exist-
ence since the days of Julius Caesar, France has been invaded
by the Germans forty-two times — that is on an average of
once every forty-seven years. It might seem that after two
thousand years a sense of discouragement concerning their
ability ever to conquer France would begin to permeate even
the predatory central tribes of Europe. But a distinguished
Roman general, Celarius, over fifteen hundred years ago
3
24 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
pointed out to the Gauls a truth as pregnant today as it was
then, when he said to them : " the self -same motives for invad-
ing Gaul will ever endure among the Germans; love of
pleasure and love of money. Ever will they be seen to relin-
quish their heaths and bogs and rush to your fertile plains,
with a view to rob you of your fields and make slaves of
you."
The fortunate issue of the struggle just described was for
unhappy Langres the last victory of many a century. Held in
check with increasing difficulty by the armies of the successive
Roman emperors, Constantine, Julian, and Valentinian, the
insatiable Germans forced the frontiers of the Roman prov-
ince of Gaul finally and completely in the commencement
of the fifth century and poured their devastating hordes into
that devoted country and across it into Spain and Italy. The
territories of Langres, Troyes, and Reims were ravaged suc-
cessively by the Vandals, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and
other Germanic tribes and at length in 451 the last abyss of
woe was reached in the frightful invasion of the Huns under
Attila (or Etzel, as he is called in the German language).
Langres, which still possessed its Gallo-Roman fortifications,
tried in vain to defend them. Attila carried the city by as-
sault, devoted it to flames and reduced it to a heap of ashes.
Nothing was left and after the cataclysm the Bishop of Lan-
gres, Fraterne, was obliged to remove the seat of his diocese
to Autun as, beneath the shell fire of the Germans of 1914,
Monseigneur Ginisty, Bishop of Verdun, was obliged to re-
move the seat of his diocese to Bar-le-Duc.
Soon after the final defeat of Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne
the last sparks of Roman power expired in Gaul and the
anarchy of the Dark Ages assumed full sway. Langres,
under the rule of the Burgundians, was rebuilt, but as little
Langres the Ancient " 25
more than a stronghold where the wretched people of the
countryside could gather as a final refuge from successive
invaders, both French and foreign. Clovis, who put the last
Romans out of northern Gaul in 486, adopted Christianity
and uniting all the Franks under the Merovingian dynasty,
began to give form to modern France, captured the place in
his war against Gondebaud, King of Burgundy. It is a fa-
miliar fact that Clovis, whose conversion to Christianity was
one of the important episodes of history; was persuaded to
the step by his wife, Clotilde. But it is perhaps less well
known that Clotilde herself became a Christian through the
efforts of the Bishop of Langres, Apruncule, to whom is
attributed also the establishment of the first public schools
of Langres.
Most miserably for the people of northern France genera-
tion followed generation and in the ninth century the country
about Langres was ravaged year after year by the Normans.
Those who remained of the unhappy inhabitants dwelt like
beasts in the depths of the forests, often dying of famine
until, everything having been plundered, there was nothing
left to excite the greed of the invaders who came, not like a
passing cyclone, as Attila had come, but like a slow pestilence
destroying at leisure. Men, houses, flocks, fields, vineyards,
it was said, were gone as completely as if the ocean had rolled
over the country, and in 891, Bishop Geilon died of grief
over the desolation of his people, which he was powerless to
relieve.
Conditions, however, now began to improve a little as the
local nobles found increasing means for protecting their feu-
datory possessions from the aggressions of neighbors and as
the supreme authority of the kings of France gained grad-
ually in strength. The first Count of Langres was Estulphe
26 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
who led 3,cxx) Langrois soldiers in the army that followed
the Saracens into Spain and who, with his followers, per-
ished in yy2 in that battle of Roncevalles which was immor-
talized in one of the greatest battle epics ever composed,
The Song of Roland. Under the successors of Charlemagne
the counts and the county of Langres remained for a long
time virtually independent between the great feudal domains
of Champagne, Lorraine, Franche-Comte, and Burgundy.
But in 1 179, Bishop Gaulthier of Burgundy, having ransomed
the place after its capture in a siege, offered it to King Louis
VII of France on condition that it should never again be
alienated from the crown. The offer was accepted and thence-
forth Langres remained under the royal rule and protection,
although the latter often proved a very slight guarantee of
safety.
During the period from 1096 to 1270 during which the
Crusades occurred, many of the nobility of Langres and its
vicinity, like those of every other Christian land, took part
in these expeditions followed by large numbers of their re-
tainers. Their long absences from home in such a cause
reflected credit upon their prowess and religious zeal, but
certainly tended to lessen their power in their native land.
While they were away the burghers of the larger towns, re-
maining at home, gradually secured from successive kings
increased rights and privileges in the way of charters of self-
government for their communes and exemptions from certain
taxes and other obligations, all in exchange for their accep-
tance of the condition that they support the royal authority
with arms in case of need. It was an excellent arrangement,
both from the king's standpoint and from that of the bur-
ghers, for the former thus acquired a formidable weapon for
holding in awe the powerful feudal vassals who were often
Langres the Ancient 27
rebellious, while the latter gained not only their chartered
privileges but also strength to resist the exactions of oppres-
sive liege lords and the depredations of neighboring barons.
In evolution, the enfranchisement of the communes presently
developed a distinctly new sort of military force. A French
military historian. General Susane, in his Histoire de I'lnfan-
terie, says :
In that time of disorder and brigandage, when people were not
safe at three hundred steps from the gates of the city, when nothing
was more common than to hear the sinister strokes of the alarm
bell, when there reigned among all the peaceable population a great
terror of the barons and of their followers; when, moreover, the
gendarmerie were enemies rather than protectors, it did not suffice
merely to carry upon the rolls of the militia the names of all men
capable of bearing arms. It was necessary, also, to have recourse
to volunteers and to mercenaries. It was under the reign of the
warlike Philip- Augustus that the celebrated companies of arbalesters
(crossbowmen) were formed — the first effort in France at the
organization of infantry troops.
These companies of arbalesters, who later after the intro-
duction of gunpowder became known as arquebusiers (muske-
teers), were hired by their respective communes and kept
themselves in a state of military efficiency for the protection
of the commune and the service of the sovereign when re-
quired. Having an underlying common interest, the compa-
nies of the different towns eventually formed a sort of union,
thus further increasing their prestige. So popular did the
service become and so keen was the rivalry between the
young men of the country for places in its ranks that little by
little military exercises, by way of qualification, became one
of the most important occupations of the people and the whole
militia acquired, almost unconsciously, some degree of train-
ing. This fact was of particular importance from the king's
standpoint, which in that day meant practically the national
28 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
standpoint, and the development of the communal troops
exercised a very potent influence upon the history of the
country.
The great seigneurs, though nominally vassals of the king
and protectors of the land against German invaders, had be-
come, in fact, the terrors of tjie realm. Holding their mas-
sively fortified chateaux in places the least accessible to attack,
and at the same time the most convenient for marauding on
the countryside and along the few existing roads, no traveled
way was safe from the depredations of these " robber barons "
nor was hardly any individual respected in their eyes. These
scions of ancient and illustrious families which had shared the
glories of Charlemagne and carried the banners of the cross
into the Holy Land, degenerated now to the level of highway-
men and petty partisans carrying on feudal warfare with one
another, often sought to soothe their consciences for crimes
committed by bestowing great legacies of lands, buildings, or
money upon the church which thus, in turn, acquired enor-
mous temporal power. But even such a personage as the
Bishop of Langres, who in this way had become one of the
dominating ecclesiastics and one of the greatest secular pow-
ers in the kingdom, being one of the Twelve Peers of France,
found it not always safe to venture with his cavalcade outside
the high towered walls of his episcopal city, for the barons of
the castles along the road, whether or not they nominally owed
him allegiance, were not to be trusted. The organized militia
of the larger towns became an effective weapon to use against
such disturbers of the peace and it very soon began to be put
to such use.
Among the most important chateaux of Bassigny connected
with the history of Langres either by reason of hostilities or
because the Bishop of Langres had rights over them, may be
Langres the Ancient 29
mentioned those of Aigremont, Clefmont, and Bourmont. The
village of Bourmont, appertaining formerly to the chateau of
that name, will be remembered by many Americans as the
seat of the Advance Quartermaster Depot 7, where the first
American railhead was established in December, 19 17, and
around which were camped at different times in the summer
and fall of 19 18, the Forty-second, Seventy-eighth, and
Eighty-second Divisions. All of the chateaux mentioned were
located from 25 to 35 kilometers northeast of Langres and
dominated the high country between the Marne and the Meuse.
Other important chateaux were those of Bourg, Montsau-
gon, Cusey, Coifify-le-Haut, Angoulevant, and Humes. The
chateau of Bourg, ruling the neighborhood in which, in 19 18,
was located the great American Tank Center 302 and the
School of Tank Instruction, overlooked and controlled the
course of the Vingeanne River. The structure consisted of
a number of great towers and a donjon from the summit of
which the Bishop of Langres, who possessed it, could look
down upon his numerous fiefs, his vision embracing from
there, so it has been picturesquely recorded, "all the high
valley of the Vingeanne, the confines of Montsaugonais, going
thence to rest upon the hills of Burgundy, the junction of
which with the plateau of Langres is lost at the horizon in the
blue mists of morning."
The high-handed conduct of the local lords of these va-
rious castles finally became so unendurable that the people of
the larger towns exerted their military power to destroy the
places and reduce their lawless occupants to order. A char-
acteristic expedition of this sort, conducted with due cere-
mony by the men of Langres, resulted in the demolition of
the Chateau of Angoulevant in 1424. This structure domi-
nated from its seat on the crest of the hills hardly more than
30 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
two kilometers east of the walls of Langres the confluence of
the Marne and the Liez. It stood on the exact spot now occu-
pied by the Farm of Angoulevant, beside the Reservoir de la
Liez; a place conspicuous in the middle distance from that
splendid observation point of the Langres ramparts at the
table of orientation on the Rue Constance Chlore, from which
on clear days the summit of Mont Blanc may be seen. An-
goulevant was held in 1424 as a veritable highwaymen's roost
by the haughty and enterprising Sire Jean de Maligny. This
robber baron having defied the Langrois once too often, on a
certain day criers went through the streets of the city calling,
in the name of the king, for all masons, carpenters, and join-
ers to assemble " for the purpose of being conducted where it
was necessary that they should be conducted." When troops
and artisans were gathered, they marched out of the city
and across the Marne Valley and halted at the foot of the
chateau walls. Here a trumpeter, in the name of the king
and of the burgesses of Langres, summoned the occupants to
surrender. But the Sire de Maligny and his followers, seeing
the storm approaching, had fled, so while the horsemen of the
assailants kept guard over the countryside, the workmen and
foot soldiers entered the abandoned castle and began tearing
it down. And according to the ancient legal document, still
in existence, which described the proceedings, " no one re-
turned to the city until the said demolition was completed."
Through such enterprises as the above, which was dupli-
cated many times during the ensuing two hundred years
against other strongholds of the provincial nobles by the mu-
nicipal soldiery of Langres, Chaumont, and other towns, the
people of Langres gained an increasing confidence in their
own strength and an increasing standing with the kings of
France. Alreadv in the middle of the fourteenth century, to
Langres the Ancient 31
protect the growing population which had spread far beyond
the old Roman walls, a new and larger system of fortifica-
tions was built. In 1465 King Charles vii granted to the city
the right to elect four citizens to have charge of the local
government and this system was improved upon a century
and a quarter later when Henry iii, the last of the Valois,
authorized the election of a mayor. Nevertheless, though the
people were thus rendered largely independent in their local
affairs, their nominal lord, the Bishop of Langres, had like-
wise greatly increased his power. Ranking with the mightiest
dukes and counts of the realm he rendered homage to no man
save the king himself, but received that of such dignitaries as
the Count of Champagne and the Duke of Burgundy, while at
the coronation of the king he carried the scepter in the pro-
cession and walked ahead of his metropolitan, the Archbishop
of Lyon.
During the Hundred Years' War the country about Lan-
gres suffered almost without respite the hardships and devas-
tation occasioned by the armies and plundering expeditions
of English, Burgundians, and Germans which continually
ravaged northern France throughout the decades of that con-
flict. The city itself on its fortress-crowned cliffs fared bet-
ter for it was credited with being the strongest city of the
realm and a certain amount of industry flourished there, in-
cluding the manufacture of cannon, the first of which to be
made in France were cast at Langres and used at the battle of
Poitiers in 1356. Although for a time the city, chiefly
through the influence of certain leaders, acknowledged the
sovereignty of the English claimant to the throne of France
this attitude was not held for long and in the main during
the course of the protracted struggle Langres gave its aid to
the French king. Therefore when at last, through all the
32 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
sordid and selfish factionalism of Armagnacs and Burgun-
dians which alone was dictating the conduct of both parties
to the quarrel, there arose that one clear, girlish voice which
called on Frenchmen, in the name of forgotten patriotism, to
fight for France, Jeanne d'Arc found in the people of Langres
ready sympathizers.
It is unnecessary to enter upon the details of the number-
less conflicts which centered around Langres or involved her
military strength during the civil and religious wars which
convulsed France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But
it is of interest to note that between 1498 and i'547, under
King Louis xii, and his successor, Francis i, the fortifica-
tions were again remodeled and enlarged, one of the principal
structures then built being the Tower of Navarre, a perfect
example of the military architecture, of that epoch which still
stands at the southwestern corner of the battlements, a famil-
iar object to most visitors to the hilltop city. Like the rest
of the fortifications built at that time the Tower of Navarre
was designed by the engineer, Jean de Dammarien. It is a
bastion open at the gorge, having very high and massively
built circular walls which cause it to resemble some of the
towers of the Middle Ages. But it was much more modern
in other respects, possessing two tiers of casemates and four
rows of batteries commanding the adjacent curtains, while
in the center was a spiral ramp permitting a cannon to be
placed at a point commanding the upper platforms of the
tower itself.
King Francis is said to have been much delighted with the
Tower of Navarre, and to have gone over it five or six times
during his visit to Langres in 1547, admiring its powerful
construction. His solicitude for the frontier city bore good
fruit for when the Count of Fiirstenberg with a German army
Langres the Ancient 33
besieged Chaumont in 1523 he dared not attack Langres in
like manner, while again in 1552 Charles v, of Germany
himself, going with 100,000 men against Metz, Toul, and Ver-
dun, left Langres alone as did another German army under
the Baron Pollwiller in 1557, although the latter occupied for
some time the greater part of Bassigny. The massive Porte
des Moulins, still the principal entrance to the city, was not
erected until nearly a century after these passages of warfare,
under the reign of King Louis xiii.
Langres adhered to the Catholic party during the Relig-
ious Wars but, even so, conducted herself with much indepen-
dence as on one occasion in 1588 when the Duke of Guise
himself at the head of a Catholic army was refused admit-
tance into the walls because his motives were suspected. The
Peace of Vervins, in 1598, elicited public rejoicings in Lan-
gres and for the following sixteen years a sort of uneasy
peace was enjoyed until civil wars again began between pow-
erful political rivals whose intrigues centered about the
faction-torn court of Louis xiii. During the brief period of
tranquility, however, Langres received from the king or
rather, since he was still in his minority, from the regent, his
mother, Marie de Medici, certain added privileges for its
faithfulness to the crown. Among these was a curious fran-
chise given by letters patent to citizens of the town who proved
themselves particularly expert in the use of the bow, the
crossbow, and the arquebus. Once each year there were to
be raised upon the pinnacle of the cathedral three painted birds
to be used as targets. Any marksman who shot down one
of these birds with either an arrow or a bullet was exempted
during a whole year from guard duty on the ramparts. To
any man repeating the performance during three successive
•years exemption from all taxes was granted during the rest
34 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of his life and the exemption extended to his widow after his
death.
In the Thirty Years' War, Cardinal Richelieu made Lan-
gres the base of the French armies in eastern France, The
results of this struggle were auspicious for the city, the Ger-
man power in Lorraine being extinguished and that country
made a part of France, putting an end to the age-old inva-
sions of France from that quarter.
It must not be supposed that during all her centuries of
warfare Langres contributed nothing to the pursuits of peace.
A long line of martyrs, saints, and prelates, some of whom
attained to the highest places in the church and many of
whom contributed extensively to religious and speculative lit-
erature, have graced her career from the second century to
the present. Eminent artists, authors, statesmen, professional
men, and inventors have been among her children. The bish-
ops of Langres, of whom there had been no less than one hun-
dred and four in succession up to 1852, included St. Didier,
St. Bernard, the leader of the Second Crusade, and St.
Mammes. In secular life the city gave an even greater num-
ber of distinguished sons. Some of them have been : Barbier
d'Aucour, seventeenth-century author, who wrote a large part
of the dictionary of the Academie Frangais; Toussaint Ber-
chet, Protestant writer of the latter half of the sixteenth cen-
tury; the Tassels, father, son, and grandson, painters, who
between 1550 and 1667 executed many works of art of which
a number are to be found today in the cities of eastern France ;
Nicolas Delausne who about 1640 first used spherical globes
for the study of geography ; the artist Jean Dubuisson ; Pierre
Petitot and Foucou, the sculptors; Nicolas Ebaudy de Fres-
nes, political economist; Nicolas Jensen, who became one of
the earliest printers of Venice; Claude Laurent-Bournot,
Langres the Ancient 3^
printer and inventor of improvements in the printing art
under the Restoration and Edouard Gaulle, sculptor, whose
work appears in many churches and buildings of Paris.
But, among them all, the most famous was unquestiona-
bly Denis Diderot, born at Langres, the son of an obscure
cutler, in 17 13, and died at Paris in 1784, honored by the
whole intellectual world. This almost incredibly eloquent
conversationalist, brilliant thinker, and versatile and prolific
writer, conceived, with D'Alambert, the idea of that encyclo-
pedia which should be not merely a summing up of the exist-
ing facts of the world but a system of human knowledge.
Almost alone he carried this gigantic project to completion,
along with a number of lesser works, between the years 175 1
and 1772. Though revealing no scepticism regarding Chris-
tianity itself, no disrespect for government and no radical
political views which today would seem more than conserva-
tive, his work outraged the autocratic government of France
under which he lived and the bigoted dogmatism then pre-
vailing in the church because of the reasoned eloquence with
which it set forth ideas of religious tolerance and speculative
freedom, exalted scientific knowledge, and peaceful industry,
and declared the democratic doctrine that the chief concern of
a government ought to be the lot of the common people of the
nation. Although he lived to shame his enemies, these dis-
turbing doctrines of Diderot more than once brought him
persecution from both civil and religious authorities. But
they also furnished part of the mental fuel so plentifully sup-
plied by French thinkers of this epoch to eager minds on the
other side of the Atlantic, powerfully aiding to produce the
American Revolution which, in turn, by its example of suc-
cessful resistance to tyranny, was a chief encouragement to
the French Revolution itself.
36 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Although the walls of Langres were again modernized
in 1698 by Marshal Vauban, the great engineer of Louis
XIV, who revolutionized the art of fortification and gave to
France the most formidable system of frontier defenses she
ever had possessed, it was not until one hundred and fifteen
years later that the city was again subjected to the ordeal by
battle. Then came the magnificent, but losing, struggle of
Napoleon, at the head of the armies of Imperial France,
against the combined strength of Europe which was fighting,
as mankind always will fight, against the encroachments of
a conqueror, whatever his power or prestige or his excuse
for attempted tyranny over alien peoples. The part played
by Langres in this campaign, which was made by the genius
of Napoleon one of the most brilliant in all military history,
was not a major one but it demonstrated the importance of
the city and of the Marne Valley in the military geography
of eastern France.
When, following his disastrous defeat at Leipzig in Octo-
ber, 181 3, the Emperor of the French had retreated across
the Rhine, his enemies, firmly resolved to bring to an end the
prolonged struggle for the control of Europe, pursued him
promptly with enormously superior numbers. The emperor
did not attempt to meet them on the Rhine with his weary and
depleted forces but retired to positions well within the fron-
tier where he could defend Paris. Marshal Blucher, with a
Prussian army of 80,000 men crossed the Rhine in December
and advanced through Nancy toward the Marne at Chalons,
while the Prince of Schwarzenberg, violating the neutrality
of Switzerland and crossing the Rhine at Basle early in Jan-
uary, 1814, at the head of an army of 160,000 Austrians and
Russians, invaded France by way of the Pass of Bel fort and
the valley of the Saone.
Langres the Ancient 37
Having cleared the Vosges and the Jura Mountains and
gained the more open country beyond, Schwarzenberg turned
northwest with the object, first, of gaining contact with
Bliicher down the valley of the Marne in the vicinity of
Chaumont and, second, of pursuing his own march toward
Paris by way of the Seine. But barring his way to the accom-
plishment of either object was the plateau and fortress of
Langres. Napoleon, who with his main body was taking up
a central position between Chalons and Troyes in order to
present a single front to the divided armies of his foes, had
directed Marshal Mortier with the Old Guard upon Lan-
gres, under orders to hold the place while the main army was
forming. Schwarzenberg, however, having been thus far
unopposed, was advancing from Belfort by Vesoul with more
than his usual energy and a body of his cavalry under the
Count of Thurn arrived before the closed gates of Langres
on January 9.
The old Vauban defenses, unused for more than a cen-
tury, had largely gone to ruin and there were no troops to
defend them save a handful of National Guards, hastily
levied, and a few superannuated veterans, and government
employees. But under gallant officers these men determined
to present a bold front and if possible to hold Langres until
the arrival of Mortier who was rapidly approaching from
Reims. A detachment of Austrian cavalry which attempted
to rush the Porte des Moulins on the morning of the ninth
was driven back by the fire of the defenders. At twilight that
evening Colonel Thurn sent forward to the gates under a
flag of truce an aide-de-camp bearing a demand for the sur-
render of the place. The aide was followed at a little distance
by a detachment of Bavarian cavalry. As the emissary de-
sired to confer with the mayor the gates were opened to
38 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
admit him, but no sooner was the passageway clear than the
Bavarian cavalry, violating the flag of truce, dashed forward
to seize the gates. The National Guards, however, were too
quick for them ; a volley drove back the treacherous assailants
and the gates were closed.
On the morning of the tenth the main body of the Aus-
trian advance guard under General Hulst arrived before the
city from the east. But before they could dispose themselves
for an attack the head of column of Mortier's Old Guard, a
body of some of the finest veterans still remaining of the Im-
perial armies, made its appearance from the north after an
all-night forced march down the road from Chaumont. The
Old Guard was received with wild enthusiasm by the inhabi-
tants and, for the moment, Langres was saved.
But its situation was not, in fact, improved in any per-
manent way. Marshal Mortier's troops, though of the high-
est quality, were few in number compared with the hosts of
enemies advancing upon them. Napoleon had no reinforce-
ments which he could send and the levy in mass on a country
already nearly exhausted of men capable of bearing arms
bore scant fruit. Although during the next six days the
French outposts held back the enemy's advance detachments,
defeating them in numerous lively skirmishes, Schwarzen-
berg's great front of invasion continued steadily advancing
from the south and the northeast. On January 16 Marshal
Mortier learned that the enemy was in force at Bourbonne-
les-Bains and moving without pause toward Chaumont, di-
rectly on the French line of retreat to Bar-sur-Aube and
Troyes. The marshal had under his command about 10,000
men; the enemy's widely encircling front contained more
than 30,000. Fearing to be cut off from the main French
army, Mortier therefore reluctantly ordered the evacuation
Langres the Ancient 39
of Langres and fell back on Chaumont, his men steadily driv-
ing back the enemy's pursuing cavalry in brisk skirmishes at
Vesaignes and Marnay.
Next day Langres, powerless to resist, surrendered
through its civil authorities and became for the time being
the headquarters of Schwarzenberg and of the three allied
monarchs, Alexander of Russia, Francis 11 of Austria, and
Frederick William iii of Prussia, and the center of a motley
throng of their followers, Austrians, Hungarians, Bavarians,
Russians, and Cossacks, who thoroughly stripped the city
and its environs of every variety of subsistence. In 181 5,
after Waterloo, the city, defended only by its militia, was a
second time captured after a short but fierce resistance, by
an Austrian corps under the Count Colloredo and was occu-
pied until late in the following autumn.
In the years succeeding the Napoleonic wars the fortifica-
tions of Langres were again brought up to date and greatly
enlarged. Then it was that the citadel and the entrenched
camp, still in use today, were built directly south of the old
city wall, together with the two outlying forts of Peigney and
La Bonelle, the first on the hill of the ancient battle across
the Marne, the second among the rolling fields of the plateau
southwest of the city. Though made capable of sheltering
5o,ooo troops and feeding them for a considerable period from
its immense magazines, the place could be defended by a
much smaller number as, in fact, it was during the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870-71.
In that conflict, so brief but so disastrous for France,
Langres found itself threatened by the advancing armies of
the hereditary enemy very soon after the first reverses to the
French arms near the frontier. Fortunately, in a time when
so many proved inefficient, an officer of energy and resolu-
40 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
tion was found in command at Langres — General Arbellot.
About a nucleus composed of the 2,400 troops, artillery and
infantry, which formed the garrison, he gathered a motley
array of 12,500 recruits mobilized from the neighboring de-
partments. National Guards, and volunteer citizens, practi-
cally none of whom possessed any training or discipline. These
men were hurriedly fitted out with such ill-assorted weapons
and equipment as could be furnished from the arsenal of
the fortress, whose upkeep had been sadly neglected.
The spirits of these hasty levies were reduced to the low-
est possible ebb by the constantly arriving news of appalling
reverses which were befalling the French armies everywhere.
But, nevertheless, by prodigious efforts General Arbellot re-
duced them to some sort of order, completed a series of tem-
porary earthwork forts on the hills far enough distant to hold
the enemy beyond artillery range of the city and occupied with
strong detachments a circle of villages still farther distant.
Thus his forces stood when early in October the Fourteenth
German Corps arrived in the Department of the Haute-Marne
from the direction of Strassburg, seized Chaumont, and took
up a line of observation just beyond the front held by Gen-
eral Arbellot, eventually surrounding and practically isolating
Langres, although at a great distance from the city.
The chief duty of the invaders in this region was to guard
the communications between the frontiers of Germany and
their armies which were besieging Paris. Over these communi-
cations General Arbellot from his central position at Langres,
within striking distance of most of the railways and highways
of the southern Haute-Marne, was able to hold a constant
threat. Many of his untrained troops proved capable raiders
and throughout the autumn and winter strong detachments
were going out constantly in every direction attacking, with
Langres the Ancient 41
increasing skill and boldness, German outposts and garrisoned
villages, destroying convoys, and wrecking railroad trains.
Although from time to time the Germans were largely rein-
forced, they were never able to threaten Langres seriously and
on only a few occasions did any of their troops come within
range of the guns of the citadel or even of the encircling
forts.
On one of these occasions on December 16, 1870, a French
column of 2,000 men with four guns, under command of
Major Kock, was making a reconnaissance in force on the
highroad to Dijon when it was surprised at Longeau, 10 kilo-
meters south of Langres, by 6,500 Germans with 15 cannon
under General von Goltz. All their higher officers, including
Major Kock, being killed in the beginning of the action, the
French, although they fought bravely, were badly defeated
and retreated on Langres. The enemy pursued them to the
plateau above Bourg where the fire from Fort de la Marnotte
and Fort de la Bonelle halted the pursuit.
At another time, still earlier in the operations, strong
German columns advancing from the northeast and the
northwest undertook on November 15 to force their way
close to Langres for the purpose of discovering where battery
positions could be located for the bombardment of the cita-
del. The column from the northwest did not get very close,
but the one from the northeast, after a combat with a com-
pany of recruits at Bannes, forced its way into the village of
Peigney whence a detachment tried to reach the Marne through
the ravine north of that village. The fire from Fort de Peigney
soon dislodged the Germans who had entered that place while
those in the ravine were driven back by the shells from a
French battery at the Langres-Marne railroad station and
another on the crest of the Fourches Hill, a small eminence
42 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
in the valley a kilometer northwest of the city walls. Today
on the summit of Les Fourches, which is itself an artificial
mound bearing near its summit the huge stones of a prehis-
toric cromlech, stands a little circular shrine with domed roof
sheltering a statue of the Virgin, which looks down upon the
Chaumont road and commemorates the gratitude of the peo-
ple of Langres that in the war of 1870 from this spot the
Germans were brought to a halt in their nearest approach to
the city.
Following the surrender of Paris, the armistice which
terminated hostilities was signed on January 28, 1871, and
immediately thereafter the French commander at Langres and
the German commander at Chaumont entered into a conven-
tion by which the benefits of the armistice were extended to
Langres and the troops holding it. Thus the faithful defend-
ers achieved for Langres a unique distinction among the
French fortresses for it never came into possession of the
Germans either before or after the armistice, although even
Belfort fell into their hands in February, 1871, despite the
gallant defense of Colonel Denfert-Rochereau.
In the years which intervened between the Franco-Prus-
sian war and the World War of 19 14, a circle of new con-
crete and steel turret forts was built around Langres at a
distance of 15 to 18 kilometers. The bitter experiences of
such fortresses as Liege, Namur, and Antwerp proved con-
clusively that such structures cannot stand against modern
artillery, but those of Langres were never thus tested. A
great French military center during the first part of the war,
the city derived its greatest importance in the final months
of the conflict from the establishment there of the American
Army Schools, and from the autumn of 19 17 until the spring
of 1919 most of the forts around the place as well as the cita-
Langres the Ancient 43
del and the city itself were thronged with officers and soldiers
in olive drab, most of them connected in one way or another
with some of these institutions of military education.
The Army Schools were a necessary outgrowth of the
highly technical nature of modern warfare, which obliges not
only many officers, but also great numbers of enlisted men,
to acquire close familiarity with the duties and the material
of their respective branches of the service. Very soon after ar-
riving in France, in the summer of 1917, General Pershing,
commanding the American Expeditionary Forces, took
steps to establish proper centers of instruction for the troops
of his command as they should arrive from America. The
work was started with the assistance of a number of experi-
enced officers and men of the French and British services who
were later either replaced or supplemented by Americans,
after the latter had become proficient.
The general instruction system embraced three grades of
schools; those of the division, the corps, and the army. Each
division within its own training area had a school and train-
ing center for the instruction of its own personnel ; each corps
had an instruction center for the training of replacements,
officers and men, and all grades of commanders for four
combat divisions. The army itself maintained a group of
schools for the preparation of instructors for the corps and
division schools and for the instruction of staff officers, can-
didates for commissions, and officers and men of the various
special branches of army troops.
It was at Langres that there centered the group of Army
Schools which filled the city with Americans and gave to their
period of occupation an importance which will cause it to be
recorded in the history of the city as an episode as signifi-
cant as any in its long and checkered career. Most of the
44 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
schools began functioning in December, 19 17, or soon there-
after, and continued to graduate classes of increasing size
until several months after the armistice, sending into the
fighting army a large proportion of the rapidly but effectively
trained men v^ho as officers or noncommissioned officers led
American troops in their career of uninterrupted victory.
During their existence of approximately a year and a half,
the Langres schools were attended by a grand total of more
than 45,000 officers and soldiers — 95,000 including the at-
tendants at the Gas School — who, in addition to the troops
stationed around the city and more or less connected with the
schools, gave to the place the appearance of an American
military camp, the civilian population of less than 9,500 being
quite submerged in the flood of olive drab. Nevertheless, it
was the quaint, closely-packed buildings of the old town itself
which always made the picturesque background to the crowds
of stalwart young soldiers from the New World thronging
the streets and to the processions of automobiles and trucks,
varying from the big, olive-drab limousines of general officers
to busy little Y. M. C. A. Fords and lumbering "quad"
trucks, bizarre with the hues of cubist camouflage, which
often gave to the Rue Diderot the aspect of a business thor-
oughfare in an American city.
Along the Rue Diderot, in fact, were scattered most of
the "cinema" theaters, cafes, and shops which attracted the
patronage of doughboys at leisure. Few Americans who were
stationed in Langres for any length of time can have for-
gotten the Hotel de 1' Europe, below the College, whose long,
narrow dining-room, gas lighted and paneled with wood, was
the nightly gathering place of a throng of hungry officers and
enlisted men who possessed the price, eager for a meal which
would vary the monotony of the mess hall. At that hour the
Langres the Ancient 45
tiny office was always occupied by a post-office line of wait-
ing guests, gazing hungrily into the smoke-blue atmosphere
of the dining-room and demanding from the frenzied wait-
resses, une place, deux places, or six places, as the case might be.
But the little square surrounding the statue of Diderot
was the center most frequented. Perhaps few who looked at
the figure of the great encyclopedist, gazing benevolently
down the street from his tall pedestal and quite dominating
the surrounding small shops and cafes, were conscious that
this statue was the work of the same sculptor, Frederic Bar-
tholdi, who created the Statue of Liberty which stands in
New York Harbor, the gift of the French Republic to the
United States.
Farther afield among the obscure streets are a number of
interesting places never seen, probably, by numbers of Amer-
icans owing either to lack of time or inclination, but familiar
to many others. Undoubtedly the chief of these, as it is the
most conspicuous building of the city, is the Cathedral of
St. Mammes, dedicated to the third-century martyr who was
born in Caesarea of Cappadocia and who became the first
Bishop of Langres and later the patron saint of the city.
This building, begun in the twelfth century, represents in its
interior the varjnng but happily combined forms of the archi-
tecture of the Transition period. Its fagade and tall twin
towers are of the eighteenth century and though conspicuous
are not considered of much architectural excellence. But they
rise above a church whose interior, though dark, is very
impressive with its six bays and two side aisles divided by
massive square piers and applied columns which support an
upper gallery, or triforium, whose smaller columns are in the
Romanesque style. The red stone of the columns themselves
contrast becomingly with their white Gallo-Roman capitals
46 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and with the pink shade of the walls. The perspectives with-
in the cathedral are impressive, even though the nave has a
height of only 75 feet and there are many objects of artistic
interest to be found in the church and its chapels. Such
are the beautiful fourteenth-century alabaster figures of Notre
Dame la Blanche, "the White Lady;" the font made in 1549,
the sixteenth-century tapestries in the transept chapels de-
picting the life and martyrdom of St. Mammes, the paint-
ings attributed to Rubens and Correggio in the Chapel of
Relics, a Renaissance bas-relief showing, among other scenes,
a churchly procession walking toward the walled city of Lang-
res, and a number of statues of church dignitaries of later
periods.
Not far from the Porte des Moulins, St. Martin's Church,
whose tall tower is almost as conspicuous above the city as
are those of the cathedral, although it contains much less of
interest than does the latter, has a " Crucifixion " by Franqois
Gentil which is of unusual merit. The Museum, housed in
a side street in the old Church of St. Didier, holds many
pieces of Gallo-Roman statuary and sculpture excavated at
different times in and around Langres as well as specimens
of ancient coins and metal-work, particularly Gallic and Gallo-
Roman, and a small, but valuable collection of paintings,
some of them by such distinguished artists as Luminals, Tas-
sel, Teniers, Vanloo, and Corot.
There are numerous ancient houses in Langres having
quaint and beautiful stone- and woodwork outside and much
of interest within, the northern part of the city on the streets
leading to the ramparts being particularly rich in such sou-
venirs of the past. Notable among them is the Renaissance
house near the Museum which is now used as a residence
by the Bishop of Langres. In an ancient dwelling on a side
Langres the Ancient 47
street north of the cathedral one may pass through an incon-
spicuous doorway and a long, dark passage which comes
eventually to a courtyard in which stands a venerable well
with a balustraded stone wall behind it. Both the wall and
the massive well curb are rich with carving, weathered faint
by the passing centuries, for both are said to be relics of the
Gallo-Roman epoch. This well is still in use today and as
it was utilized to some extent by American troops in the city
it may well be that against that same curb have leaned Roman
soldiers wearing the cuirass of the legions and soldiers in
the flannel shirts and woolen breeches of the United States
service.
In many such reflections one may indulge in this city, old
when Christ was upon earth and still virile today although
as many centuries have passed over it as years over some
thriving cities of America. May it be that the presence with-
in her borders of the soldiers from overseas has inaugurated
for Langres a period of prosperity and peace transcending
any that she has enjoyed in her long and often tempestuous
past.
CHAPTER IV
PAST BLUE BASSIGNY HILLS
THERE is a pleasant patchwork carpet of many-tinted
fields rolling away toward the river from the steep
slopes below the city as one leaves Langres through the Fau-
bourg des Franchises by the road that curves around the foot
of the battlements. Beneath great trees that mingle their
branches over it the highway runs, while above the treetops
on the left rise the great gray walls of the Tower Piquante,
the Tower Longe-Porte, and the Tower St. Jean, with the
massive masonry of the ancient curtains between them. The
road," soon joining the National highway, passes the peak of
Les Fourches, the dome of its shrine just visible above the
trees surrounding it, and comes directly to Langres-Marne,
the suburb containing the railroad yards and the chief sta-
tion of Langres, connected with the city by a rack-and-pinion
railway to the top of the plateau. At the lower end of the
yards the slender thread of the Marne is spanned by a stone
bridge beneath which, in the marshy ground below, cows
graze peacefully among clusters of flowering bushes, indif-
ferent to the puffing locomotives a few yards away. The
National Road stretches on through the hamlet of Pont-de-
Marne and thence northeast toward Montigny-le-Roi. But
a branch road goes north up the well-tilled hillside until across
the top of the plateau one sees the clustering trees beneath
which the gardens and cottages of Champigny drowse through
the summer days.
Around Champigny breathe traditions almost as venerable
as those of Langres. Across the breezy upland fields, belong-
ing to the commune, four Roman roads intersect and the
48
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 49
quantities of marble sculpture, pottery, and Roman coins which
have been unearthed there are a measure of the density of
Roman population which once dwelt in the vicinity and which
was followed by the people of the Gallo-Roman period, in
every way less cultured than their predecessors as attested
by the massive, but comparatively crude, stone sarcophagi in
which they buried their dead, numbers of which have been
discovered near Champigny. In the incessant wars of the
seventeenth century, Champigny like most of the villages of
northeastern France, suffered keenly and it was burnt to the
ground in 1639 by Croats in the employ of Charles iv, Duke
of Lorraine. His pillaging troops went back to Germany that
autumn "with more cattle than soldiers and purses full," both
cattle and money, of course, having been stolen from the
inhabitants of invaded France. The people of Champigny,
indeed, were reduced to such straits during these years that
a historian of the Haute-Marne, M. Carnandet, declares that
they were forced "to yoke themselves to their own ploughs,
having neither cattle nor horses to work."
The peaceful village of today gives little evidence of such
periods of anguish and its square church tower surmounting
a low cruciform church looks out above the dense evergreens
which surround it across as placid a countryside as can be
met with anywhere. Beneath the dense shade of these ever-
greens at the side of the church one will find on warm summer
afternoons a group of the village women seated comfortably
with their sewing and mending, watching with contented
curiosity the occasional wagon or automobile which disturbs
the quiet of the deserted street. Cottages with well-trimmed
vines hanging over doors and windows define this street until
it runs out again into the country road which, after crossing
a deep ravine, wanders on back to the valley of the Marne
50 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and shortly into the next village on the right bank, Jorquenay.
The length of Jorquenay's main street lies strung like a
necklace along a curving bend of the canal, in whose still,
blue bosom the gray old houses and the hillside behind, green
and purple with waving alfalfa, and the church halfway up
the slope, are reflected as in a mirror. The church, of course,
has its history, the choir of the structure dating from the
thirteenth century while within the quiet interior is an archaic
statue of the Virgin and Child which was wrought in the same
epoch.
Humes, the next village down river, is reached by cross-
ing the Marne and the canal at Jorquenay, the country road
re-entering the Langres-Chaumont National highway before
the latter comes into the long main street of the village.
Humes was a busy place in 191 8, for not only was it a billet
and barracks town for American troops of the Seventh Train-
ing Area and the seat of Camp Hospital 7, but it lay beside
the wide, well-paved road between American General Head-
quarters at Chaumont and the Army Schools at Langres, a
road whose wayside trees were usually white with the dust
thrown up by passing convoys of trucks or hurrying auto-
mobiles. To the parched throat of many a doughboy and
truck driver the brasserie de Humes, conspicuously located
beside the street, contributed an innocent, but soothing, brown
liquid whose flavor improved materially some months after
the armistice but which, at all times, gave the village among
the Americans in the vicinity of Langres a distinction other-
wise unwarranted by its size.
Humes is, in fact, much smaller than the next village of
any consequence northward along the road to Chaumont, this
being Rolampont, the largest place lying between the two
cities of the upper Haute-Marne. Rolampont lies on both
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 51
banks of the Marne, whose stream is steadily growing larger
from the addition of rivulets coming down from the wood-
lands back among the hills. The very name of Rolampont
has in it the breath of romance, for tradition says that it was
originally " Roland Pont " or Roland's Bridge, although no
other fragment of legend connects the locality with Char-
lemagne's redoubtable paladin. The bridge now spanning the
river is one of those solid, graceful stone structures so usual
in France, whose well-proportioned arches frame charming
vistas of rounded trees bending above the river's edge and
long red tile roofs reflected in the rippled waters.
A road running off northeast comes, just beyond the edge
of that part of the village which lies east of the river, to
broad fields of grain and alfalfa which sweep up and away
in velvety slopes to the high, rounded summit of a great hill
fringed with forest trees between whose branches can be
caught glimpses of the grim walls of Fort de St. Menge, one
of the far outlying defenses of the Langres enceinte. In
centuries long past a Roman fort crowned this hill, guarding
the roads from Langres to Nasium, near Bar-le-Duc. Legend
says that in Roman times more than one battle was fought
in this vicinity between the soldiers of the empire and the
barbarians from beyond the Rhine, and the peasants of the
neighborhood cherish a superstition that if one walks abroad
on some nights in these upland fields about the hill of Fort
de St. Menge he will see at certain hours in the light of the
moon shadowy warriors on horseback, headless but clad all
in armor and with horses barbed and richly caparisoned.
Rolampont itself seems to have been for ages the site of
a bridge and a point of some importance on the medieval
highways. The little knoll on the west side of the river now
occupied by the church was formerly the site of a chateau
52 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
fort now totally vanished. It was doubtless in this building
that King Charles ix had his lodging when, in the seven-
teenth century, he sojourned at Rolampont and left on record
his admiration for the place in the phrase, "the beautiful vil-
lage." King Stanislaus i of Poland likewise once visited
there, resting at the presbytery, while the erudite Jesuit,
Delecey de Changey, author of the Lanterne Encyclopedique,
retired to the sylvan quiet of Rolampont for the pursuit of
his literary labors.
In February, 191 8, the village was the headquarters of
the Forty-second American Division, the " Rainbow," and
the billeting place of the One hundred and Sixty-eighth In-
fantry regiment of that division. Probably in the chill, foggy
days of winter it did not seem very attractive to the Iowa
boys, but in summer it certainly still justifies King Charles'
phrase, for it is a pretty spot between the wooded hills on
either hand with the Marne whispering along the edges of the
garden walls and beneath the shade of bordering orchards.
The church, hidden deep among old trees, is of no great
interest historically despite its massive Romanesque interior
where six huge square columns bear up the groined roof of
nave and transept.
Close beside the church stands the village school, a large
stone building but not, apparently, any too large for the
accommodation of the many youngsters, both boys and girls,
who swarm out of it at the end of the day's session. In
Rolampont no more than in most other rural communities
is there any evidence of the "race suicide" in France of
which so much has been written. In such communities the
children seem as numerous as in other countries and cer-
tainly very attractive children they are; healthy, active, very
often good looking and nearly always neatly dressed, while
i«-
.St-
» ii«i i u'B iili l t WW i l
-- :.-^4
The very name of Rolampont has in it the breath of romance
[Page 51]
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 53
their uniform politeness and good breeding are something to
make other nations envious. It is easy to beHeve that the
American soldiers who, during the war and for six months
thereafter, thronged Rolampont and scores of other villages
of its type in northeastern France, found life in these out-of-
the-way places rendered more endurable by the presence of
the children and that many a doughboy when he departed on
his long trail toward the sunset, left behind him small friends,
the thought of whom will sweeten recollections of France
through all future years.
Undoubtedly to the children themselves the presence of
these stalwart Americans was, in general, a broadening expe-
rience. It is altogether probable that before the war an Amer-
ican had never been seen in Rolampont, for this section of
France was far removed from the beaten paths of tourists.
To be sure, everywhere in France the younger generation
learned in school something of the former French colonies in
America and a good deal about the American Revolution.
They knew and revered the names of their fellow-countryman,
Lafayette, of Benjamin Franklin and particularly that of
George Washington, and when they visited Paris, as everyone
in France does, sooner or later, they found there streets named
for these men, and statues of them and other Americans in
the public places and probably took an especially lively interest
in the fine equestrian statue of Washington, in the central
court of the Palace of the Louvre, which was presented to
France by the school children of America.
Yet such knowledge, though impressive, still left America
and Americans rather vague and unreal. And then suddenly
there appeared among them, almost overnight, hundreds,
thousands, a perfect deluge of Americans, bringing the very
substance of the shadowy New World into the midst of the
54 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
drowsy corners of olden France. Young, robust, bubbling
over with good spirits, full of startling new ways of doing
things, knocking together big, ugly frame barracks and stables
and shops and " Y" huts in the most unexpected places, push-
ing themselves with insatiable inquisitiveness into every nook
and corner, often irreverent of all the ancient things about
them, but always frankly curious concerning them, imme-
diately making friends or enemies of everybody in the country-
side, spending money like princes, drinking all the liquor,
mild or powerful, accumulated in the neighborhood and fill-
ing village streets and country roads with the clatter and dust
of trucks and buzzing motorcycles and the songs and pro-
fanity and laughter and banter of the land that lay the other
side of Miss Liberty, they fairly submerged the country in
olive drab and took possession of it.
Some of the French youngsters, no doubt, chumming with
these fascinating new arrivals, as they very promptly did, on
the streets and in the shops and dooryards and simple village
homes, fell in with the bad specimens of young American
manhood who, fortunately, were in a decided minority among
our troops, and learned more evil than good of America. But
the most of them, we may believe, were broadened and bet-
tered by that association and as they grow older will be able
to recall those noisy, big-hearted visitors of a few months
among them with the affection and something of the under-
standing which are the bed-rock basis of lasting international
sympathy and friendliness. An evidence of this sentiment
is the almost reverential care with which the children, as well
as the older people, of Rolampont and every other American
billet village along the Marne, guard the weather-beaten
wooden signs left by the Americans on house doors and street
corners; signs whose fading stenciled legends announce.
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 55
"Town Major," "Headquarters Infantry," "Do not
drink this water. For washing only," etc. The sentiment
which will preserve such poor relics is written on the hearts
entertaining it so deeply that it will long outlive the relics
themselves.
The sharply eroded valley of the Marne presents many
changing aspects of quiet beauty as one follows the shady
road on past Vesaignes and Marnay, the latter with a pure
Gothic church, to the railway junction of Foulain, whence a
branch line of the Chemin de Per de I'Est winds oft" up the
valley of the Traire River to Nogent-en-Bassigny, a manu-
facturing town noted for its cutlery. It will also be remem-
bered by a host of Americans as the seat of the Advance
Section, Services of Supply, until October, 1918, and after
that as the headquarters of the Fifth Army Corps, under
Major General Charles P. Summerall.
The narrow gauge branch line from Foulain is hidden
almost like a forest trail in the narrow valley of the small
watercourse and its first station, Poulangy, is unseen until
one is almost upon it. It is itself the site of several factories
but they have not spoiled the rustic appearance of its clamber-
ing streets, nor detracted from the freshness of the steep
hillside behind it which, in August, is rich with tiny sweet
wild strawberries growing sheltered from the sun beneath a
profusion of leaves. There formerly existed at Poulangy an
abbey for women established by the Abbess Ste. Salaberge
before the year 688 and successively presided over in the early
part of the twelfth century by the Abbesses Ste. Adeline and
Ste. Asceline, the nearest relatives of St. Bernard. Some quaint
stories are preserved concerning the administration of justice in
Poulangy in earlier days. It is related, for instance, that on one
occasion -x local official caused a sow to be legally executed
5
56 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
for having killed an infant. At another time when a man
whose life was valued by the villagers had, nevertheless, been
condemned to death for some crime, real or alleged, the dif-
ficulty was solved very simply by executing him with all legal
solemnity — in effigy.
Beyond Foulain a long bend of the Marne and the ever-
accompanying canal beside it embraces the scattered dwellings
of Luzy and alike the more compact group of Verbiesles.
From the broad Marne bridges leading over to them, the two
villages show little more than their red roofs and the spires
of their churches above the billowed green of roadside trees
and orchards. On the west side of the river are great hill-
sides densely clothed with the forests of the Bois Millet and
the Bois de la Vendue which were the scene, in 1918, of some
of the extensive work of the American Forestry Department
Engineers, whose cozy home " lumbering camp " was at Luzy,
a very different center of operations from the log shacks
of the Wisconsin or the Oregon woods. These hillsides rise
almost sheer from the river, forming the eastern wall of the
narrow watershed between the valleys of the Marne and the
Suize, of which the latter, rising southwest of Langres, nearly
parallels the Marne at a distance of a few kilometers all the
way to Chaumont.
The village church of Luzy is a charming example of
thirteenth-century architecture with a Romanesque altar. It
was for a long time in olden days a place of pilgrimage
because it contains the relics of St. Evrard, the patron of
the village. He was a hermit of the ninth century whose
place of solitude was the long-since vanished Priory of Moi-
ran, in the old forest adjacent to Luzy. The chateau of
Luzy which, except for traces of the deep moats, disappeared
centuries ago as completely as St. Evrard's retreat, was built
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 57
by a Bishop of Langres and held under him at one time in
the fourteenth century by one Charles d'Escars, Baron of
Luzy. It must have been a noble structure in its day for
its walls were flanked by nine towers.
The ancient, but unimportant, annals of Verbiesles also
run back for nearly a thousand years but its chief claim to
a place in the history of France is the fact that within its
communal precincts lie the chateau and park of Val-des-
Ecoliers. That claim applies as well to American history
for it did not arise until the early summer of 19 18, when the
Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces,
General John J. Pershing, took this lovely and storied estate,
four kilometers southeast of Chaumont, as his place of resi-
dence, continuing to occupy it for more than a year, until the
American General Headquarters at Chaumont was closed in
July, 1919.
If one first approaches the Chateau du Val-des-Ecoliers
from the Langres-Chaumont highroad it is disclosed to him
as he swings around a high shoulder of hill, the white walls
and mansard roof of the chateau gleaming between the grace-
ful trees which dot the broad park all around it. In this
portion of its course the valley of the Marne has spread to
a greater amplitude. Beyond the chateau, the river and the
blue canal, their waters peeping here and there between the
marching rows of poplars, clasp the emerald lawns of the
park, while still beyond its acres stretch the sunlit meadows,
dotted in midsummer with fragrant cocks of hay which men
and girls with broad-tined forks, like figures out of a Millet
painting, are pitching up into the racks of great two-wheeled
carts. Off over the meadows, sheer above the poplar trees
skirting the river and the canal, stand the semicircular cliffs
of the Cote Bault which rise above Chamarandes and beyond
58 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
them, wind-swept uplands of wheat and alfalfa interspersed
with stretches of woods, with the low-spreading barracks of
Hanlin Field, the American Gas Defense School, against the
horizon to the northeast and the roofs and spires of Chau-
mont rising out of billows of treetops to the north. It is
a scene of rustic loveliness and peace whose equal is seldom
to be seen in any land.
As one descends by winding driveways into the cool
shadows of the park, he is inclined to think less of soldiers
and the clamor of war than of the sober monks who first
inhabited this quiet spot and he half expects to see, pacing
beneath the trees, some of the black-gowned figures who,
long ago, made this a place of repute throughout France. For
this religious house was founded in 121 1 under the discipline
of the Order of St. Augustine, as a retreat for study and a
foundation of learning by four doctors of the University
of Paris. In the course of time it became famous by reason
of the treasures of art and science which were gradually
accumulated within its handsome buildings. Several of its
abbots were men of scholarly distinction in their day and the
house rested in 1637 under the control of the brotherhood
of the Church of St. Genevieve of Paris.
But the religious orders have been gone from the Val-
des-Ecoliers for many decades past and although an ancient
round stone tower, completely cloaked in glistening ivy,
stands near one end of the chateau as a reminder of the
former monastic buildings, the chateau itself is a much more
modern structure. It was designed by Jean-Baptiste Bouchar-
don, the distinguished architect and sculptor of Chaumont
who did much to beautify the buildings of that city during
the latter half of the seventeenth century. The chateau, both
within and without, is a fine example of the dignified and
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 59
spacious architecture of the period of Louis xiv and among
its elegant furnishings are many priceless souvenirs of the
ancient days of the Val-des-Ecoliers.
It was to this restful and homelike retreat, whose very
atmosphere seems to have acquired through the centuries a
quality of calm in which petty and transitory things are
reduced to their true proportions, leaving the mind strength-
ened for the solution of greater problems, that the American
Commander-in-Chief was wont to come from the busy Gen-
eral Headquarters' offices in Damremont Barracks, or from
still more strenuous days spent near the front of his fighting
divisions in the Marne, or the Vesle sectors, the St. Mihiel
Salient, or among the shell-torn hills of the Meuse-Argonne.
In the summer or autumn of 19 18, if one passed in the twi-
light on the highroad leading down from Chaumont an olive-
drab limousine speeding southward, with a red oblong bearing
four white stars on the windshield and the tall, rigid figure
of a man sitting bolt upright in its rear seat, one could hope
that the " C-in-C " was going to have, at last, a good night's
rest at the Chateau du Val-des-Ecoliers. But that was by
no means certain for often there were high officers of the
Allied armies, American, French, or British, gathered for
lengthy conferences at the chateau. Or, again, the American
chieftain might be leaving in the small hours of the morning
for a drive of 60 or 70 miles to some point close behind the
battle front, or a still longer drive to General Petain's head-
quarters at Provins or those of Marshal Foch at Senlis.
After the armistice, when the distinguished personages of
the Allied countries, military, political, and diplomatic, found
time for making the social acquaintance with one another
which had been denied them in the feverishly active days
of the war, General Pershing's residence frequently became
6o The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the scene of house parties among whose members were men
famous the world over. At different times there were enter-
tained there President and Mrs. Wilson, President and Ma-
dame Poincare, King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium,-
Premier Clemenceau, Marshal Foch, Marshal Haig, the
Prince of Wales, Mr. Baker, American Secretary of War,
and Marshal Petain. In short, during the eventful year in
which it was occupied by General Pershing, the Chateau du
Val-des-Ecoliers earned for itself a place in our history which
will doubtless cause it to be known in future beside the old
farmhouse overlooking the Schuylkill River which was Wash-
ington's headquarters at Valley Forge and the little Leister
House on the Taneytown Road whence General Meade di-
rected the Army of the Potomac in the battle of Gettysburg.
Excepting for the double row of trees bordering the broad
highway itself, the road to Chaumont, after climbing up from
the river in the Val-des-Ecoliers, follows the crest of a plateau
which is open to the sun and wind. To its left lies the nar-
row valley of the Suize, intimately charming with its little
fields and meadows bounded on one side by the wooded hills
and on the other by the circuitous course of the small stream,
now gliding furtively between beds of water grass and reeds
and rows of bushy basket poplars and again tumbling gaily
over a small dam as it pursues its way to its union with the
Marne just north of Chaumont. To its right lies the broader
valley of the Marne itself, with the red roofs of Chamarandes
and Choignes glistening between the trees and here and there
a factory chimney rising above them.
Skirting the widespread brick barracks of the Quartier
d'Artillerie, turned over to the Americans and occupied dur-
ing the war by Roosevelt Base Hospital 15, the country road
begins to assume the character of a street as it passes the
,,^^^*xx^;^-
^',j„ L,ii-_-054^iy' '
Damremont Barracks, Chaumont, American General
Headquarters
[Paffe 59]
.>iK.-'l'%'^,
Chamii de Mars and the Chateau Gloriette, Chaumont
[Page 90]
Past Blue Bassigny Hills 6 1
Octroi (town tollhouse) and the outlying cafes and houses
of the Faubourg des Langres and then, swinging into the
Avenue de la Republique, crosses the street-wide bridge over
the railroad tracks, with the leafy promenades of the Boule-
vard Thiers reaching away on either hand, and finds itself
at last in Chaumont by way of the Rue de Chamarandes
which leads directly, past the City Market and sundry shops
and side streets, into the angular center of the city, scene
of weekly markets and annual fairs, of public gatherings,
and of historic ceremonies as well today as for almost count-
less generations past, the Place de I'Hotel de Ville.
CHAPTER V
CHAUMONT-EN-BASSIGNY
THE etymologists disagree concerning the origin of the
name, Chaumont, and in disagreeing they have arrived,
as occurs frequently with both etymologists and doctors, at
directly opposite conclusions. One group declares that it is
derived from two Celtic words : chad, meaning wood and mon,
meaning mountain ; hence, wooded mountain. The other group
avows that it is a corruption of the Latin, calvus mons, mean-
ing bald mountain. One can take his choice but, at all events,
Chaumont is not bald today for, excepting in the heart of
the business streets, it is a riot of shady boulevards and parks
and private gardens, from the scattered cottages of the south-
ern suburbs right up to the bluff hill crest of Chaumont le
Bois, 3 kilometers farther north where formerly old Fort
Lambert thrust its frowning bastions out over the placid
Marne, on the last promontory of the watershed between
that river and the Suize.
Measured by Langres, Chaumont is a modern town for
its recorded history dates only from the year 940, although
it was mentioned once in earlier chronicles as the scene of
the martyrdom of the Christian virgins, Aragone and Oli-
varia, who were murdered by Attila's Huns about the year
450. Both on the hill and in the adjacent valleys have been
found the remains of Roman baths and Gallo-Roman tombs,
household utensils, etc., some of which are preserved in the
Museum of Chaumont. But the present town is entirely of
feudal origin, having grown up around the chateau of the
Counts of Champagne which stood on the great hill project-
62
Chaumont-en-Bassigny 63
ing like the prow of a ship from the western edge of the city
into the valley of the Suize.
The territory upon which Chaumont stands belonged orig-
inally to the Counts of Bassigny and of Bologne. One of
them, Geoffroy, was created the first Count of Champagne
by Hugh Capet when that founder of the Capetian dynasty,
in order to secure the greatest possible number of partisans,
gave to his chief vassals as hereditary possessions the ter-
ritories which they were guarding for the crown. This
Geoffroy i of Champagne built the first massive parts of the
chateau, which was greatly enlarged in later years and which
came to be known as the Chateau Haute feuille. It was not
until the twelfth century that Chaumont itself began to as-
sume any importance, after the people of the town in 1190
had revolted and extracted from their count, Henry 11, a
charter granting them certain privileges. A few years later
another count, Thibaut iv, after having followed the good
King Louis ix (St. Louis), on the Sixth Crusade, himself
revolted and became the leader of a league against the royal
authority. After a time he surrendered to the king and his
late allies, in revenge, ravaged his territories and would have
taken and pillaged Chaumont had a royal army not come to
its rescue.
Although it escaped at that time, Chaumont in later years
suffered frequently from the ravages both of armed foes
and of the terrible plagues which often swept Europe in the
Middle Ages. It was captured and sacked several times dur-
ing those long decades of unspeakable wretchedness for
France, the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)- The revolt-
ing peasants of the "Jacquerie" took it in 1358 while
engaged in their hopeless struggle against the cruel and
oppressive nobility. Again about 1440 bands of brigands
64 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
called ecorchciirs (flayers) roamed at will over France and
Belgium, killing cattle and stripping the clothes from their
human victims. Some of them took Chaumont and for some
time used it as a base of operations from which marauding
expeditions went forth into the surrounding country, com-
mitting frightful excesses, strewing the roads with corpses
and causing the villages to be abandoned and the farms to
remain uncultivated until a famine resulted, followed by a
pestilence which forced the outlaws to abandon the town.
Another plague decimated the place in 1500, during the Reli-
gious Wars. Chaumont was a center of the Guises, leaders
of the Catholic party, and it was attacked in 1523 by a Ger-
man army of 12,000 men under the Count of Fiirstenberg.
He was, however, eventually driven from the siege and pur-
sued across the Meuse by the army of the Count of Guise.
This was but one incident of the Religious Wars, whose
devastations caused the people extreme misery. In Chau-
mont their unhappy condition was aggravated in 1564 by the
extravagant debts incurred by the city for the purpose of
giving a magnificent reception to King Charles ix. The
monarch visited Chaumont for some days and during his
stay the streets were lavishly decorated, mystery plays were
performed on stages in all the streets, banquets were
given, and rich presents bestowed upon the king and his
attendants.
In the midst of the Thirty Years' War the plague once
more broke out in the villages around Chaumont. In vain
were the city gates closed and the people forbidden under
pain of death to venture forth; the plague entered and
destroyed 2,300 victims during the ensuing nine months. The
following years of the Thirty Years' War found Chaumont
often crowded with French troops or those of her allies and
Chaumont-en-Bassigny 65
from some of these rough soldiers of fortune, the people
suffered almost as much as from the enemy.
After the Peace of the Pyrenees had closed the Thirty
Years' War in 1659, Chaumont at last settled into a tran-
quility which endured almost unbroken by noteworthy events,
until the Revolution of 1789. Yet even during the preced-
ing centuries, which constituted in every European nation a
cycle of conflict and confusion while the peoples who were
almost savages at the time of the dissolution of the Roman
Empire were gradually building new foundations of govern-
ment, religion, and culture, the condition of the people of
Chaumont was by no means wretched always and in every
respect. The dark side of the picture only has been presented
thus far.
The political and commercial privileges granted to the
city in 1190 by Count Henry 11 of Champagne were grad-
ually increased in later years. After Chaumont, as a part
of Champagne, became united to the crown in 1328, the royal
bailiffs themselves generally gave to the inhabitants a just
and, for the period, beneficent government. Such govern-
ment, however, was still better assured in 1355 by the inaugu-
ration of elections at which the inhabitants chose their own
local officials, while in 1604, King Henry iv finally granted
to the city the privilege of being governed by a mayor and
city council. The successive kings of France displayed a per-
sonal interest in Chaumont, mainly, it is true, because of its
military strength. But this interest finally resulted in its
thorough fortification, the work being begun under Louis
XII and completed, between 1515 and 1559, under Francis
I and Henry 11. These fortifications existed until 1848 when
they were leveled to make the broad boulevards which today
encircle the inner city. They consisted of nine bastions con-
66 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
nected by tall ramparts and they were sufficiently strong to
hold at bay all assailants who came before them during the
two centuries following their completion.
A great measure of independence from the afflictions
caused by the presence of alien soldiery was attained by Chau-
mont with the foundation, during the reign of Charles vii
(1422-1461), of the companies of arbalesters, composed of
young men of the community, similar to those at Langres
already described. As was the case at Langres, these com-
panies came to be not only a great safeguard to their native
city, but a powerful weapon for overawing and finally for
destroying the predatory nobility of the adjacent country.
An armory called the Hotel de I'Arquebus with which was
connected a commodious garden or drill ground, was built
for this militia in 1647, outside the ramparts on the ground
now occupied by the large Trefousse glove factory on the
Avenue des Etats-Unis, where it remained until 1852.
Through all their long generations the people of Chau-
mont have taken a deep and comforting interest in their reli-
gion and in the institutions and buildings in which religion
has found tangible outward form and expression. The fact
that through all the sectarian struggles which in different
ages have agitated France, the vast majority of the Chau-
montais adhered unswervingly to the Catholic faith probably
contributed materially to the wealth and, particularly, to the
standing of the various religious bodies whose buildings were
dotted thickly through the town before the Revolution. A
number of these buildings still remain, though altered to
other uses. The beautiful Church of St. Jean-Baptiste, the
most notable structure in the city, was begun in the twelfth
century, but it was so long in reaching completion that parts
of it exemplify also the styles of the fifteenth and sixteenth
Chaumont-en-Bassigny 67
centuries. The ancient Convent of the UrsuHnes, on the Rue
Docteur Michel, was transformed after the Revolution into
barracks for the gendarmerie. The present museum and art
gallery was originally a Carmelite Monastery and then
became the Prefecture of the Haute-Marne until the comple-
tion of the present more modern prefectural building.
The extensive mass of the Lycee, with its pleasant, tree-
shaded courts, colonnaded porches, and lovely seventeenth-
century chapel, was once a college of the Jesuits, while the
ancient Capucin Convent has now become that place of
amusement, so curiously antiquated and compressed to Amer-
ican eyes, the Municipal Theatre, hidden away on the alley-
like Rue Felix Bablon. The large City Market now covers
most of the ground occupied prior to the year 1800 by the
churchyard and church of St. Michel, which, it used to be
said "carried into the clouds the summit of its tall tower."
On the Avenue Carnot, leading down Buxereuilles, the Hopital
Civile, whose slate-colored dome is conspicuous above the
trees from every elevated point west of the city, was erected
in 1765 by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul and
it is still conducted by them, though during the war it was used
by the French as a military, not a civil, hospital.
Far down in the bosky valley of the Marne, with the
road to Neufchateau on one side and the creeping waters
of the river on the other, still stands St. Aignan's ancient
chapel guarding the cemetery clustered about it. But the
Chapel of Notre Dame, said to have been set quite as graci-
ously in the valley of the Suize at Buxereuilles, has quite
vanished, as have several other chapels within the former
city walls. Today factories, stores, and offices occupy many
of the places formerly held by the old religious houses while
the streets, where once walked so many black- or white- or
68 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
gray-robed figures of the omnipresent orders, are filled with
a crowd as modern and as preoccupied with the business and
pleasures of the present as were the former denizens of these
precincts with the problems of death and eternity.
CHAPTER VI
u
CHIEFLY FOR THOSE WHO FOUGHT THE BATTLE OF
CHAUMONT
>>
LEST he display too great a familiarity with the place to
J escape detection, it seems best to the writer to confess,
before proceeding further with this rambling narrative, that
a great part of his war-time and post war-time days in France
were passed at Chaumont. That experience he shared in
common with some thousands of other Americans, officers
and soldiers, some of whom were "sentenced to Chaumont
for the duration of the war" while others were there for
short periods only and then departed for other centers of
American activity, buzzing with the industry of the Services
of Supply or trembling with the cannon roar of the front,
as the case might be. Some of these warriors in olive drab
liked Chaumont; others detested it. To some the narrow,
crooked thoroughfares, the quaint old buildings, the tree
branches bending out over high, secretive walls from jealously
hidden gardens, the sudden vistas of far hills and red-roofed
villages flashing upon the eyes of the wayfarer at turns in
the outer streets where once the ramparts ran, the leisurely
habits and unfamiliar business methods of the people, were
all sources of interest, even of pleasure, because they spoke
to the stranger the subtle language of antiquity and fired
his imagination with the romance of a long and colorful past
and a novel and piquant present. To others, all of these
things were merely irritants, forcing constant unfavorable
comparison with the fresh, efficient modernness of America
and the energetic methods of its people.
But whether they liked Chaumont or whether they de-
69
70 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
tested it, one thing is certain — they can never forget it. In
fact, it is safe to predict that they will remember it with
increasing clearness, yes, and with increasing kindliness, as
the years go by. For whether humble or conspicuous the
part which he played in it, hardly a veteran of the World
War will meet any future experience of peace-time which will
stay with him as will those of the days when he was numbered
among the host of America's Great Crusade, a soldier in the
armies of civilization. Therefore let us go back to Chau-
mont, that nerve-center of the American Expeditionary
Forces, as it was in 19 18, and strolling about its crooked
streets and shady purlieus, revisit some of the places which
we knew then, throwing about them something of that dis-
tant past which only history can revivify, interwoven with
something of the nearer past of which we were a part.
We may start, appropriately enough, at that busy little
gare, with its two sugar-loaf roundhouses opposite the plat-
forms, its long strings of passenger cars, 40 Hommes, 8
Chevaux, and its assortment of locomotives varying from
teakettles to real American Baldwins, where so many new
arrivals at General Headquarters ran the gauntlet of red
brassards appertaining to the Railway Transportation Officers.
The Chaumont station does not bear a particularly historic
appearance, but at least once, long years before the Amer-
icans began to swarm out upon its platforms, it witnessed
an episode which was interesting, even though distressing.
This was in 1870, when the troops of the French Fifth Army
Corps, under General de Failly, having become isolated from
the army of Marshal MacMahon after the battle of Worth,
retreated from Bitche, north of Strassburg in Lorraine, across
the Vosges Mountains and thence by Mirecourt and Mon-
tigny-le-Roi toward Chaumont, seeking by this hard and
The old Donjon garden, overlooking the valley of the Suize,
Chaumont
[Page 7S]
1e>.^- ..,'•;-
The Tour Hantef'euille ;ind St. Jean's twin spires, Chaumont
[Page 73]
*' Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 71
circuitous route to reach a railroad by which they might join
the French reserve army at Chalons-sur-Marne. They suc-
ceeded, but when they reached Chaumont, exhausted, ragged,
almost without food and utterly dispirited, they were the
mere ghost of an army corps. For two days, observed by
the Chaumontais with combined dismay and disgust, they
thronged the Chaumont yards while embarking upon troop
trains for the north. The last train to depart for Chalons
had barely passed St. Dizier when Prussian uhlans cut the
line at that point. De Failly's troops eventually rejoined
Marshal MacMahon only to become involved, with the rest
of that unfortunate commander's army, in the overwhelming
disaster of Sedan.
Going out through the gates of the railway station with
the crowd of French civilians, American doughboys weighted
down with packs, Y. M. C. A. girls in fussy Ford ambulances,
and officers in limousines bearing the red, white, and blue
insignia of General Headquarters, we come immediately, in
the square facing the station, upon the monument to the sol-
diers of the Haute-Marne who died for their country in the
war of 1870. At the risk of offending some persons of
highly developed artistic taste, the opinion is ventured that
most doughboys thought this monument a pretty fine thing,
with its high marble pedestal bearing aloft a dying French
soldier and an officer, very much at bay, above whose heads
an angel with outspread wings poises a laurel wreath. At
all events, it thoroughly typifies the spirit of the memorial
monuments of 1870 to be seen in nearly every city of France.
Behind an ornate gateway, facing one side of the monu-
ment, stands the sedate building of the Bank of France,
resembling rather a residence than a business establishment,
and across the square from it the little hostelry and restau-
6
72 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
rant generally known as the Hotel Tourelle. Perhaps its
outer cafe, where French poilus or civilians sipped wine or
beer, and its inner dining-room where food as well as drink
were served, was not familiar to many soldiers. But those
who visited it occasionally found it much favored by " Y "
workers of both sexes, who discreetly drank water despite
the conspicuous enameled sign on the window : Ici on consulte
le Bottin, which men in uniform usually interpreted, "Here
one consults the bottle," rather than the guidebook advertised.
Across the Rue de la Tour Charton from the Hotel Tour-
elle lie the cool, shaded pathways of the Square Philippe
Lebon, with the statue of that kindly appearing inventor, a
native of the Haute-Marne who introduced gas lighting into
France, standing just within the gateway. The rustic kiosque
de musiqiie farther from the street and embowered in trees,
was seldom used during the war, but in the afternoon or
early evening one seldom failed to find a few American sol-
diers, off duty, playing ball with a bevy of French children
on the lawns which stretch back toward the low wall and the
close-cut hedges bordering the western edge of the park.
From the semicircular bay in that wall projecting farthest
on the edge of the hill is to be seen one of the city's most
attractive views. Below one's feet down the almost precipitous
hillside are the chimney pots and tile roofs of the houses
clinging to the sides of the Rue de I'Abattoir and the Rue
des Tanneries; streets which drop down the narrow ravine
from the now demolished Porte de I'Eau into the valley of
the Suize. Hardly 300 feet distant across the ravine rises,
from above the treetops, its equally precipitous opposite face,
crowned by the rear walls of the residences facing on the
Rue du Palais. Beyond and above them the twin spires of
St. Jean-Baptiste prick the sky and at the extreme end of
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 73
the promontory the Palace of Justice, overtopped by the
majestic bulk of the Tour Hautefeuille, crowns the dizzy
escarpment of the old donjon, ivy cloaked from base to ter-
race. Far below the gentle Suize winds among the gardens
and the scattered dwellings of the Faubourg des Tanneries
and on through verdant meadows, while far away the blue
hills of Bassigny roll off toward the setting sun.
Perhaps a soldier, smoking a cigarette and idly swing-
ing his feet over the edge of the semicircular wall, remarks
that the latter looks old. It is. The wall is the lower por-
tion of the Charton Tower, one of the nine bastions of the
city ramparts built, probably, about 1550 and cut down to
its lower stage three hundred years later, when most of the
fortifications were completely leveled. The donjon was an-
other but much older bastion of the same enceinte and these
two strong points by their cross fire protected the approach
through the ravine to the former massive Porte de I'Eau at
its head, where the streets leading up from the valley fau-
bourgs entered the city ramparts. Though demolished, the
medieval defenses have left their traces in some form nearly
everywhere. The deep cut through which the railroad runs
along the southern edge of the city was originally the moat
of the walled town and on the east the broad Boulevard Gam-
betta and Boulevard Voltaire have found ample elbowroom
because they were laid out on the whole space formerly
occupied by the rampart and moat.
Returning to the Hotel Tourelle one stands at the end
of the Rue de Verdun, a street wider and more modern than
most of the streets of the city and containing a number of
the buildings, small, perhaps, but of the dignified, carefully
chiseled stone construction characteristic of modern French
architecture. But even here is to be seen at the rear corner
74 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of the hotel, abutting on the gateway to the gray old court-
yard known as the Cour de Champs, one of those curious,
semicircular exterior turrets starting 7 or 8 feet above the
ground and enclosing a spiral staircase, lighted by tiny win-
dows and extending to all the floors above. The use of these
space-saving adaptations of medieval fortress turrets seems
to have been common in old Chaumont and many of them
are to be seen there, particularly in the short streets near the
Palace of Justice, constituting, because of their rarity else-
where, one of the features which makes Chaumont notable
among antiquarians.
The Rue de Verdun soon runs out into the little square
with a drinking fountain in its center where this street meets
the Rue Victor Mariotte, the Rue Felix Bablon and the Rue
Toupot de Beveaux. The Rue Victor Mariotte, much fav-
ored as a short cut from the station by trucks, automobiles,
and marching columns, climbs a steep grade past one of the
two houses occupied for a time by the American Provost
Marshal's office. This place, of rueful memory to many a
luckless doughboy, shares its dubious honors with another
in the Rue Laloy, near the Hotel de Ville, where the Assist-
ant Provost Marshal maintained his court of Nemesis in the
earlier days of American occupation.
Upon the Rue Felix Bablon, as heretofore mentioned, is
the boxlike entrance to that Theatre Municipal and erstwhile
convent wherein were staged, at various times, moving inter-
national ceremonies, and such American soldier productions
as the G. H. Q. Revue, first given here in December, 19 18,
for the benefit of the "Christmas Fund for the Kiddies of
Chaumont." But much more often one saw at the Theatre
Municipal those French plays and vaudeville performances of
the "small town" variety, gazed upon admiringly from the
<{
Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 75
wooden benches of the pit by blue-coated poilus and their
best girls, tolerantly from the red plush upholstery of the
premier loges by family parties of Chaumontais, and disdain-
fully by groups of American officers sequestered between the
high partitions of the boxes farther back. One does not for-
get, either, the discreet admonition of the management, pre-
sented on a neat placard beside the stage for the guidance
of the public in case any performance should chance to meet
with disapproval: "The audience is kindly requested to
refrain from throwing anything on the stage."
The Rue Toupot de Beveaux, after passing sundry shops,
among them the Libraire Jeanne d'Arc with its window cases
displaying an odd collection of missals and breviaries, gilt
saints, beads, and candlesticks intermixed with the latest novels
and monographs on the war, comes in a moment to Chaumont's
most pretentious hostelry, the Hotel de France et des Postes.
Leaving aside for a moment the enlisted men wise enough to
cherish their francs and centimes, what officer who ever set
foot in Chaumont escaped at least one meal at the Hotel de
France ? Not that it was not a good meal, the potage savory,
the viands tender, the salads crisp, and the vins above the
average. But probably, afterward, if he were staying in the
city, he borrowed some money and joined a mess, while, if
he were merely passing through, he borrowed some money
to take him on to his destination.
However, the expensiveness of the Hotel de France must
have been one of its appealing features to Americans, for at
dinner time the big front dining-room and the more exclusive
one farther back were always filled with Sam Brownes and
it was seldom that the humble line officer could not whisper
to his neighbor, in an awestruck voice, " See that big, fat
guy over in the corner? That's Major General Umptytum,
76 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
commanding the th Division," or, " Don't you know that
consumptive-looking shrimp with the tin pigeons jollying
Madeleine over the other side of the coat rack? Why, man,
that's Colonel Poohbah! He runs the whole works down
at Back-sur-Back, delousing stations 'n'everything." Then,
too, one always enjoyed the mild sensation caused among
newcomers by the dramatic entry of " Petit Paul," that re-
markable dwarf of three-foot stature with his armful of
daily papers, his amazingly vibrant voice and his stock English
phrase, "New York Herald, Sheecago Treehnne, sair? Thank
you, sair." Finally, it was pleasant, after dinner, to sip one's
cafe noir — fin, if you preferred — in the shadows of the big
courtyard or the tiny coffee-room behind the cashier's desk
where one could talk English, real English, with Mademoi-
selle Alyce or her equally smiling and volatile sister and
cousin. Under such circumstances it wasn't so bad even
when, sometimes on moonlit nights, the siren whistle blew
at the waterworks and the lights went out and one knew that
somewhere up the line, 50 or 60 miles away, *' Jerry was com-
ing over" on one of his bombing raids and that around town
some of the more timorous women and children of Chaumont
were hustling for the " caves " and ahris. Everybody knew
that he wouldn't come there. It wasn't etiquette to bomb
each other's General Headquarters and though Jerry violated
most of the rules of etiquette during the war he never violated
that one, at least not in the case of Chaumont.
Beyond the Hotel de France, at the corner of the Rue
de Chamarandes, was that other caravansary, the Hotel du
Centre, where, providing one were fortunate enough to find
his way to the staircase through the mazes of the ground-
f^oor cafe, he could reach a passable dining-room above where
everybody ate at long tables and in a stony silence. It was
At Condes the Marne runs deep and still
[Page 118]
w
^T-yrt-r^ k-
3* iL^^s:!?;;
^?^^
U-i'
|.i»^*>>i*rx^
Rue Victor Mariotte, Chaumont
[Page 74]
Choignes with Chaumont in the distance
[Page 77]
Choignes on the Marne
[Page 81]
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" jy
a good place " to chew the cud of thought," but if you craved
a more Hghtsome atmosphere, imitative of Paris, you went
to the Cafe de Foy, a few steps from the Hotel de Ville,
across the Rue de Chamarandes. Here there were an abun-
dance of mirrors to reflect the electric lights, and a certain
modest luster of glass and silver plate, especially on the little
tables in the grilled recess at the rear end. Also occasionally
there were some flashing eyes which could be looked into
without too great difficulty.
Passing the market where once arose St. Michel's spire
and crossing, once more, the bridge over the railroad tracks,
one came, just beyond the boulevards, to the alleyway, fes-
tooned about at evening time by American and French sol-
diers, which lead back to the Cinema de Paris. There was
good music here, especially from one maimed ex-soldier, who
once conducted his own orchestra in Paris, and the pictures
were generally worth looking at — that is, so much of them
as could be seen through the clouds of tobacco smoke emitted
by the Allied soldiery which always thronged the lower floor.
Eastward beyond the cinema theater and the fire engine
house, or depot de pompes a incendie, lay, on the Rue de
Reservoir, that building of bains et lavoir where many a
grimy warrior up from the ports or down from the front
got his first thorough bath of many a day.
From the bridge over the tracks the shaded promenades
and broad roadway of the Boulevard Thiers extend both east
and west, li one walked eastward he came presently to a
fork, the right hand roads leading him out past the city
cemetery and suddenly into the open country, where from a
steep, wooded hillside with pinetops sighing in the breeze, he
looked across the lovely meadows of the Marne to the roofs
and belfry of Choignes, sleeping at the feet of the great hills
yS The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
beyond the river. The left-hand turn, on the contrary, led
him still through the city, along the Boulevard Gambetta with
its pleasant wayside benches beneath the trees. Here, on one
side, stood the comfortable and hospitable hut of the French
Officers' Club and, flanking the Normal School for Men, the
row of pretentious mansions much favored for billets by
American officers of the '* order of the golden leaf " and
upward. On the lower ground across the boulevard extended
the tar-papered Adrian barracks of some units of French
infantry, with the impressively large buildings of the Girls'
High School and the Normal School for Women at the
northern extremity of the block. Chaumont is well supplied
with educational institutions, particularly in this quarter.
The French infantry barracks of war-time, mentioned
above, occupied the ground of the Champ de Foire, normally
left free for open-air fairs, circuses, and playgrounds for
children, since it directly faces some of the oldest and most
crowded streets of the city. Here even remain a few of the
street names of pre-Revolutionary times and if one descend
the Rue Voie Beugnot he will pass those mere slits between
the walls of opposite houses called, respectively, the Rue du
Vinaigrier (street of the vinegar factory) and the Rue du
Pain Perdu (street of the lost bread). Decent enough
within seem most of the houses abutting on these ancient
alleyways but the children dwelling therein certainly have
need of the nearby Champ de Foire for their daily fresh
air and sunshine.
A few steps more bring the wayfarer to the Place de
I'Hotel de Ville. How many recollections may crowd upon
the American as he stands on the f^at cobblestones of the
Place and looks down the principal street of Chaumont, now
the Rue Victoire de la Marne, and up at the chaste fagade
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 79
of that city hall, built in 1788 on the eve of the Revolution,
with its three arched doorways supporting a colonnaded bal-
cony and a gracefully carved pediment bearing the usual
inscription, Liberie, Egalite, Fraternite, and above that the
face of the town clock and the domed bell tower surmount-
ing all ! There may come back to him that sultry afternoon
of July 4, 19 1 8, while France and England and America were
waiting with bated breath for the next German drive some-
where along the Western Front, when the Place was jammed
from wall to wall of the surrounding shops with a throng
of French and American soldiers, civilians, women, and chil-
dren, fervently celebrating the anniversary of America's
Independence Day. Again he can see the rigid ranks of
our Marines in forest green and French infantry in horizon
blue, guarding the narrow passageway up to the steps of
the Hotel de Ville left clear for the distinguished guests.
Then he sees General Pershing, General Ragneau, and Gen-
eral Wirbel, amid the wild applause of the crowd, striding
up that pathway behind the slender, flashing bayonets of the
French guard of honor and watches them appear on the bal-
cony above, framed about by billows of red, white, and blue
bunting intermingled with the Tricolor and the Stars and
Stripes. He may not remember the more or less eloquent
speeches but he will not forget the tall, rigid form of Amer-
ica's chieftain unbending to receive the great bouquet pre-
sented to him by a little French boy on behalf of the grateful
children of Chaumont, nor the flashing smile which lighted
that chieftain's face, usually so set and drawn during those
anxious days, as he lifted to the balcony railing the laughing
little daughter of Chaumont's mayor. Commandant Levy-
Alphandery, and looked with her down upon the cheering
throng below.
8o The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Or, again, he may recall the foggy morning of the fol-
lowing Christmas Day when, with colder air outside but
warmer and infinitely more joyous hearts within, another
crowd gathered in that same Place to welcome President and
Mrs. Wilson as they, accompanied by General Pershing and
a group of distinguished French and American officers, as-
cended the steps of the Hotel de Ville for the reception tend-
ered them by the city. Hedged about with the simple, hearty
spirit of a family gathering and all the kindliness of the
season seemed that Christmas morning in Chaumont as the
townsfolk looked upon the chief executive of the great nation
which had shared with them the burdens of the war and the
joy of its recent overwhelming triumph, and in their happy
faces they showed that they welcomed him in their hearts
as sincerely as in their public places.
Nor would the soldier, standing in the Place, forget the
little stands and booths and carts which on certain days of
the week in ordinary times ranged, themselves as if by magic
over the flat cobbles, draped with bright bands and streamers
of ribbon and tissue paper and filled with every sort of
knickknack, from cheap jewelry and toilet articles to candy
and fruit and lacework, while about them buzzed a crowd of
women and children, always artlessly interested and always
buying.
But the Place de I'Hotel de Ville had witnessed many a
stirring and tragic and merry scene long years and centuries
before the feet of American soldiers found their way thither.
Thus it was that on the afternoon of January 4, 1814, the
townspeople, in response to the beating of the drums through
the streets, gathered in anxious haste to hear the Commissary
of Police announce from the balcony that the invading armies
of Germany, Russia, and Austria, 350,000 strong, had crossed
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 8l
the frontiers of France and that a part of the army of the
Prince of Schwarzenberg was advancing on Chaumont. The
commissary, by order of the emperor, proclaimed the levy in
mass, but the people, long since deprived of their arms by
the suspicious Imperial government, willing though they were,
found themselves helpless to respond to the appeal to their
patriotism and returned dejectedly to their homes.
No defenders remained to them save the few thousand
stout veterans of the Old Guard under Marshal Mortier
which were retiring sullenly before overwhelming numbers
from Langres via Chaumont on Bar-sur-Aube. These devoted
troops arrived and billeted in Chaumont, their advanced posts
out on the road to Nogent and Bourbonne, their line of de-
fense along the Marne guarding particularly the bridge at
Choignes. On the afternoon of January i8, Schwarzenberg's
forces reached the heights opposite and, deploying, attacked
the crossings. They were repulsed but all through that cold
winter night the battle continued, the French cannon thunder-
ing from the hills southeast of Chaumont in response to the
enemy's bombardment, while the reserves of the Old Guard,
stood to arms in the Place de I'Hotel de Ville. At 3 :oo
o'clock on the morning of the nineteenth, while the anxious
people gathered in the streets of the city watched the glow on
the night sky from the burning buildings of Choignes, came
word that the enemy had forced the passage of the Marne.
Soon followed the order for the Guard to commence the
retreat from the city and across the Suize by the Paris road.
At 8 :oo o'clock the dejected citizens around the square
heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs and a Wiirtemberg hussar
rode up before the Hotel de Ville and, calling for the mayor,
demanded the surrender of the city and the immediate as-
signment of subsistence and billets for the Allied troops. For
82 The MarnCj Historic and Picturesque
eight days thereafter the hosts of the invaders poured through
Chaumont, taking whatever they wished of private property,
treating the inhabitants with great harshness, and ruthlessly
pillaging the surrounding country. At the end of January
the Emperor Alexander i of Russia, King Frederick William
of Prussia, and Emperor Francis i of Austria passed through
the city on their way, so they thought, to Paris. But the
unexpected defeats of the hosts of Blucher and Schwarzen-
berg by the desperate French Army, inspired by the genius of
Napoleon, sent this trio of "warrior monarchs," toward the
end of February, scuttling incontinently back to Chaumont
where, through the brains of their ministers, they presently
evolved the noted Treaty of Chaumont, designed to rivet upon
Europe in perpetuity the divine right of kings and to thrust
France into the dust of humiliation chiefly because of her
revolt against absolutism.
Turning back, again, the pages of history, this time for
more than three hundred years to the days when " la Place "
was surrounded, not as it is today by stores dispensing jew-
elry, electric supplies, books, music, millinery, etc., but by
the gabled houses and dimly lighted tenements and shops of
the Middle Ages, we may imagine it as it looked when it was
the culminating center of the curious religious festivities
known as "la Diablerie de Chaumont." These observances
grew up gradually after 1475, ^" which year Pope Sixtus iv
granted to the church of St. Jean-Baptiste de Chaumont a
plenary indulgence called " le Grand Pardon de Chaumont"
under which absolution could be granted to all penitents com-
ing to the church on the festival of St. John the Baptist when
that saint's day fell on a Sunday. Great numbers of pilgrims
were attracted to the city from distant parts by this easy
method of obtaining spiritual pardon for any sin in the deca-
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 83
logue, or out of it, and their presence naturally proved a great
stimulus to business in the city.
Thus, to hold the crowds, added attractions were intro-
duced and gradually developed, the chief ones taking the form
of mystery and morality plays of a semireligious nature, such
as were in vogue at about this period at various places on the
Continent and in England. Some of these plays, as, for ex-
ample, Everyman, have been revived of late years in some-
what modernized form and with marked success. Certain of
the early favorites at Chaumont in which priests as well as
laymen participated, were, The Morality of the Banquet, The
Sacrifice of Abraham, and one, the most highly favored of
all, presenting the mysteries of Monsieur Sainct Jehan-Bap-
tiste. The several scenes of these plays were enacted on stages
or wagons called "pageants," set up on different streets of the
city, the climax occurring on the stage in the Grande Place.
But gradually the religious character of the presentations
was lost, more and more vulgarity and buffoonery being intro-
duced, while angels, saints, and even the Three Persons of
the Trinity vied for attention with numerous devils, imps,
and Saracens. In the final scene, the people crowding into the
Place were regaled with the sight of a group of devils shoot-
ing a rocket from which, at a height of several hundred feet,
there fell a puppet representing the soul of Herod, which was
conducted by a wire so as to fall headlong into an immense
basin of fire, the similitude of hell, about which the minions
of Satan danced in fiendish delight. An improving sense of
propriety on the part of the public finally compelled the dis-
continuance of "la Diablerie" in the year 1668.
Of the several streets leading out of the Place de I'Hotel de
Ville, the Rue Victoire de la Marne, in ancient days the Rue de
I'Etape, is easily the most frequented and it is lined with the
84 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
city's most pretentious shops as well as by a few monumental
buildings. Animated, particularly in the long summer even-
ings, with crowds of promenaders, one saw here in the months
following the armistice the gradual reblossoming of chic fem-
inine fashions from the sober apparel of war-time, while a
rapidly increasing array of men in civilian dress replaced the
dwindling numbers of uniforms, French, American, British,
and Italian, demobilized or departed for distant lands. Here
were those tailoring establishments displaying in their show
windows wasp-waisted olive-drab blouses, with touches of
English swank in the bellows pockets and ample skirts, appeal-
ing, so said army gossip, particularly to American aviators.
Here were the lingerie and embroidery shops with filmy laces,
gaily embroidered handkerchiefs, and wonderful cushion cov-
ers decorated with roses or French and American flags and
bearing the legend Souvenir de la Guerre, laid out to attract
the eye of the Yankee lad, ever keen for just such souvenirs
for "the only girl" back in the States. Here were the post-
office and several of the banks and that cozy cafe whose little
tables, half hidden behind a row of dwarf cedars set in big
green boxes, was much affected by both officers and soldiers
after the toils of the day were over. And almost opposite to
it was the imposing Lycee, part of it temporarily alienated to
the use of a French military hospital and part to the American
post school.
Because the chapel of the Lycee was closed during the war
perhaps not many Americans took the trouble to seek out the
concierge for the purpose of gaining access to it. But it was
well worth the effort of a visit, for its interior is a perfect
example of seventeenth-century architecture. Its dazzling ex-
panses of carved white marble in walls and columns and
vaulted roof display a combination of Greek and Renaissance
(t
Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 85
forms in a rich profusion almost overpowering to the be-
holder. The beautiful altar screen with its bas-reliefs in
gilded stone is from the hand of Jean-Baptiste Bouchardon,
the distinguished seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century
sculptor and architect of Chaumont, whose sons, Edme and
Philippe, attained to even greater fame than their father.
The most notable work of the elder Bouchardon is in St.
Jean's Church in Chaumont. His son Philippe emigrated to
Sweden, where he designed the medals of the Swedish kings.
Edme, the greatest of them all, was born at Chaumont in
1698 and died in 1762. He passed some time at Rome, where
he made the busts of Pope Clement xii and of Cardinal de
Rohan and Cardinal de Polignac. Going to Paris, he came
under the patronage of Louis xv and executed the magnifi-
cent monumental fountain in the Rue de Crenelle represent-
ing the City of Paris seated between the god of the Seine and
the goddess of the Marne; the Fountain of Neptune in the
Gardens of Versailles, the Cupid, and the Temple of Love in
the same Gardens and many other works. A few feet to the
right of the entrance to the Lycee, in Chaumont, on the Rue
Victoire de la Marne, everyone who has been in the city will
recall the fountain dedicated to Edme Bouchardon, with its
handsome entablature borne up by two Corinthian columns
and sheltering a bust of the sculptor on a pedestal at the base
of which a river nymph, couched among reeds, holds the
pitcher from which the fountain flows.
Farther along the main thoroughfare as it curves gradu-
ally to the left toward the Boulingrin Park, are some fine old
tourelle stairways and one also passes, on the right, the en-
trance to another street still bearing its curious medieval
name — Rue Cour dii Trois Rots (Street of the Court of the
Three Kings). Almost opposite to it is the Museum, a build-
86 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
ing massively constructed though not of great size, which,
as heretofore mentioned, was originally built as a Carmelite
convent. Besides the collections of the Museum, it houses a
public library of about 40,000 volumes and a priceless group
of about 150 illuminated parchment volumes, the work of
monks of the Middle Ages, most of them resident in or
around Chaumont, the most valuable being those from the
Abbey of Val-des-Ecoliers.
On the days of the week when the Museum was open a
few American soldiers were generally to be seen among the
visitors in its galleries of paintings and the halls of statuary
and antiquities. Though it possesses a number of modern
paintings, a finely preserved " Head of Christ," by Albrecht
Diirer is its most notable canvas while, in addition to copies
of Greek and Roman masterpieces of statuary, the "Adam
and Eve" of Jules Etex is remarkable. The collection of
Roman and Gallo-Roman antiquities excavated in northeastern
France and of sculptures preserved from medieval churches,
includes some excellent stone sarcophagi and the statue of
Jean de Chateauvillain from his tomb. In the summer of
19 1 8 there stood in the pleasantly shaded courtyard of the
Museum, abutting on the street, a contribution from the
American Forestry Engineers then working in the Forest of
Corgebin, 6 or 7 kilometers southwest of Chaumont. In dig-
ging a well in this venerable woodland, which more than seven
hundred years ago belonged to the Order of the Knights of
Malta who had a chateau in its borders, the Americans un-
earthed a handsome Roman pedestal upon which, evidently,
a statue once stood in the grounds of the long-since vanished
summer villa of some aristocratic Roman. The pedestal was
turned over by its New World discoverers to the Chaumont
Museum, where it is now preserved.
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 87
Crossing, from the Museum, the broad esplanade of the
Avenue Carnot one passes the Prefecture, a stately stone
building of two stories surmounted by a mansard roof and
separated from the street by one of those graceful iron rail-
ings with elaborately wrought gates so frequently seen in
French cities, and enters the shady, winding pathways of the
Boulingrin — a name which is merely the French version of
the English term "bowling green." The breadth of open
street before the Prefecture is accounted for by the fact that
it covers the ground formerly occupied by the towers, the port-
cullis, the drawbridge, and the moat of the Porte de Buxer-
euilles and, a little farther to the east, the still wider space
where stood the Bastion de Bracancourt.
Never even by daylight, much less in the evening, did
the secluded benches of the Boulingrin fail of occupancy by
a certain number of swains in olive drab, earnestly endeavor-
ing in doughboy French to express to the dark-haired Chau-
mont damsels by their sides the depth and fervor of their
emotions, while these damsels as earnestly endeavored to com-
prehend and respond. The very atmosphere of the Boulin-
grin tempted to love-making, for was there not before the eyes
of the idler within its precincts that ornate fountain with its
shapely bronze nymphs and chubby little cherubs above the
dry basin, and that exquisite "Amour" of Bouchardon, replica
of the one in the Temple of Love at Versailles, and the deli-
cately modeled Kiosque de nmsiqiie where of a Sunday after-
noon, after the armistice, the American General Headquar-
ters Band discoursed music for, apparently, the entire popu-
lation of Chaumont and all the uniformed strangers within
her gates? Even for those less fortunate than the amorous
occupants of the benches, the Boulingrin was the pleasantest
part of the long daily walk between town and General Head-
88 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
quarters, for nobody, it seemed, ever made that trip by auto-
mobile excepting second lieutenants and field officers above
the grade of major.
Another and, to officers, still more important oasis on
that caravan route so frequently beset by either dust or mud,
was the Officers' " Y " Hut in the Place du Champ de Mars,
just beyond the Boulingrin; the enlisted men had theirs, as
jealously guarded from the encroachments of Sam Browne's,
nearer to Headquarters on the Avenue des Etats-Unis. A
homelike place, indeed, was that Officers' "Y," with its
many snug little bedchambers for " casuals " and its pleasant
dining-room with chintz curtains in the windows and the
walls hung with American and French war loan posters and
the wonderfully decorative pictures of the seashore, the
mountains, and the Riviera issued by the Paris-Lyon-Medi-
terranee Railroad. The dining-room was buzzing every noon
and night with a crowd of hungry patrons and every Friday
evening it was cleared for the weekly dance — a democratic
affair at which a lieutenant, if he had sufficient nerve, might,
without danger of being sent to Blois, tag a general and take
away from him a pretty nurse from the Base Hospital, or a
"Y" girl from Jonchery — though it must be confessed that
in such a case he ran an excellent chance of a very cool recep-
tion from the lady thus favored. But, best of all, was the big
lounging-room with its bookcases and writing desks, its long
tables heaped with periodicals, the pictures on its walls, and
the comfortable chairs and settees which could, on winter even-
ings, be drawn up around the crackling cheer of the huge
double fireplace. The world was by no means a bad place
when one could snatch a few moments of leisure from work
to spend at the Officers' " Y," especially if he passed part of
the time in talk with some of those fine, clean-cut American
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 89
women, who were at all times to be found graciously presid-
ing over the place and giving to it the last wholesome, satis-
fying touch of home. He would be a captious critic, indeed,
who would venture the opinion that the "Y" ever "fell
down" at the Officers' Hut in Chaumont.
Next door to the Officers' Hut, in the same Place du
Champ de Mars, was the great "Y" Entertainment Hut,
thronged to the doors more evenings than not in the winter of
1918-19 with soldier spectators for some of the division
shows, boxing bouts, performances of the " Over There The-
ater League," lectures, etc., which provided a never-ending
stream of entertainment during the months of impatient wait-
ing to go home. Not to discriminate but merely to exemplify,
here it was that on one evening Colonel George C. Marshall,
Jr., aide-de-camp to General Pershing, delivered his powerful
lecture on the conduct and operations of the American armies
in Europe before a packed house which included the Comman-
der-in-Chief and Mr. Secretary of War, Baker. There, on
another evening in the presence of General Pershing and the
Prince of Wales, the theatrical company of General Head-
quarters again put on the uproarious G. H. Q. Revue, which
went with a bang from start to finish and so delighted the
royal guest of honor as he sat, frequently convulsed with
laughter, between the tall figures of General Pershing and
General McAndrew, the American Chief of Staff, that proba-
bly the most unsparing critic of royalty in the crowded hut
was obliged to admit that here was as unassuming and pink-
cheeked and good-natured an English lad as could have been
found in any British billet town between Dunkirk and Le
Havre.
At another time, on December 24, 19 18, the Entertainment
Hut was the scene of that whole-souled " Merry Christmas
90 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
for the Kiddies of Chaumont," in which the American sol-
diers stationed there showed to their 2,000 small guests in a
little play written by the present author and produced by
Dorothy Donnelly, just how the day of good cheer is observed
in the United States, and bestowed upon each youngster from
beneath the boughs of a mighty Christmas tree whose upper
branches, spangled with tinsel and colored lights, brushed
the high ceiling, toys and bags of candy to gladden every
childish heart, too many of which had long been deprived of
such joys by the rigid economies of war-time.
Since the departure of America's hosts the Place du
Champ de Mars, once so crowded with their flimsy temporary
buildings, is denuded again. But its wide expanse is to be
the site of the memorial monument to the American occupa-
tion of Chaumont, the structure being the joint fruit of appro-
priations by the municipal and departmental governments and
of popular subscriptions from all the towns and villages of
the Haute-Marne; an abiding evidence of the bond, never to
be broken, binding Chaumont in sentiment with the Republic
of the West.
The attractive Chateau Gloriette,, General Pershing's resi-
dence during the autumn, and winter of 19 17- 18 and, a year
later, the hospitable home of the Y. W. C. A. workers in the
Chaumont region, stands on the edge of the hill near the north
end of the Champ de Mars and, opposite to it, the glove
factory of Trefousse and Company, the largest of Chaumont's
industrial plants, a great proportion of whose product has
for many years been marketed in the leading stores of a num-
ber of American cities. By the gates of the glove factory
begins the long avenue of trees with a broad promenade in
the center and roadways on either side, formerly called the
Avenue du Fort Lambert but now rechristened the Avenue
^'Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 91
des Etats-Unis because it leads to the Caserne Damremont,
the seat of the American General Headquarters.
Along this thoroughfare one often had the pleasure of
seeing detachments of German prisoners of war "manicur-
ing the roads" and keeping them in first-class order for the
processions of trucks, automobiles, and pedestrians in uniform
who were constantly hurrying back and forth along this main
artery. The avenue passed the commodious "Y" Hut for
enlisted men, which stood across the way from the barracks
long occupied by a battalion of the Sixth Marines, the Gen-
eral Headquarters garage and that usually crowded motor
transport park which, one morning late in May, 19 18, to
everyone's surprise, was utterly deserted because, as appeared
later, the trucks had rushed north during the night loaded to
capacity with small arms ammunition for the Second Division
then just coming into line west of Chateau-Thierry for its
immortal stand that stopped the Germans in their march toward
Paris. Next to the motor transport park and across the street
from the gateways of the caserne lay the long barracks of
Camp Babcock, thoroughly concealed behind a high old wall,
while farther down the tree-arched roadway came the French
portion of the caserne, American fuel yards, carpenter and
blacksmith shops, the Post Quartermaster's building, the local
Gas Defense School and, finally, ever-smoldering incinerators
out on the bluff point overlooking the meadows where the
Suize joins the Marne; the point which in the thirties of the
last century carried the ramparts of Fort Lambert at a time
when the national government entertained an intention, later
abandoned, of making Chaumont, as well as Langres, a fort-
ress of the second line of defense against Germany on the
northeastern frontier.
But it was by passing through the gateway into the great
92 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
quadrangle of the Caserne Damremont, shaded on three sides
by well-trimmed trees, that one reached, literally, the heart
of the American Expeditionary Forces. From the front line
of the battle zones back to the farthest port, the vital func-
tions of the American Army were controlled absolutely, in
their larger aspects, from the three plain, four-story buildings
which face the inner quadrangle on its western, its northern,
and its southern sides. These barracks buildings were, before
the American occupation, and continued to be after the Amer-
ican evacuation, the rendezvous of the One Hundred and Ninth
Regiment of French Infantry and the caserne was named in
honor of General Charles Marie Denis Damremont, a distin-
guished French commander during the conquest of Algeria in
North Africa, who was killed at the head of his troops in the
storming of the city of Constantine, Algeria, on October 12,
1837-
The circumstances which lead to the location of American
General Headquarters in Damremont Barracks and, indeed, in
Chaumont, were not altogether simple, for at first thought it
would seem that any one of a number of cities in the same
general region might have served as well. The decision of
General Pershing to make the portion of the Western Front
lying between the Argonne Forest and the Moselle River the
scene of the future operations of the American armies, was
reached very soon after his arrival in France in the summer of
1917. The choice of this front after conference with the other
Allied high commanders and the selection of seaports and
lines of railroad communication best suited to serve it, indicated
the necessity of establishing the General Headquarters at some
point in northeastern France within easy reach of the front
and yet centrally located with relation to the lines of commu-
nication, the training areas for troops and the great supply
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 93
depots and manifold industrial plants which were to be devel-
oped for the use of the coming hosts of America.
Yet this point must have at once good road and rail con-
nections with all the places mentioned, accommodations for
very extensive offices, billeting and barrack facilities for a
large number of officers and men and a location both health-
ful and physically attractive, so that no avoidable handicaps
might operate to reduce the maximum efficiency of the selected
men who would be gathered there, most of them because of
proved capacity for some branch of general staff work. Some
other cities possessed some of these requirements, but none
save Chaumont possessed them all. It was approximately 60
miles from the selected American front and thus nearer than
either the French or the British General Headquarters to their
fronts, its railways and highways gave easy communication in
every direction, its many comfortable houses, for it was a
place of 16,000 people, offered ample and pleasant quarters
for the personnel, its salubrious location in the beautiful up-
land country of the High Marne together with its many open
spaces of boulevard and park, assured both health and con-
tentment to those who would reside there, while, finally, the
large and airy buildings of Damremont Barracks, situated on
the high crest overlooking the lovely scenery of the river val-
leys and the uplands beyond, provided, ready-made, ideal
quarters for the creation and expansion of the offices of a
great staff organization. Thus upon Chaumont fell the choice
and with the arrival there of the American Commander-in-
Chief and his, as yet, small corps of assistants, early in Sep-
tember, 19 1 7, began the most important epoch in Chaumont's
long existence. In the course of a few months the various
departments were settled and functioning in the quarters
which they continued to occupy until July 15, 1919, when
94 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
General Headquarters departed from Chaumont to return to
the United States.
The geometrical as well as the administrative center of G.
H. Q., as General Headquarters was usually termed, was in
" B " Building, the middle one facing the gateway, where on
the second floor at the head of the main stairway was General
Pershing's private office, flanked by those of his personal aides.
The general's office was distinguished from most others
merely by having a well-carpeted floor and some upholstered
furniture, this unwonted luxury being amply justified by the
fact that here the " C-in-C " constantly received and con-
sulted with the most important personages in the military and
civil life of the Allied nations. Opposite to the general's
office on the other side of the hallway, which, like those in all
the buildings, ran the full length of the structure with offices
on both sides of it, were the offices of the Chief of Staff, first
occupied by Major General James G. Harbord, before he
departed to take command, first of the Marine Brigade and
then of the Second Division during the Marne defensive and
counter-offensive, and later to continue his distinguished ser-
vice as Commanding General of the Services of Supply at
Tours. General Harbord was succeeded at Chaumont by
Major General James W. McAndrew who served with great
ability as Chief of Staff throughout the rest of the war and
until late in the spring of 19 19, when Major-General Harbord
for a brief period resumed the position. Next door to the
Chief of Staff was the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff,
General Leroy Eltinge,
In the office of the Chief of Staff occurred the daily morn-
ing conferences between the Chief of Staff and the Assistant
Chiefs of Staff of the " 5 Gs," as the sections of the General
Staff were familiarly called. At these conferences were dis-
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 95
cussed and decided the many momentous questions constantly
arising with regard to the administration, movements, and
supply of the American forces; the questions, that is, which
involved action by more than one staff section, and those
which were not decided without consultation by the Comman-
der-in-Chief himself. The relation of the several sections to
the general problems of the campaign will be better under-
stood if the functions of each are briefly outlined, at the
same time that their location in Damremont Barracks is
recalled.
The First Section, which began work under the command
of Colonel James A. Logan, who was succeeded by Brigadier
General A. D. Andrews, had its offices on the lower floors in
the left end of " A " Building, at the south of the quadrangle,
where the walls of most of its rooms were decorated with a
bewildering array of charts and "graphs," in black and white
and variegated colors. The First Section supervized the organ-
ization and equipment of troops, ocean tonnage, and priority
of shipments, replacements of men and animals, the Provost
Marshal's service, the Military Welfare societies, etc., and
prepared strength reports and the American order of battle.
The Fourth Section was at first headed by Colonel W. D.
Conner who, going to command the Sixty-third Infantry Bri-
gade, Thirty-second Division, was succeeded in May, 19 18,
by Brigadier General George Van Horn Moseley. This sec-
tion was also housed in "A" Building, occupying a greater
part of its right end. Among the activities of the Fourth
Section were : the control of supply, construction, and trans-
portation in France; supply and transportation arrangements
for combat; hospitalization and evacuation of sick and
wounded; assignment of labor and labor troops and assign-
ment of new units arriving in France.
96 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Finally, "A" Building contained on its upper floors the
offices and the vast accumulations of papers of the Adjutant
General of the American Expeditionary Forces, who was at
first General Benjamin Alvord and later General Robert C.
Davis. In the big document rooms of the Adjutant General's
offices the maddening search through interminable filing cab-
inets for letters, file copies, originals, duplicates, which seemed
always to be demanded unexpectedly and for instant delivery
by every other office in General Headquarters, was relent-
lessly pursued from, approximately, daylight until dark by
some 60 officers and 70x3 enlisted men. The Adjutant Gen-
eral's Printing Plant, which printed all General Orders and
a multitude of other documents, was located on the first floor
of " B " Building.
The largest and probably the most complex of the General
Staff sections was the Second, or Intelligence, Section, whose
offices occupied the left wing of " B " Building and ramified
into " C " Building and into sundry temporary Adrians adja-
cent to the caserne. Throughout the war the Intelligence Sec-
tion was in charge of General Dennis E. Nolan. Only once,
to certain knowledge, did he take a vacation. That was during
the battle of the Meuse-Argonne. He spent it pleasantly in
commanding a brigade in the Twenty-eighth Division with
which he captured the Heights of Chatel-Chehery, flanking
the enemy out of the Argonne Forest and, incidentally, win-
ning for himself the Distinguished Service Cross by leading
a handful of tanks in an early morning counter-attack on the
enemy in the valley of the Aire River. The Intelligence Sec-
tion had. charge of accumulating, classifying, and distributing
all information concerning the enemy's troops and his military
and economic resources; of the secret service and counter-
espionage, of the censorship, the preparation and distribution
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 97
of maps, including the daily maps of the enemy order of
battle, and the daily issue of a number of intelligence pubHca-
tions embracing the Press Review, the Summary of Informa-
tion and the Summary of Intelligence. The section also had
supervision of the greatest publication of all, the weekly Stars
and Stripes, the official American Army newspaper, whose
extensive offices of publication were in Paris.
Many of the Intelligence Section offices in "B" Building
resembled in every particular the offices of a large daily Amer-
ican newspaper excepting that all the workers were in uni-
form. But probably the most interesting place of all was the
Order of Battle Room, where day and night, officers stood
before the huge maps of the Western Front which covered
the walls, marking upon them by means of little oblong iden-
tification cards the location and movements of the enemy's
divisions, as information concerning them came in constantly
from the front or from the headquarters of other Allied
armies, by our own wireless or interceptions of German wire-
less, by telephone or telegraph, airplanes, or special couriers.
This data, together with all other important facts which were
ascertained concerning the strength, condition, or intentions
of the enemy's combat units were classified and sent daily to
the headquarters of the American armies, corps, and divisions
in line, in order to keep them constantly and accurately
informed.
The lower floors in the right wing of " B " Building were
occupied by G-3, the Operations Section, first commanded by
Colonel John McAuley Palmer, who, on going to a command
in the field, was succeeded by General Fox Conner. All the
vital matters concerning the actual combat operations of our
troops, strategic studies and plans, orders, artillery concen-
trations, and allotments of guns and ammunition, employment
98 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of the air service, liaison within our own forces and between
them and the AlHed armies; movements, location, and com-
position of combat troops, reconnaissances, security, and
information at the front, the issue of daily situation maps of
our own forces and the collection and classification of reports
of operations, were among the responsibilities of General
Conner's section. As in G-2, maps were the most conspicuous
feature of the furnishings of the Operations Section offices;
maps contoured and hachured, printed, photographed, mimeo-
graphed, and hand-drawn, the chief difference appearing to
be that in the Intelligence Section a majority of the maps
seemed to cover the walls, where they could be contemplated,
while in G-3 a majority covered tables and desks, where they
could be pored over with pencil and dividers.
Up under the mansard roof of "B" Building were the
quarters of the Fifth, or Training, Section, directed prior to
February, 19 18, by Colonel Paul B. Malone, who in that
month went to the front to become the pugnacious comman-
der, first, of the Twenty-third Infantry, Second Division, and
then of the Tenth Infantry Brigade, Fifth Division. He was
succeeded in charge of the Training Section by General Harold
B. Fiske. General Fiske's section evolved the doctrine of
instruction and training for the American Expeditionary
Forces and controlled its application throughout the American
training areas and schools. It was in general charge of the
Army Schools at Langres and it prepared and issued all train-
ing manuals, conducted inspections to insure thoroughness of
training throughout the army and, in consultation with the
Operations Section, determined the organization and equip-
ment of troops. In the winter of 1918-19 the Training Sec-
tion, with the discontinuance of training for battle, inaugu-
rated and supervised the huge programs of athletic contests
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 99
throughout the American Expeditionary Forces culminating
in June and July, 1919, in the Inter-Allied Games at Pershing
Stadium, Paris.
The five sections whose functions have just been outlined,
with their hundreds of officers, enlisted men, and field clerks,
constituted the General Staff organization proper of the Amer-
ican Expeditionary Forces. But there were, in addition, num-
erous administrative and technical services of the army which
maintained their main offices or at least liaison offices at Gen-
eral Headquarters, many of them occupying rooms in "C"
Building, at the north of the quadrangle, or in some of the
smaller, adjacent buildings in the caserne. Among these were
the main offices of the Inspector General and the Judge Ad-
vocate General of the American Expeditionary Forces and
liaison offices of the Engineer Corps, the Medical Corps and
the Signal Corps, the Air Service and the Ordinance Depart-
ment, whose headquarters were at Tours. In " C " Building
were likewise housed the Italian Mission to American General
Headquarters, under General Perelli, and the Belgian Mission,
under Colonel Tinant. The British Mission, whose chief was
General C. M. Wagstaflf, was located in the southern of two
buildings at the main entrance to the caserne, while the French
Mission, the largest of any of the foreign missions, under
General Ragneau, had a commodious building of its own
down town on the Rue Decres.
West, south, and east of Damremont Barracks, every
available space was filled with the long Adrian barracks of
American troops connected in one way or another with Gen-
eral Headquarters, and on the frequent occasions of ceremony
or entertainment in the quadrangle, the show place par excel-
lence for such functions, they could disgorge an impressive
number of men in olive drab both as participants and as spec-
lOO The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
tators. When there occurred such an event as the bestowal
upon General Pershing of the Grand Cross of the Legion of
Honor by President Poincare, the parade ground would be
surrounded by solid ranks of American and French troops,
backed by a throng of spectators, both soldiers and townspeo-
ple, while the superb General Headquarters' Band, " General
Pershing's Own," supported by some French regimental band,
would discourse martial music, the bugle corps of the two
organizations, in particular, vying with each other to produce
the most amazing flourishes on their instruments. Many
decorations of officers and soldiers by the American military
authorities or by the representatives of Allied governments,
took place in this spot, especially during the winter and spring
of 1919. There at different times President Wilson, King
Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, Marshal Haig, and
the Prince of Wales were formally welcomed to General
Headquarters and there, on one winter afternoon, slender little
Elsie Janis, quite alone, for more than an hour kept in an
uproar of merriment a crowd which filled every foot of space
within sound of her voice.
But the popular daily events, unless the weather was rainy,
were Guard Mount, at 11 :oo o'clock a. m. and the concert by
the General Headquarters Band, from 12:30 to 1:30 p. m.
Guard mount was always a finished and snappy performance
while, at the hour of the concert, a large percentage of the
headquarters personnel was always to be found, spending the
few leisure moments following the noon meal, beneath the
trees or around the covered band stand in front of " B "
Building while the 85 or 90 musicians, selected as the best in
the American Expeditionary Forces, rendered a musical pro-
gram which no band in the United States could excel. From
this same quadrangle, while the war continued, through all
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" loi
the hours of darkness of winter or summer nights, Hghts could
be seen twinkhng around the edges of the black curtains in
some of the windows of each barracks building, showing
where work continued throughout the twenty-four hours.
This, in the briefest sort of outline, was General Head-
quarters, American Expeditionary Forces, the center of the
complex staff organization which for nearly two years con-
trolled the destinies of an American army amounting, at its
maximum, to over 2,125,000 men; an organization whose
decisions and utterances were awaited eagerly during that time
by the people of the United States and upon whose foresight,
efficiency, and firmness, it may fairly be said, the destinies of
the world for a time depended. As was in keeping with the
power of America's effort and the magnitude of her army,
the General Staff at Chaumont was the greatest and undoubt-
edly the most competent staff organization which our nation
ever possessed. Furthermore, there is probably no officer or
enlisted man who had the high privilege of serving with that
organization for any length of time who would not acknowl-
edge that in that group of regular and temporary officers,
representing the highest degree of military, professional, and
technical ability in the many lines requisite for the prosecution
of modern warfare, were assembled the finest and most repre-
sentative body of American gentlemen and men of affairs
whom he ever saw gathered in one group of like size. Such
groups are not drawn together by the ordinary affairs of life;
only patriotism — the single desire to serve their native land
to the exclusion of all else — could ever have assembled such
a body, or can ever again assemble such another.
Retracing our steps from Damremont Barracks down the
Avenue des Etats-Unis, over whose broad, cindered prome-
nade the sunlight, sifting through the trees, weaves a pattern
I02 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of moving leaves, and turning to the right past the Museum,
one comes, at the next corner, to the Rue Bouchardon. Its
curving length of cobbles arrives, after a few hundred feet,
at a high stone entrance opening upon a wide stairway. Mount-
ing this stairway to the second floor, past a stained-glass win-
dow depicting the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont on March
I, 1814, one enters the rooms of the Cercle Militaire des
Armees Alliees : the Inter- Allied Military Club. Before the
American occupation these pleasant quarters were devoted to
the use of the French officers of the One Hundred and Ninth
Infantry and others on duty in Chaumont, but they threw the
doors wide to their brother officers of the Allied armies and
in 19 18 and 19 19 the place was much more frequented by
Americans than by French. Two card-rooms, a small bar,
and a big, quiet reading- and writing-room, its massive center
table furnished with a good selection of current periodicals
French, English, and American; this was the extent of the
Military Club. The deep leather chairs of the reading room
and the crackling fire burning in the fireplace, handsomely
carved above, rendered the place a favorite resort for those
desirous of a quiet hour, especially in the evenings of winter
when most billets, however comfortable in other respects,
were apt to be as cold as sepulchers. To those more convi-
vially inclined, the card-rooms offered an atmosphere of
greater congeniality where among the devotees of the varied
sports of the green-felt-covered tables might be found both
those who sip the austere pleasures of chess and those who
prefer, with more tempestuous emotions, to " read 'em and
weep."
The remainder of the handsome building whose second
floor was occupied by the Cercle Militaire was the American
Guest House, at which many visitors to General Headquarters
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 103
were housed and fed both during and after the war. A cer-
tain, and not very Hmited, number of General Headquarters
officers will recall, either with pleasure or a slight suggestion
of headache, as the case may be, the fraternal celebration of
Bastille Day, July 14, 19 18, which occurred, chiefly, in the
courtyard of the Guest House. The refreshments, it may be
remembered, consisted of sandwiches and champagne. Nev-
ertheless, the next day everyone was busy again for that was
the day when Fritz hit the line along the Marne and east of
Reims — and lost the ball on downs.
A still more important event than this celebration of Bas-
tille Day, however, occurred in the Guest House 104 years
earlier, when this building was occupied by Lord Castlereagh,
the British representative to the chancellories of Russia, Prus-
sia, and Austria while the armies of these Allied powers
were engaged in their final mighty struggle with Napoleon.
During the fluctuating campaign the monarchs of the three
nations, with their prime ministers and military staffs, rested
for some time at Chaumont and it was in the salon of Lord
Castlereagh's house, on March i, 1814, that the Treaty of
Chaumont was signed by that minister acting for Great Brit-
ain, Prince Metternich for Austria, Count Nesselrode for
Russia, and Prince Hardenburg for Prussia. By the Treaty
of Chaumont, done in all the dark secrecy dear to the medie-
val diplomacy of autocratic governments, the contracting pow-
ers solemnly agreed not to cease warfare against France, still
flaming with democracy and revolt against the old order of
things despite the imperial form of her own government,
until she should be reduced to the boundaries held by her at
the beginning of the Revolution of 1789. Pending the accom-
plishment of this aim, each of the three continental powers
agreed to keep 150,000 men constantly in the field, while
8
104 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Great Britain promised to furnish the coalition with an annual
subsidy of 120,000,000 pounds; an almost fabulous sum in
those days. With the final overthrow of Napoleon, this nefa-
rious conspiracy against France was carried out to the letter,
setting back for many years the cause of human liberty, not
so much in France, where it could not be suppressed, but in
Europe at large.
During the period in which the Treaty of Chaumont was
perfected. Czar Alexander of Russia maintained his resi-
dence in the secluded Chateau of Chamarandes, lying on an
attractively parked island in the Marne. The imperial visi-
tor appears to have treated the family of the Marquis of
Chamarandes with great courtesy and many souvenirs of his
sojourn there are preserved in the long salon, the curious old
library, and the other apartments of the chateau, one of them
being a life-size likeness of the then marchioness and her
daughter, painted by the czar's portraitist, an aide on his staff,
and presented to the lady mentioned. In the summer and fall
of 1918 foreign officers were again billeted in the Chateau of
Chamarandes but, though not of royal lineage, they were
much more welcome to the family residing there, of which,
indeed, in all respects of cordiality, they might well have been
members. These officers were two young lieutenants from
Chicago, of whom one was the town major of Chamarandes.
Within the luxurious chambers in which they lodged, fitted
with gilded Louis Quinze furniture and rare tapestries, they
breezily admitted that they were " sitting on the world " and
didn't care how long that sort of a war lasted.
A few hundred yards down the Rue Bouchardon and
across the end of the Rue Girardon, a narrow alleyway runs
around beneath the eaves of the Church of St. Jean-Baptiste.
The pathway constitutes a short cut into the Rue St. Jean
.- -— . r.
The Rue Saint Jean, Chaumont
[Page IO4]
Where Chamarandes drowses beneath the Chaumont hill
[Page IO4]
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 105
and issues upon that street beside the south portal of the
church, an exquisite example of Renaissance architecture
incrusted with delicately modeled stonework and bas-reliefs
of biblical characters surrounding and surmounting the time-
worn doors, which in themselves display remarkably rich
wood carving. In marked contrast to this elaborate entrance
is the main, or west portal, lying between the towers and
forming, with the towers themselves, the oldest portion of
the church, wrought with the severe simplicity of the twelfth
century.
The interior of St. Jean's, as it is smaller, is also less awe-
inspiring than those of the great French cathedrals. A cer-
tain warmth of tone in its stonework and soft blending of the
side chapels into the nave and choir, and of the massive, clus-
tered columns into the groins of the roof, together with the
subdued light which filters through its rich old stained glass
by day and the not too garish illumination of its candelabra
at night, lend to the ancient edifice an atmosphere of venera-
ble friendliness very rarely to be found in a church of such
really majestic proportions. Passing, on a summer afternoon,
from the white sunshine and the workaday noises of the street
into the cool, hushed twilight of these sacred precincts, it
would be a cynical person, indeed, who could fail to feel a
reverent quieting of the spirit as he looked about him. Directly
before him, with perhaps a ray of filtered sunlight across her
earnest, upturned face, stood, in its little chapel, Desvergnes'
slender, armored figure of Jeanne d'Arc, the shaft of her
upright banner in her hands and, at her feet, a pitiful little
cluster of prayer offerings and of half-burned candles left by
those anxious parents and wives and sweethearts and chil-
dren who knelt to her for the safety of their menfolk, fight-
ing for France in the far-off trenches of the battle line. Mid-
lo6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
way of the nave the wonderful carved flowers, wreaths, and
human and angelic figures wrought by Bouchardon, the elder,
on the high pulpit and the churchwarden's bench, stood etched
against the towering pillars while far down the side aisles
past the various chapels whose walls were rich with time-
darkened paintings, among them one by Andrea del Sarto,
the faint flicker of candles in the chapels behind the great
altar intensified the darkness of those secluded recesses and
the jewel-like coloring of the stained glass above them.
Through an archway looking across the breadth of the right
transept the open, almost lacelike stonework enclosing the
spiral turret stairway accentuated the height of the ceilings,
while beside the high altar great French and American flags
with those of the other Allied nations beside them, lent a
startling burst of patriotic coloring to the otherwise subdued
vista.
Nineteen chapels adorn the inner circuit of St. Jean's, not
one of which does not contain valuable works of sculpture,
painting, metalwork or wood carving. In the Chapel of St.
Nicholas and St. Francis-Xavier is a stone carved Tree of
Jesse of the fifteenth century, one of the most curious in exis-
tence. On the branches of the tree are seated fourteen figures,
representing the ancestors of Jesus Christ but dressed, none
the less, in costumes of the fifteenth century. The Chapel of St.
Honore contains a painting of St. Alexis by Andrea del Sarto,
and several other chapels have statues by Edme Bouchardon.
The vandalism of the Revolution destroyed a number of the
art works within the church as well as the statues which for-
merly ornamented the south portal. But there still survives
one of the finest groups — that surrounding the entrance to
the Holy Sepulchre. It consists of a superb figure of Christ
upon the cross, over the doorway, and figures of the Virgin
''Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 107
Mary and of Christ carrying his cross, in niches at the sides.
These statues, with minor figures, and the architectural work
surrounding them, were the creation of Jean-Baptiste Bouch-
ardon, whose son, Edme, later copied them for the Church of
St. Sulpice in Paris.
But the Holy Sepulchre itself, whose doorway these
statues adorn, is easily the most remarkable work in the entire
church. Set in place in 1471 in a stone vault measuring about
9 by 12 feet within and illuminated only by one tiny Gothic
window admitting a mere pinpoint of light, this vividly life-
like masterpiece of a sculptor whose identity has been lost,
has, for nearly 450 years, drawn to its mysterious abiding
place the feet of devout pilgrims from near and far, particu-
larly on the evenings of Maundy Thursday when, at the sol-
emn midnight service ushering in Good Friday, the Sepulchre
is opened. Such a service, never to be forgotten, the writer
was privileged to witness on Good Friday Eve, in 1919.
A large crowd filled every corner of the church, whose
central portion was well lighted but whose chancel and side
aisles lay in obscurity, the outlines of sculptured saints and
the dull glitter of gilded altars and stained glass appearing,
half revealed, above the heads of the people. Although the
congregation was so large one felt the homelike intimacy of
the edifice, so unlike the austere atmosphere which pervades
so many ancient churches. The gathering seemed that of
some big family, facing from every direction toward the high
pulpit, while the priest, pronouncing from this eminence the
sober discourse appropriate to Good Friday Eve, was, indeed,
like a father admonishing his children. At length he ended
and the congregation, rising, faced toward the doorway of
the Holy Sepulchre while the tones of the great organ rolled
through the archways and the voices of the worshipers lifted
io8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
to the vaulted roof the strains of one of the majestic old
sacred hymns. Then slowly and reverently, the crowd began
passing through the low, massive stone portal, more than
six feet deep, into the Sepulchre.
A blazing array of candles lighted the interior from one
end, and beneath their glow the group of statues revealed
themselves with a startling suggestion of life. Down in the
vault, two or three feet below the floor level, lies the figure
of the Christ, strikingly natural in face and outline though
vault and recumbent figure are carved from one solid block
of stone. At the foot of the vault kneels Nicodemus, pre-
paring to anoint the body of the Master with perfume; at
its head is Joseph of Arimathaea in a similar attitude. At the
side kneel Mary Magdalene, St. John, and the swooning Vir-
gin, and behind them are the Centurion, Mary, the mother of
James, Veronica, and James the Elder. The colors of the
statues and of the interior of the Sepulchre are strong and
rich, despite the centuries that have passed since they were
painted, and the figures are remarkably executed. It did not de-
tract from the impressiveness of the scene to reflect that this
group was placed in the Church of St. Jean-Baptiste twenty-
two years before Columbus discovered America and that dur-
ing all these generations pilgrims from the pleasant villages
round about Chaumont have come on Good Friday Eves to
pay homage to it, even as they had come on this night when,
intermingled with them for a time as friends and neighbors,
many American soldiers brought also to the ancient shrine a
reverence none the less sincere because they came from a land
whose youth forbids the existence of such venerable symbols
of the Christian religion.
Crossing the broad street intersection before St. Jean's,
from which one may look back at the grotesque gargoyles
'^Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 109
projecting from the cornices of the church and the pigeons
circling, in the rays of the westering sun, about the hoary,
buttressed towers, one may turn, if he wish, at once into the
Rue du Palais and thence to the Palace of Justice. But south
a few steps down the steep cobbles of the Rue St. Jean and
then around the corner where once stood the Porte de I'Eau,
into the still steeper length of the Rue des Tanneries, there
is a place that should not be forgotten. It is the Restaurant
Trompe, standing back from the street, so modest and small
that one would never give it a second glance did he not know
of it beforehand. Once through the unpromising doorway,
one found himself in a low room flanked by two long tables
with chairs along their outer edges and benches against the
walls on the other side. The table to the right was usually
favored by French soldiers and civilians. From the one at
the left the arriving guest in olive drab never failed of a
jovial welcome from the group of American habitues who
always assembled there for dinner; young lieutenants and
enlisted men, most of them, with an occasional sprinkling of
"gold or silver leaves" and possibly a "pair of eagles," but
every man, it may safely be asserted, an epicure. For where
else in Chaumont was to be found such creamy potage, such
veau and hoeuf and mouton in various appetizing forms, such
modest but excellent vins, such brown and feathery pommes
frit — yes, and even to palates grown weary of their Gallic
frequency, such really savory petits pois and chou-Heurf And
who that supped at the Restaurant Trompe will ever forget
the added flavor which every dish acquired because it was
served by Leone, the winsome daughter of the proprietor;
slender little Leone, with her golden hair and blue eyes, her
quick smile and grace of movement, and that wistful voice
of hers that made her so startlingly different from anyone
no The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
else and so appealing to every man's sense of chivalry?
Because of her, somehow when you left the Restaurant
Trompe you felt that you had not only enjoyed a good dinner
but had come in contact with a personality that embodied
some of the best and most charming attributes of woman-
hood, which may often reach greater perfection in a humble
home than in a palace.
The walls of the reserved old residences along the Rue du
Palais echo the footsteps of the passer-by at any hour but
never more loudly than just at sunset, which is the best time
to visit the Palace of Justice, the Tour Hautefeuille, and the
tiny garden beyond them. Then the stone steps, worn hol-
low by the feet of many generations, and the circuitous cor-
ridors within are deserted and as you cross the hall of the
Court of Assizes, with its high, funereally draped judge's
bench and pewlike jury and witness boxes, you realize some-
thing of the outward trappings which help to make the course
of justice in France so much more pompous and awesome
than it is in America. Another corridor which lies in semi-
darkness with deeply vaulted doorways abutting upon it, con-
ducts onward to a ponderous oaken door at its farther end.
When this door, by no small exertion, has been pulled open,
admitting a rush of daylight and fresh air, one steps forth
into a little fairyland, borne up above the world almost as
if founded upon a cloud. It is the garden occupying the site
of the former donjon of the Counts of Champagne. A gravel
path skirts the edge of the parapet, bordered on its inner side
by rose bushes which in midsimimer are weighted down with
luscious blossoms, two inches or more in diameter, pink and
white and yellow. The rose-fringed pathway encloses a bit
of emerald lawn and a bench or two beneath the low branches
of some patriarchal trees, above whose topmost boughs
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" iii
looms the mighty bulk of the Tour Hautefeuille, brooding,
as for ages past, upon the lovely valley at its feet.
From the edge of the ivied parapet, which is the base of
the old donjon, one cannot look upon the scene without
delight in its present beauty and moving thoughts of the past.
Far below, in the Valley of Peace, as it is sometimes called,
the blue and rippling ribbon of the Suize wends its circuitous
way daintily between the neat gardens and the white-and-red
cottages of the Faubourg des Tanneries. To the right the
steep declivity of the Chaumont Plateau, from base to summit
richly green with pines and firs, sweeps around toward the
north, the dome of the Hopital Civile and the roofs of the
Caserne Damremont just visible above them. Far to the left,
above the Faubourg des Abattoir, is discernible the length
of that majestic viaduct, worthy of a Roman architect, which
carries the Chemin de Fer de I'Est across the Suize Valley
on its way to Bel fort. Beyond it the last rays of the sun
stream across the Bassigny Hills, casting long shadows over
the Valley of Peace where cattle graze in the pasture lands
and the rooks stalk solemnly between the haycocks on the
dewy meadows. White roads climb out of the valley beyond
the faubourgs and stretch away across the uplands by wheat
field and coppice and woodland toward Jonchery, Villers-le-
Sec, and Bretenay and those other villages whose spires can
barely be discerned in the blue distance. And as one stands
beside the donjon parapet with the perfume of the roses,
symbols of eternal youth and beauty and hope, in his nostrils
and the shadow of the sentinel tower, symbol of vanished
oppression, ill-requited toil, and social slavery, above his
head, he must realize more keenly why the people of France
by instinct fight so tenaciously for the treasures of liberty and
peace which they have wrested, bit by bit, in age-long strug-
112 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
gles from domestic despots and foreign invaders. As we
in America, so they in France have all about them the evi-
dences of their modern achievements. But they have, like-
wise, all about them the decaying memorials of the walls and
shackles which they have burst, and ever on their borders the
threatenings of those ancient enemies who would reduce them
once more to a bondage as bitter, though different in form.
Could any incentives be more potent than these to the ready
spirit of sacrifice for home and country?
The Tour Hautefeuille, laid up of enormous squared
stones and buttressed within by timbers like the masts of a
frigate, was built about the year 960 and it is by far the
oldest structure in Chaumont. Yet it formed, originally, but
a small part of the great chateau which the Counts of Cham-
pagne first used for centuries as a fortress, and then for other
centuries as a sort of pleasure palace and hunting lodge. The
now fertile valley of the Suize was at that period dammed
across its narrowest part, forming a lake which ran far back
up the valley, in the midst of the immense park appertaining
to the chateau. Upon many a battle, siege, and foray the old
tower has looked down and upon many a courtly assemblage
where cardinals and mighty dukes and even kings and queens
were gathered to partake of the hospitality of the lords of
a feudal house once as powerful as any in Europe. Today
it looks down upon the court of justice of a republic and the
homes of a free people; some humble, many comfortable, a
few luxurious, but all far removed from the cheerless hovels
of the ancient days. Had it the gift of speech, the Tour
Hautefeuille might well prove not only a learned historian
but a shrewd moralist.
Although a thousand interesting corners still remain un-
explored, our wanderings in Chaumont must come to an end.
"Fought the Battle of Chaumont" 113
But, crossing the city once more in the gathering dusk to
the extremity of the Place du Champ de Mars, we may leave
it by the shady road to Neufchateau, curving down the long
hillside into the valley of the Marne. At the foot of the hill
is the mossy wall surrounding St. Aignan's Cemetery, with
the fagade and tower of the ancient church, as old as St.
Jean's itself, half hidden behind the tombstones and the trees
growing among them. Beside the wall a by-road leads down
toward the Marne where, on a sheltered little plateau above
the stream, lies a spot more sacred to the soldiers from the
New World than any other in Chaumont — the American
Military Cemetery.
Slumbering in the deep peace of the valley, here lie buried
545 officers and soldiers of the United States Army and
among them a few faithful nurses and welfare workers. Some
of them died in the camps in and around Chaumont but most
of them of wounds or disease at Base Hospital 15. The loca-
tion and surroundings of the cemetery are most appealing.
Close beside the parish cemetery it lies, the shadow of St.
Aignan's stretching across it in the afternoon and the soft
tones of her bell floating over it at matins and vespers. Here,
with the peculiar tenderness of the French for the places of
the dead, come often the people of Chaumont, impartially
bestowing their attentions upon these graves of allies and
upon St. Aignan's sepulchres ; planting and tending the flow-
ers around the mounds or hanging upon the white crosses
at their heads some of those pathetic funeral wreaths of bead-
wrought flowers and leaves which are the universal tokens of
mourning in the cemeteries of France. How much better that
they should lie there forever, marshaled with the comrades
of their faith and watched over by the kindred people to
whose aid they came in the hour of bitter need, than that
114 ^^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
their dust should be exhumed and sent across the ocean to
be scattered in the private cemeteries of city and village and
countryside, inevitably to be at last neglected and forgotten!
For here they may rest, as the dead in America's other war
cemeteries in France may rest, still active factors for the good
of the world as everlasting symbols of the union of free
peoples in a high cause. Certainly to Chaumont, knowing
scarcely a single American before the great war, the cemetery
beside St. Aignan's is a bond of sympathy with the people
and the institutions of the United States more strong and
abiding than the most imposing monument.
So, as the lights twinkle out among the trees of the hill-
top city and evening with its deep peace comes down over
the valley where the fragrance of wild flowers and mown
fields drifts above the serried graves and the waters of the
immortal Marne whisper at their feet, let us leave both Chau-
mont and them, assured that here among the hills of the High
Marne, fallen comrades and living friends have together
reared a shrine to which the feet of Americans will come
generations after the last soldier of the World War shall have
received his discharge from the armies of earth.
CHAPTER VII
WHERE DREAMS THE STILL CANAL
AMONG the characteristic features of the French coun-
tryside, none probably impressed itself more vividly
upon the recollection of many Americans than the numerous
canals. To us they are more striking than to Europeans
because they are comparatively rare in our own country,
whose rapid growth has thus far outrun such intensive devel-
opments as canals for the cheapening of transportation. But
in France they are, and for many years have been, important
factors in the economic life of the country. In the region
of northeastern France given over to the American training
areas, canals, usually paralleling the courses of the larger
rivers, are quite common and rarely lacking in beauty.
Among them all none is more picturesque than the Marne-
Saone Canal between Chaumont and St. Dizier. In all that
distance of 75 kilometers, or more, the accompanying canal
is more conspicuous than the river, which receives only one
tributary of any importance, the Rognon, in the region men-
tioned. The capricious little Marne wanders where it will
about the bases of the hills and through woodlands and
meadows, while the canal marches onward in long stretches
of placid blue water, edged by the white towpaths and straight
ranks of poplars, turning now and then only in a sweeping
bend to conform to the general outline of the valley.
Just below Chaumont occurs one of these bends, where
both canal and river round the base of the hill overspread
by the dusky woods of the park which surrounds the Chateau
of Condes. In a marshy bit of ground just at the foot of
the hill the waters of the Suize glide into those of the Marne,
115
Ii6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
while high above them both the canal stretches on, its em-
bankments clothed with grass short and thick as a lawn, and
starred with daisies. In such stretches as this the big blunt-
bowed canal barges appear scarcely to move at all as they
are pulled ahead by a long towrope attached to a team of
horses. Long accustomed to such toil, the animals lift and
plant their feet with incredible deliberation, giving to their
driver, usually a small boy, ample leisure for exploring the
adjacent shores and for gazing back at the high hill of Chau-
mont, lifting the dark mass of buildings of Damremont Bar-
racks against the southern sky.
The progress of a canal barge through a lock is always
an entertaining sight, especially if one can watch it from the
comfortable eminence of the iron railing, or one of the
cement " snubbing posts " at one end of the long, boxlike lock
whose substantial masonry walls are topped by smooth cement.
As the barge, assuming it to be a descending one, approaches
the head gates, the lock-keeper or his wife or daughter comes
forth from the neat little stuccoed house which stands beside
every lock, and by turning a windlass swings the great iron
head gates slowly open. Into the lock the barge is drawn
and the towteam then unhitched to graze peacefully by the
side of the path until the barge shall have been lowered. The
lock-keeper closes the head gates, proceeds to the other end
of the lock, and opens the sluices of the tail gates. With a
great hissing and splashing the confined waters begin to pour
down into the lower level while the hull of the barge slowly
sinks within the lock walls. Perhaps the family on board
is preparing for a meal, for these craft appear often to be
chartered by some farmer or other worker having merchant-
able produce who loads the fruit of his year's labor into the
hold and, with his family in the cabin, and the whole upper
Where Dreams the Still Canal 117
deck for back yard and recreation ground, proceeds in this
pleasant fashion to some large city where he can advantage-
ously dispose of his goods. The mere passage of a lock does
not interfere in the least with the domestic routine of an
itinerant family. If dinner is preparing, it proceeds; if the
washing is finished, it goes up to dry on lines strung about
over the deck.
In perhaps 6 or 8 minutes the surplus water has been
discharged from the lock and the barge has sunk some 8 or
9 feet to the level of the next stretch of canal. Then the
tail gates are thrown wide, the sleepy horses are hooked up
once more to the sagging towrope and the ungainly craft with
its family, and perhaps a milk goat or a dog gazing out
across the stern, all blissfully unconcerned with the fret and
feverish hurry of the world, floats off at the rate of some
2 miles per hour down a lane of turquoise water whose sur-
face, scarcely broken by a ripple, reflects the feathery poplar
branches and the blue sky above them like a pathway leading
into fairyland.
The village of Condes, about a mile and a half below
Chaumont, though possessed of less than 200 inhabitants, is
said by the ancient chroniclers to have been a town in 961, in
the time of King Lothair. Such a rate of growth would hardly
encourage real-estate investment by the business man of
America, nor does Condes appear to have attained great pro-
portions at any epoch. We are told that in 1225, 264 years
after King Lothair graced the place with his royal but rather
nerveless presence, one Seigneur d'Ambonville, then lord of
that region, sold to the Abbey of Clairvaux "all the tithes
and revenues " not only of Condes but also of Bretenay and
Jonchery for the sum of 240 livres, about $4,800.00, "in
strong money of Provins." Evidently the good seigneur
Ii8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
intended to get his $4,800.00 at par value, for in those days
the "strong money" coined at the local mint of the city of
Provins, in Ile-de-France, was a synonym for standard weight
and fineness.
Today Condes is a cluster of cottages on a little hill,
encircled by a bend of the Marne which here runs deep and
still past the ruins of an old mill, half buried in trees and
bushes, and along the base of the steep hills towering up
opposite the village. The highest point in the hamlet itself
is crowned by the gray old church, a massive retaining wall
holding its graveyard aloft from the street, which circles
about it and seems seldom animated by other living presence
than a few chickens and ducks and perhaps a cow or two.
A few hundred feet above the village a bridge, its stones
green with moss, arches the Marne and gives access to the
lovely park of the Chateau of Condes. This place, even more
secluded than the Chateau du Val-des-Ecoliers, was occupied
during the latter part of the war by a number of Italian
officers connected with the Italian Mission at American Gen-
eral Headquarters. A little stream, wandering down from
the hills and filled, near the chateau, with a variety of rare
aquatic plants, is said to harbor excellent trout, while along
the winding graveled paths and roadways one catches glimpses
of more than one white marble statue gleaming through the
foliage.
Hardly a quarter of a mile west of Condes, the Marne-
Saone Canal, within the space of a few hundred yards, per-
forms two feats which, though not uncommon, yet always
seem rather startling for a canal; it crosses the river and it
goes straight through a hill. The broad aqueduct, solidly
built of steel and cement, by which it passes over the Marne,
permits the latter to make the bend by which it skirts the
Where Dreams the Still Canal 119
chateau park and circles Condes. The jutting ridge thus
avoided by the river, the canal on the contrary bores through
by a tunnel 300 yards long and having a width of 50 feet
and a height of 25. Upon emerging from the tunnel, the
canal swings around past the foot of the hill on which Bre-
tenay sprawls its two or three short, rocky streets and then
again meets the Marne; but, for the first time since the two
began their journey side by side near Langres, on the left
instead of the right bank of the river.
In the floor of Bretenay's church are imbedded a number
of tombstones upon whose worn surfaces can still be deciph-
ered dates of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the
names of long-extinct noble families of the region round about
whose very existence is otherwise forgotten. But aside from
these venerable stones and the views across the valley of the
Alarne, so lovely from nearly every village on its course that
the temptation to linger in contemplation becomes a fixed
attitude of mind, there is little to commend Bretenay to the
wayfarer's attention. That is, little unless it be a certain
curiosity as to where the vineyards grew which produced the
wine unflatteringly mentioned in an addition to the litany
made by the devout Chaumontais of olden days : " From
the bread of Brottes, from the wine of Bretenay, and from
the cheese of Verbiesles, good Lord, deliver usl"
Couched close beside the river on the bank opposite to
the road from Bretenay to Bologne, the hamlet of Riaucourt
misses half the sunlight of the afternoons because the shadow
of the forest-clad hill behind it so early stretches itself across
the gray church tower and the meadows close at hand. Close
to Riaucourt, on the rolling uplands, lies a farm which was
mentioned by its present name. La Ferme des Quartiers, in
documents of as remote a date as 1184. Obviously, upon
I20 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
ground so long cultivated, intensive farming has been neces-
sary for many a century past in order to keep in the soil
any productive power whatever and the success of such
methods, practically in perpetuity, is shown by the really
excellent crops produced on many ancient farms. In the
church of Riaucourt one finds upon a certain worn tombstone
a quaint epitaph which, freely translated, runs as follows :
//, stranger, thou dost wish to know
Who, in this sad house, lies below,
'Tis one who swore not save, "alas!"
And was esteemed a new Pallas.
Anne she was tianted; a woman sage.
Of noble blood and speech to trust;
Fixed in her home, where, in old age,
She wished her bones returned to dust.
Pray, stranger, to the God of grace
To give her soul a pleasant place.
If one but had the time and the facilities, in this widely
diversified country of the High Marne, for journeying from
one to another of the river villages on foot or, better still,
on horseback, by leisurely detours over the hills and valleys
back from the river, he would find at every step new beauties
to delight the eye and at every turn a fresh variation in the
smile of nature. Reversing the American method, in the
town the Frenchman surrounds his houses and gardens with
walls; in the country he leaves his farms and woodlands
utterly open. Hence the Haute-Marne countryside, for
example, is a paradise for the cross-country rider, being as
free from fences as the rolling prairies of the old American
West. Indeed, save for the greater abundance of timber,
it is very similar in the general appearance of its landscapes
to the country adjacent to the Missouri River in Nebraska,
Where Dreams the Still Canal 121
Missouri, Iowa, and South Dakota. One might set forth on
a much-traveled main road and, reaching the top of the hills
by its dusty course, turn off at the first branching way, defined
only by the tracks of farm carts. Up over a bit of stony
ground it goes and then across a level bit of blue grass dotted
with crimson clover. Take the gallop and fly over a half-
mile of upland meadow with small pine woods at a distance
on either hand, to slow down across a marshy brook and find
yourself skirting the mossy wall of an old chateau park, with
bosky woods across the way. On again, ignoring a main road
which your cart track crosses at right angles, and out between
fields of golden wheat.
Perhaps in the distance a farmer is driving his reaper,
and shocks of bundles dot the sunny field with some rooks
solemnly stalking about them and among the poppies and corn-
flowers, which everywhere dash the dull gold of the stubble
with vivid crimson and blue. The cart track fades to a bridle
path but it is trotting ground always as the path winds be-
tween the small individual grain patches which, in sum, make
one great field. The edge of the cultivated ground is reached.
Across a bit of grass the path points toward a woodland, its
border of outbending branches seeming impenetrable. But
no fear; plunge in. A moment and you find that the path
is a cool, green tunnel, arched over by great tree limbs and
fair shrubbery, so dense by the wayside that it seems a wall,
yet so well trimmed that it is always possible to trot if one
wishes with rarely a branch to whip one across the face.
Down a steep hillside where the ground is richly green with
a dense, glistening carpet of ivy and the tree trunks have been
turned to pillars of jade by its creeping vines, and here is
a little brook bubbling over the stones in a bed shadowed
almost to twilight by the dense foliage above. Up the oppo-
122 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
site hillside and perhaps a tumbled mass of squared stones
with vestiges of ruined wall, glimpsed between the trees,
causes one to wonder whether here is the ruin of some long-
forgotten chateau or that of an ancient hermit's priory, for
in this land of countless ruins investigation might prove either
supposition correct.
It may be that at the top of the hill the path comes out
in a carrefour, or meeting place of several woodland roads,
marked, very likely, by a stone pillar. Among the various
tracks leading off between the trees, one must be chosen for
further progress, but the uncertainty of results merely adds
zest to such a journey. You choose, and go on. After a
time you come out suddenly into a section of the forest which
is being lumbered. But it is not being slashed down merci-
lessly, the chosen logs snaked away and the ground left lit-
tered with shorn branches, crushed and dying saplings and
mutilated undergrowth, as is too often the case in a lumbered
area of an American forest. Every pine capable of yielding
dimension timber has been marked with record numbers in
blue chalk and is being carefully sawed preparatory to re-
moval. Every particle of small branches is piled up neatly
for use as fuel and every sapling whose future growth is
desired has been preserved.
The road winds on through another section of standing
forest and then, all at once, comes out upon the high crest
of an open hill from which, in full view ahead, breaks the
vision of the green Marne Valley, jeweled at intervals with
the clustered red roofs of villages, while on the far hills
beyond, in a sea of sunshine, islands of cloud shadows slowly
drift. In the other direction, beyond a fold of higher ground,
clothed with rippling alfalfa, rises through treetops the spire
of a village church. Over the woods and fields rests the hush
Where Dreams the Still Canal 123
of the summer afternoon, broken only by the far-off cawing
of a rook. Then suddenly up from the heart of the alfalfa
shoots straight toward the sky a little fluff of liquid melody.
It is a skylark. Up and up he goes, a hundred, two hun-
dred feet, his ecstatic carol pouring down like shaken drops
from a fountain of music. Then, reaching at once the apex
of his flight and of his song, like a plummet he drops again
into the grass, to repeat his performance after a moment's
interval.
Such excursions as the one just described, with infinite
variations and additions, may be made anywhere among the
hills of the Marne, not alone in its upper reaches but all the
way to Paris, and the knowledge that on every hand such
scenes lie awaiting the pleasure of the wayfarer, lends to the
whole land a never-ending charm.
As the junction on the railway between Chaumont and
St. Dizier at which a branch line runs off to Andelot and
Neufchateau, the village of Bologne is of some importance,
as it was in a different sense as early as 757, when a Count
of Bologne already held the country as a vassal of Pepin the
Short, founder of the Carlovingian dynasty and father of
Charlemagne. The place received its name from Ste. Bol-
ogne, a virgin martyr of the fourth century A. D., who met
her death on the territory of Roocourt-la-C6te, on the oppo-
site shore of the Marne. As has been mentioned in an earlier
chapter, the counts of Bassigny and Bologne were the earliest
lords of Chaumont and one of them, Geoffrey, was made the
first Count of Champagne by Hugh Capet about the year 987.
The place lies prettily along the left bank of the Marne which,
near the village, is again crossed by the canal on an aqueduct.
But the special importance of Bologne today resides in the
fact that it possesses extensive loading platforms and bar-
124 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
racks at its military railway station, this being one of the
assembly points for troops destined for service on the east-
ern frontier, in the event of mobilization.
It is scarcely possible as we proceed down river toward
Joinville to pass a village with whose past there are not con-
nected more or less historical facts or traditions of interest.
Thus Roocourt-la-C6te, which was once in the fourth century
destroyed by Ptolemy, a Roman general of the Emperor
Julian the Apostate, shows a chapel marking the reputed site
of the martyrdom of Ste. Bologne. At Vieville was once
uncovered by farmers working in their fields, an immense
vault made of bricks each nearly two feet square, laid in very
hard cement, which when opened disclosed a fortune in
Roman coins. Up the deep valley of a little brook entering
the Marne from the west, lies Vignory, whose parish church,
completed early in the eleventh century, is considered the
finest example of Romanesque church architecture in the
Department of the Haute-Marne because it preserves so per-
fectly the architecture and sculpture of its primitive period.
At Villiers-sur-Marne, whose cottages, containing less
than 300 inhabitants, lie in a deep bend of the river and
canal just off the main Chaumont-St. Dizier road, the writer
stopped for lunch one hot and dusty day in August, 191 9.
Beside the house wall, whose shadow broke the heat of the
sun, the table was set in the courtyard of the villager who
was at once the local blacksmith and proprietor of the modest
cafe and hotel. Near the door of the blacksmith-shop, hard
by, stood a primitive reaper and a huge two-wheeled farm
cart, with other farming implements awaiting repairs, and
across the court, just beyond a wall clothed with carefully
trimmed grapevines, rose the low edifice and squat, gray tower
of the village church.
Where Dreams the Still Canal 125
While the hostess, smiling with pleasure at having Amer-
icans as guests once more, was preparing and serving the
luncheon of crisp fried potatoes, feathery omelette, bread and
butter, and St. Dizier beer, a fox terrier belonging to the
family displayed an unusually keen interest in the visitors,
rubbing against their olive-drab trousers and licking their
olive-drab sleeves with an unmistakable air of welcome. The
family addressed the little animal as " Miss," a name strangely
English to the ear, and inquiry disclosed the fact that she
had been, until a few months before, the mascot of one of
the batteries of the American Fifty-eighth Coast Artillery
Corps, which had billetted in Villiers-sur-Marne in January
and February, 19 19, after the departure of Batteries A and
B, Fifty-ninth Coast Artillery Corps. Upon leaving the
humble Marne village, which was in the center of the Eigh-
teenth American Training Area, the men of the Fifty-eighth
Regiment bequeathed " Miss " to the family of the black-
smith and cafe-keeper to whose children she was a boon
companion, although on her part evidently cherishing fond
recollections of her departed American masters.
The hill country in the region of Villiers-sur-Marne, hav-
ing rather sterile soil, has been largely left in forests, among
which are some of the most extensive in the Haute-Marne.
Between Bologne and Donjeux, in addition to numerous
smaller areas, lie, to the east of the river, the Foret du Heu,
the Bois des Grandes Combes and the Foret du Pavilion,
while to the west of it lies the Foret de I'Etoile. Each of
these contains in the neighborhood of 25 square miles, or
16,000 acres, of timber. Communal woodlands and National
forest alike are intersected by frequent roads and paths, mak-
ing every portion of them readily accessible. Here and there
among the great stretches of pine, fir and cedar, oak, beech,
126 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
maple, elm, ash, buckthorn, hornbeam, and other varieties
of trees, are almost always to be found spots of romantic
interest ; a spring surrounded by a sculptured fount and basin,
dedicated to some saint; a crucifix of local repute; the ruined
oratory of an ancient hermit or, perhaps, the scattered and
decaying stones of a medieval chateau or the hunting pavil-
ion of long-dead king or duke or count.
The villages of Gudmont, Rouvroy, and Donjeux lie close
together in a series of bends of the Marne and the canal,
of which the latter is now quite active with barges. In the
two villages last named, early in 19 19, were billeted the por-
tions of the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Coast Artillery
Corps which were not stationed at Villiers-sur-Marne. Don-
jeux, which boasts iron works and a cement factory, possesses
also a handsome church of the twelfth century with an ogival
porch and some well-preserved sculptures of that period. The
River Rognon, coming from the southeast, adds its con-
siderable volume to the Marne just below the village. Across
the widened valley thus created, on the crest of a massive
hill east of the Rognon, clothed with vineyards and orchard
trees, stands a chateau built in the eighteenth century on the
site of a medieval structure which belonged to the family of
Joinville, whose most illustrious member, Jean, Sire de Join-
ville, the historian of King Louis ix, we will meet when
we come to the city of Joinville.
St. Urbain, named in honor of Pope Urban i, the saint
and martyr whose bones were deposited in the abbey there in
865, is noted for the delicacy of its wines, in the production
of which most of its inhabitants make their livelihood. In-
deed, in the sixteenth century it boasted a unique official, bear-
ing the title of " Gourmet, Taster of Wines." But in St.
Urbain the tiny facet upon which the light of history glows
Where Dreams the Still Canal 127
is the day of February 24, 1429, when Jeanne d'Arc, escorted
by her faithful guardians, Jean de Novelonpont and Bertrand
de Poulangy and four others, rested there and heard mass
at the abbey after her first night's march from Voucouleurs,
through a hostile country, on her ever-memorable journey to
the court of the Dauphin at Chinon.
One more small village, Fronville, is passed and then, on
a hill crest where the road bends above Rupt, is disclosed
across billows of orchard and vineyard, a charming view of
Joinville, at a distance down the valley ahead, with the
slender spire of Notre Dame Church thrusting up at the base
of the bold hill whose summit supports the ruins of the Cha-
teau de Joinville. A few hundred yards more through Rupt,
whose own chateau with its curiously peaked and sloping
roofs is not without interest, and the high-road parts with
its bordering poplars, passes between the first outlying houses
of Joinville into its long main street and by that into the
Rue du Grand Pont. The latter, stretching eastward from
the railroad station, is the main business thoroughfare of
the city.
CHAPTER VIII
JOINVILLE-EN-VALLAGE
THE little city of less than 4,000 people which today
looks across the varied verdure of the Marne Valley
to the gradual slopes of the eastward heights, carpeted with
varicolored blocks of field and vineyard and woodland, harks
back for its origin to the reign of the Roman emperor. Vale-
rian, whose cavalry general Flavius Valerius Jovinus, is said
to have erected on the hill of Joinville a strong tower as a
defense against the Germans. The town grew up at the
foot of the fortified hill and was itself fortified by King
Louis the Fat, that staunch friend of the communes, in the
first half of the twelfth century. At this period the Join-
ville family became the feudal lords of the chateau and sur-
rounding territory, remaining in power until the end of the
fourteenth century. Then a daughter of the house. Mar-
guerite de Joinville, carried the heritage into the family of
Lorraine, from which it passed to the Dukes of Guise and
finally to the Orleans family, of which the third son con-
tinued to bear the title. Prince of Joinville, until the over-
throw of royalty in France. Students of American history
will recall that during our Civil War, which occurred while
Napoleon iii was emperor of the French and, consequently,
while the Orleanists were still active pretenders to the throne
of France, the most important members of the family, the
Count of Paris, the Duke of Chartres, and the Prince of
Joinville, came to America in the autumn of 1861 and served
through the Peninsular campaign of the following year as
volunteer aides-de-camp on the staff of General George B. Mc-
Clellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac. A few years
128
Joinville-en-Vallage 129
later the Count of Paris published a history of the American
Civil War to the close of 1863, which, in all the voluminous
literature on the subject, has rarely been equaled as a mili-
tary study of that portion of the great American conflict.
The Sire Jean de Joinville, who was the most illustrious
native of the little city by the Marne, is a figure of some
interest to Americans and especially to the people of St.
Louis, Missouri, because he was the historian of the great
St. Louis, that king of France for whom the city of St.
Louis was named. The Sire de Joinville preserved in his
writings the greater part of the facts which are known today
concerning that gallant crusader who was at once the most
chivalrous gentleman and the most just and conscientious
monarch who ever occupied the throne of France. The bio-
grapher who, in writing his intimate story of the good king's
life, incidentally earned for himself an immortal place in
literature, was not, under the feudal system, a direct vassal
of the King of France but of the Count of Lorraine. Con-
sequently he never consented to swear fealty to the king. But
in 1248 he answered Louis' call to the Sixth Crusade, though
he left his ancestral home above the pleasant valley of the
Marne with heart burnings so keen that, as he has recorded
in his works, he dared not trust himself as he rode away
with his knights and men-at-arms to look back at the chateau
and the town, the green fields and tree shadowed river from
the last point on the road which disclosed that gentle view.
Serving the king with unswerving devotion during the
six unfortunate years which followed the first brief success
at Damietta and the disastrous defeat of Mansourah, in
Egypt, he had the joy of returning to his home in 1254.
Thenceforward he declined to be lured far from France and
the simple and congenial duties and pleasures of a country
130 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
nobleman, either upon crusades or other matters. He was
already a very old man when he began his Histoire de Saint
Louis, which he completed several years later, in 1309. In
13 1 5, at the age of ninety-one, he showed his doughty spirit
by responding to the summons of King Louis X to bear arms
against the Flemings. Surviving, with astonishing vitality,
the rigors of the campaign, he returned to Joinville, where
he died in 13 19 at the age of ninety-five.
A man of amusing candor and much homely shrewdness
was the Sire Jean. In 1282 he was one of the chief witnesses
before the council at St. Denis which approved the canoni-
zation of St. Louis and he was present when the body of the
crusader king was exhumed in 1298. But, though entirely
devoted to his leader in the Sixth Crusade and as brave as
the bravest in battle, the good Sire took no pains in his writ-
ings to picture himself as a man of heroic mold. Frequently
he admits that in perilous situations he was very much afraid
and states that on one occasion when a retainer proposed
that he court the glorious death of a martyr by riding forth
and defying some of the Saracen champions to single com-
bat, he ignored the suggestion entirely. He makes no plaus-
ible excuses, as a crafty man would have done, for declining
to accompany King Louis on his last and, as it proved, fatal
crusade, flatly declaring his conviction that it was better to
be in mortal sin than to get the leprosy. For his personal
consumption he avowed a strong preference for undiluted
wine. But once, when he regaled his retainers with a large
quantity of good wine, he saw to it that the wine which was
given to the soldiers was well watered. That which went
to the men-at-arms was less diluted and the beverage served
to the knights was in its pristine state but, by way of a
hint, each goblet was accompanied by a flagon of water.
J oinville-en-V allege 131
Those who attended the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
at St. Louis in 1904 will recall that the memory of King
Louis IX received signal honors there and that his retainer
and biographer, the Sire de Joinville, was likewise commem-
morated by statues and otherwise. The statue in his native
city presents him not as a soldier but in the " right clerkly
robes" of a scholar and as such he is best remembered in
his own country.
Above the far end of the street in Joinville on which
stands the statue of the Sire Jean towers up the great hill
along the crest of which are traced, beneath the trees, the
ruined gray walls of the old chateau in which he passed the
greater part of his long life. This imposing structure was
demolished early in the eighteenth century and about 1793
the magnificent tombs and the carven coats of arms of the
Sires de Joinville and the Princes of Lorraine, situated in
the still existing Chapel of Ste. Anne, in the cemetery, were
utterly wrecked by the revolutionists who, in their ill-con-
sidered zeal for their new-found liberties, thus deprived their
country of some of its most notable works of art because
these were conceived to embody the spirit of political or
religious tyranny.
A much later chateau, erected by Duke Claude of Guise
as a pleasure resort, is still standing in the midst of lovely
gardens, among whose ancient trees, mossy and ivy-clad, are
scattered tiny artificial waterfalls, lakes, fountains, formal
flower beds, and groups of statuary. The spot is today a
city park, open to the public. The chateau itself is a fine
example of the art of the Renaissance, and its exterior is
handsomely decorated with applied columns and many delic-
ately carved bas-reliefs.
During their ascendancy the Joinvilles erected in the city
132 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
several hospitals and convents and a college. Today these
have all disappeared with the exception of the Hospital of
Ste. Croix, a long stone structure almost barnlike in its simpli-
city which, in the capacity of a museum, contains some inter-
esting antiquities. The Church of Notre Dame, built in a
combination of Gothic and Renaissance styles, presents in its
unusually tall and slender spire the most striking feature in
the panorama of the city. But the church is neither of great
age nor of exceptional interest save for its magnificent Holy
Sepulchre, the work of Antoinette de Bourbon, which was
removed to Notre Dame from the former Convent of Sainte
Anne. But the old quarter of the city around the church,
with its narrow, crooked streets, among them the Rue des
Chanoines, once the site of several religious houses; the Rue
de I'Auditoire, reminiscent of the days when Joinville was
the capital of the Vallage region, and the Rue des Marmou-
sets, where are still to be seen in angular corners of some
of the walls the grotesque stone figures, marmousets, is full
of old buildings, some of them built of wood, which are most
quaint and interesting. Many more such buildings were un-
doubtedly destroyed when the city was devoted to pillage and
flames in 1544 by the Germans under the Emperor Charles v.
An artificial branch of the Marne, the Canal des Moulins,
designed for manufacturing purposes, runs through the lower
part of the town and achieves its primary purpose by operat-
ing a large flour mill and various foundries and other facto-
ries. But a portion of it called the Quai des Peceaux has be-
come a residence quarter, usurping the place of industrial
plants, and here are tiny gardens riotous with flowers and
grapevines clambering up the walls of the gray old homes and
over the summer houses built above the edge of the water,
while mossy stone steps lead down to the boat landings below.
CHAPTER IX
ART IN THE IRON INDUSTRY
THE hills of the Marne, from Joinville northward to
St. Dizier, though verdantly clothed in orchards and
vineyards, yield a greater wealth from the iron ore which
is mined in their depths and converted to metal in the high
furnaces of the region and then to commercial ironware in
its various foundries. Although a few of the plants men-
tioned exist in Joinville the town itself is not essentially a
manufacturing center and smaller places in its vicinity are
more active industrially. Thus, in descending the Marne,
Thonnance-le- Joinville on the east bank and Vecqueville on
the west, have stove factories and rolling mills. But it is
only in the region of St. Dizier that the industry reached
really great proportions before the World War, for the reason
that it is there only that the ore was sufficiently rich to com-
pete with the ore of the Meurthe-et-Moselle iron district
around Briey, which the Germans occupied throughout the
war and which they intended to hold permanently had they
been victorious.
Most of the small foundries and furnaces near Joinville
have disappeared but they have left behind them pretty vil-
lages, embowered in trees. Thonnance, in the Middle Ages,
possessed a great chateau fort with wide and deep moats and
drawbridges. This strong place passed through some severe
struggles, particularly in the wars with the Germans in the
sixteenth century. At that time one of the high hills farther
down the valley gained the name, La Perche, by which it is
still known, owing to the fact that the sentinel who was always
stationed there was accustomed, upon observing the approach
133
134 -^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of a body of hostile troops, to lower a white pole, or perche,
as a signal to the garrison of the chateau to be prepared for
battle.
At Vecqueville, which, though close to Joinville, is hidden
from the latter by a hill, stands one of those rural churches
which are so often interesting by reason either of their archi-
tecture or of certain relics within. The church at Vecque-
ville claims attention on both scores, as it contains a painting
of the baptism of Clovis by St. Remi, executed by Henri
Lemoine in 1610, while the sanctuary of the church itself is
an excellent piece of architecture of the fourteenth century,
the remainder of the structure being of later date and in
no sense noteworthy.
There is an interesting explanation of the fact, observable
in a great number of the French village churches, that the
nave is frequently very inferior in workmanship to the choir
and chancel. When these churches were built the local seig-
neur as an act of religious devotion often paid for the con-
struction of the choir and the chancel. Thus pride, if no
higher motive, usually impelled him to build as handsomely
as his wealth would permit. The nave, on the other hand,
was left to the means of the inhabitants of the parish and,
since they were usually poor, it was often correspondingly
simple and inexpensive. These circumstances explain, fur-
ther, why the naves of so many churches, falling into decay,
had to be reconstructed at later periods, sometimes in poor
imitation of the original design and again in some new
fashion, out of harmony with the older and more substantial
choir and chancel.
Quarries of excellent building stone are in the hills ad-
jacent to Chatonrupt, a village which nearly eleven hundred
years ago had a certain monastery of St. Brice which was
Art in the Iron Industry 135
demolished under Charles Martel. This place lies on the
west side of the river and like Curel, on the opposite bank,
and the other villages of this section, was originally within
the principality of Joinville. The local lord of Curel in the
twelfth century, M. de Hennequin, bore the sonorous title,
Count of Fresnel, Baron of Curel, Chevalier of the Holy
Roman Empire, and First Hereditary Senechal of the Prin-
cipality of Joinville. The red-roofed village of today has
little to commend it to attention excepting the fact that it
is the nearest railroad and canal point to the noted Val
d'Osne foundries, which lie about 4 kilometers to the east,
in the narrow valley of the Osne brook.
It is a location most unpropitious for an industrial plant,
with neither railway nor canal facilities closer than the Marne
Valley. But when the foundries were established by M.
Andre in 1834 neither railroad nor canal existed and the
location was dictated by the proximity of the iron mines and
of the Forest of Baudray, which at that time furnished fuel
for the works. Since then the trademark of the Val d'Osne
upon its products has become so widely known that its value
more than compensates for the inconveniences of location.
Hidden away among the green hills, of which those lying
nearest to the works are blackened by the smoke and gasses
from the chimneys and cupolas, here is found an industry
which probably could exist nowhere else than in France. The
reason is that its prosperity rests chiefly upon the service of
art. The ateliers of the Val d'Osne could not be better de-
scribed than in the words of the indefatigable traveler and
graphic writer, M. Ardouin-Dumazet, in the volume of his
Voyage en France descriptive of the Haute-Champagne and
Basse-Lorraine. In telling of his visit to the foundries a
number of years before the war, M. Ardouin-Dumazet says:
10
136 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
In the court, into which I am conducted by the porter, the ground
is heaped with objects in cast metal. I observe cupids, a fountain,
a crucifix standing head downward, a great stag carrying his antlers
superbly. The appearance of the director arrests my contempla-
tion of that multitude of busts, statues, madonnas, and artistic de-
signs. Very courteously he gives me permission to visit the
factory An employee conducts me through the works. We
enter the molding shop. In its center rises superbly a bull of cast
iron, the work of Rosa Bonheur and her brother, Isidore, of which
the Emperor of Russia and the Viceroy of Egypt have already pur-
chased reproductions in bronze. The copy which I see today is
destined for Roumania. Seated upon the animal a workman, armed
with a chisel, is removing the imperfections of the molding, seem-
ing thus to excite the ferocious beast until he is ready to leap.
We come, then, into the warehouse, which is fantastic and
marvelous. A broad alley extends through its length, defined by
two lines of railway track. On each side rises a row of statues,
some of them colossal ; Virgins destined to crown the hills, statues
of the Republic for cities of South America such as Caracas and
Buenos Aires. All the decorations of mythology are there, modern
works or copies of the antique; abundant representations of Venus;
Apollo and Neptune accompanied by an Eloa, as inspired by the
poem of Alfred de Vigny. The works of contemporary artists;
Carrier-Belleuse, Mathurin Moreau, Jacquemart, Pradier, and twenty
others, give a more modern note in the midst of classical repro-
ductions. Upon a space 100 meters long and 10 meters wide there
are assembled a thousand objects of art in cast metal. Monumental
fountains for cities, animals, and escutcheons, produce an extraor-
dinary effect in this museum by reason of the confusion of the
subjects.
It is true that the foundry produces, in addition to objects
of art. a great deal of work of an ordinary commercial nature,
such as structural iron, piano frames, columns, manhole
covers, gutters, candelabra, benches for city parks, grilles,
and ornamental fences, etc. Nevertheless its reputation rests
chiefly upon its production of works of art.
M. Ardouin-Dumazet relates further:
The principal creator of that part of the industry of the Val
Art in the Iron Industry 137
d'Osne is M. Mignon, who has always directed the efforts of the
foundries into that channel. The appeal is to artists for the mold-
ing of the beautiful works of the Louvre and of Versailles. When
the plant was founded in 1834 molders from the Museum of the
Louvre had already been procured to organize the work in this
obscure valley. Today it possesses 40,000 models, of which 800 are
human statues and 250 statues of animals. Such an abundance of
art objects are already fabricated that cities are able, as by magic,
to provide themselves with statues, busts, fountains, and candelabra.
Thus Liege, wishing to celebrate the completion of some great
public work, was able to find at the Val d'Osne five statues which
still embellish the opulent Belgian city and, by contrast with other
objects of art there, speak highly of the superiority of our indus-
try. The Val d'Osne, moreover, obstinately refuses to make cheap
articles hastily executed. Thus it has been able to contract for
works in cast iron where it seemed that wrought iron had the
monopoly as, for example, in the case of the beautiful bannister
of the stairway of the Tuileries.
As one finds his way back along the wooded road from
the Val d'Osne to Curel and thence to Rachecourt and Che-
villon, the timber becomes small and scattering on the hills
bordering the valley and the steep, stony slopes, clothed with
sparse grass, are marked by many winding sheep paths while
here and there ruined walls trace the outlines of the plots
of ground where at one time vineyards have existed. Rache-
court on the Marne, once a railhead for the Thirty-second
Division when the "Red Arrows" were billeted in this area,
is an uninteresting village, but Chevillon, a somewhat larger
place, lying up a deep ravine east of it in the midst of impor-
tant quarries of white stone, is more picturesque. The town
once was a part of the immense estates of the Joinville fam-
ily. It possesses few reminders of its medieval days but at
the head of its single long street, which travels in serpentine
fashion up the sloping ground, the stone church of massive
construction, presents an imposing appearance which is ac-
centuated by its elevation.
138 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Immediately upon entering Chevillon the writer was wit-
ness to a touching incident well illustrating the bonds of
sympathy by which the World War has bound together the
people of all parts of France. His chauffeur on his journey
of exploration along the Marne was a young Frenchman
named Paul. As a speed artist with a Ford which had seen
all of its best days his accomplishments have rarely been
excelled, while a residence of eight years in the United States
previous to the war as a mechanic in the Ford factories had
given him such uncanny intimacy with the interior of the
animal that, given a nail and a piece of baling wire, he could
make it navigate, whatever happened. At the outbreak of
the great war, Paul had promptly returned to his native coun-
try and served in the French Army throughout the conflict.
During that long four years he had been at different times
in countless villages of France, both along the front and in
the rear areas, and had once, in 19 16, passed several weeks
in Chevillon when his division was in rest in that region.
Since his sojourn of the dark days of the war he had not
been back. But as we drove up the winding street and stopped
before a modest house under the shadow of the church, a
middle-aged woman came to the door, who for a moment
regarded Paul with the indifference of a stranger. Then a
light of recognition dawned in her eyes; with a startled ex-
clamation she sprang forward and grasped his hands, pour-
ing forth a torrent of welcoming words, for hers was the
house in which he had been billeted nearly three years before.
Very happily she led us through the house, showing us
the room which he had occupied, all the while recalling to
his memory other townspeople whom he had known and
questioning him eagerly concerning certain soldiers of his
unit who had been at Chevillon at the same time, some of
Art in the Iron Industry 139
whom, as she learned with obvious sorrow, had afterward
been killed. Here were a Parisian and a villager of a remote
region of the Haute-Marne drawn together by crowding re-
collections of dark days spent under the same roof. It is
hardly possible to imagine a New Yorker and a woman of
an Oklahoma village, for example, possessing a fund of
mutual memories capable of thus instantly renewing cordial
friendship after a lapse of years. As we finally drove ofif
down the street, Paul's former hostess stood in her doorway
waving her farewells until we turned a corner and passed
from sight.
Three or four kilometers down the broad, smooth river
road brings one through Sommeville to Fontaines-sur-Marne.
On the way the track skirts a charming little waterfall, where
the river foams over a semicircular dam and then dances
away in silvery ripples that sway the reeds and grasses over-
growing the shallows below the fall. Just under the shore
where the river whispers past Fontaines we stumbled upon
one of the loveliest spots imaginable for the labors of a work-
a-day world. Down a steep, shingly bank under the shadow
of the stone bridge and sheltered from the summer sun by
trees so dense that they make a leafy tunnel of twilight for
the flowing tide, there was a broad stone platform on which
a dozen women of the village were, at the moment of our
advent, doing their week's washing. Though smilingly averse
to having their pictures taken with sleeves rolled up and soap-
suds on their arms, they seemed very content, as well they
might be, performing this heavy part of their household duties
in surroundings so cool and attractive rather than in a hot
and steaming kitchen or basement. The lavoir by the river
or brookside is an institution in every French village and it
is surprising what immaculate laundry work comes, usually.
140 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
from such primitive washing places, where the appHcation
of vigorous and wilHng human muscles still holds precedence
over every modern labor-saving device.
Near Fontaines, on a rough bit of open ground overlook-
ing the river, stands one of the most massive and mystifying
relics of the remote past which is to be found anywhere —
the Menhir, or Haute-Borne. It is a huge, rough-hewn stone
of the texture of marble, about 6.5 feet broad at the base and
2 feet thick, standing upright in the ground and rising in a
slightly tapering form to a height of nearly 20 feet.
Held in awe and veneration by the people of the Mid-
dle Ages as the emblem of some godlike protector of the
region, the Haute-Borne would seem unquestionably to be
a religious monument of the Druids were it not for the
fact that about midway of the shaft are still to be de-
ciphered, despite the weathering of the storms of long cen-
turies, some deeply graven Roman characters forming the
one complete word :
VIROMARVS,
and fragments of some others. The best opinion of archaeolo-
gists seems to be that sometime during the period of Roman
dominion in Gaul, this immense stone was raised as a boun-
dary monument between the territories of two of the Gallic
tribes, and that the original inscription probably meant, trans-
lated into English : " The general, Viromarus, has fixed here
the frontier of the State of the Leuci."
Strength is lent to the theory that the Haute-Borne is
of Roman and not of Druidical origin by the fact that a
short distance from it, in the commune of Gourzon, is a
high hill called the Montagne du Chatelet which has yielded
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The "lavoir" by the river is an institution in every Marne
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Art in the Iron Industry 141
to investigators the remains of a Roman town. A later
interest attaches to Gourzon, too, as a center in the Middle
Ages of the celebrated Order of Malta, which here possessed
at one time a chapel decorated with portraits of members of
the order who had been canonized as saints.
Some five or six kilometers farther down the river, en-
circled by orchards, lies Eurville. Though noteworthy because
across the river from it stands the Chapel of Ste. Menehould,
where the virtuous and pious lady of that name died about
the year 490, and because it possesses a beautiful modern
chateau and park and a large ogival church erected under
the direction of the noted architect, M. Boeswilwald, Eur-
ville is chiefly conspicuous in the landscape for its iron and
steel foundries, which, through this region, become more
numerous and important as one approaches St. Dizier. Cha-
mouilley, on both sides of the Marne just below Eurville,
and Cousances-aux-Forges, a few kilometers farther east on
the little River Cousance, are the sites of important steel
mills and manufacturies of agricultural implements.
But it is at Marnaval, which is virtually a suburb of the
city of St. Dizier, that the iron and steel industry of the
Haute-Marne reaches its greatest development. Here the
high furnaces and brick chimneys are majestic in their alti-
tude and an atmosphere of activity constantly prevails
throughout the place. Though for many years preceding the
war the forges and foundries of Marnaval, employing more
than 2,000 workers, had furnished artillery to the army and
navy, as well as large quantities of construction materials
to railways, they acquired a greatly increased importance dur-
ing the international conflict by reason of the enormous quan-
tities of munitions and material which they then turned out
for the French government.
142 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
An amusing anecdote accounts for the founding of the
forges of Marnaval so long ago as 1603. It appears that
one M. Jean Baudesson, an influential burgher of St. Dizier
who was desirous of engaging in the iron fabricating indus-
try, bore a very striking personal resemblance to the jovial
Henry iv, who then occupied the throne of France. On a
progress through the realm, the monarch came to St. Dizier
and Baudesson presented himself beside the king's carriage
to request royal authorization for the establishment of the
iron works. The royal bodyguard, startled by his resemblance
to the king, instinctively presented arms, whereupon Henry
thrust his head through the carriage window, stared in amaze-
ment at Baudesson and exclaimed:
"Body of God! Are there, then, two kings here?"
Then, being a native of the Province of Beam, on the
border of Spain, he mischievously added,
"Did your mother, Monsieur, ever go into Beam?"
Baudesson, who was a high-spirited man, resented this
insinuation and replied smoothly,
"No, my liege, she did not. But my father traveled a
great deal."
The king, delighted at this sharp retort, readily granted
to Baudesson permission to begin his cherished project.
The iron industry of Marnaval is responsible for a curios-
ity, and the only notable one, of the village adjacent to the
foundries. This is a modern church in the Romanesque style
with twin towers, which is constructed entirely of bricks made
from the refuse cinders of the industrial plants. At matins
and vespers the bells of Marnaval church answer to those
of the spires of St. Dizier, already in view down the arborous
avenue of the river
CHAPTER X
ST. DIZIER AND THE PLAIN OF ORCONTE
A WIDE extent of open fields, bordered on the north
by the Marne and on the south by the leafy edge of
the great Forest of Val, intervenes between Marnaval and
the southern outskirts of St. Dizier, for this city of 14,000
people, the largest in the Haute-Marne, does not spread its
suburbs very far on the left side of the river. As one ap-
proaches the bridge of Godard-Jeanson, however, large steel
mills line both banks of the main channel as well as those
of the canal, which, branching northwestward and approach-
ing the river once more several miles below, virtually forms,
with the river, a long island on which the greater part of
the city is built. North of the canal lie the railway station
and the extensive yards from which radiating spurs extend
to the industrial plants. Some distance back from the wooded
promenades along the Marne. the ancient Abbey of St. Pan-
taleon rears its picturesque mass of buildings against the
southward hills, and one passes directly by the handsomely
parked grounds of the Municipal Hospital as he enters upon
the massive Godard-Jeanson Bridge whose graceful piers,
springing outward at a curious curve to support the broad
roadway, span the Marne and bring the highway into the city
between the buildings of the departmental Asylum for the In-
sane, on the right and, on the left, the shady lawns and wind-
ing pathways of "The Garden," the principal park of the city.
The people of St. Dizier do not stand much in need of public
parks for the great forests closely surrounding the city,
especially those of Val and Troisfontaines, which contribute
to the place an extensive lumber trade, likewise offer in
143
144 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
their cool well-kept depths a vast extent of pleasure
grounds.
Today essentially a manufacturing city, St. Dizier, never-
theless, presents to the visitor many interesting traditions and
relics of the past. Set so closely in the heart of the town
that the press of buildings render it hard to find and difficult
to study when found, stand the still well-preserved remains
of the chateau-fort with eight massive round towers and con-
necting walls 60 feet high, and a moat 20 feet in depth and
120 feet wide. This moat is filled with water from the little
River Ornel, which flows down from the Forest of Trois-
fontaines and enters the Marne just below the Godard- Jean-
son Bridge. Illustrious families, such as the Dampierres and
the Vergys, owned and occupied the Chateau of St. Dizier
down to the time of the Revolution and many kings and
princes enjoyed sumptuous entertainment there. Yet the
chateau itself, old as it is, presents, in fact, a comparatively
modern structure built upon the site of a previous strong-
hold, the Castellum d'Olunna, whose foundation, though lost
in antiquity, was undoubtedly due to the Romans.
It is a significant fact that, even in that remote day,
the great colonizers of the ancient world erected the castle
on the future site of St. Dizier in order to protect the passage
of the Marne against German invaders, who might be tempted
to descend upon the rich towns south of the river, even as
they repeatedly have done in later times. The city itself
seems indirectly to have owed its origin to one of these Ger-
man invasions, for after the sack of Langres by the horde
of Chrocus in 264, the refugees who escaped from that ill-
fated city fled to the fortress of Olunna, bearing with them
the body of their murdered bishop, St. Didier. Here he
was buried and after the extinction of the Roman power the
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 145
old name of the place fell into disuse and that of St. Didier,
corrupted into St. Dizier, was substituted.
Previous to the invasion of the Huns under Attila the
capital and metropolis of this whole region, which is still
known as the Perthois, was at Perthes, about 8 kilometers
northwest of St. Dizier and likewise close to the Marne. But
in his retirement from Gaul following his decisive defeat at
Chalons, Attila attacked and utterly destroyed Perthes, which
thereafter never was rebuilt save as an insignificant village,
the mantle of its political and commercial importance falling
upon St. Dizier. This importance increased with time and in
the Middle Ages the fortified city surrounded by its deep
moats and the courses of two rivers and with its massive
chateau in the center, was a place of great strategic value
in the midst of the Marches of Lorraine. Of the numerous
sieges which it underwent through the centuries, easily the
most noteworthy and stirring was the one of the year 1544,
during the fourth of the wars between Francis i and the
Emperor Charles v of Germany.
With an army of 40,000 men, the emperor advanced so
suddenly that the French had no time to prepare resistance
and the enemy penetrated as far as St. Dizier almost un-
opposed. Contemptuously characterizing the provincial strong-
hold as "a rustic village of hovels," the proud German host
anticipated no trouble in quickly overcoming the 2,000 local
militia under the royal governor, Louis de Bueil, Count of
Sancerre, Captain Lalande, and the engineer officer, Marini,
together with a handful of men-at-arms of the Duke of Or-
leans. But to the chagrin of the invaders, the little garrison
made such a heroic defense that the army of Charles v was
held before St. Dizier for six weeks, despite the fact that
several desperate assaults were made. All met with bloody
146 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
repulse and in one of them the emperor's cousin, the young
Prince of Orange, was killed.
On the other hand. Captain Lalande and many other of
the gallant defenders were killed and finally, on August 17,
pressed by famine, the garrison capitulated and marched out
with all the honors of war. Its defense of the fortress by
the banks of the Marne, the ever vigilant protectress of
France, had been sufficiently prolonged to enable the king
to assemble an army which, before long, forced the imperial
hosts to retire from France into the Low Countries.
In the square of the Hotel de Ville, standing before the
Municipal Theatre, is a spirited bronze group commemorat-
ing the siege of 1544. Standing upon a pedestal which rep-
resents a shattered fragment of the ramparts is the symbolic
figure of embattled St. Dizier, a beautiful woman with a
standard raised aloft in her hand. At her feet are figures
in heroic size of women and children casting rocks from the
ramparts down upon the Germans and of the heroic men in
armor, led by the Count of Sancerre, fighting and dying in
her defense as they did on the day of the great assault, July
15, 1544. The group, an unusual one for a French city,
since these have been so prone of recent decades to raise only
monuments reminiscent of the disastrous war of 1870, is
easily the outstanding feature of the central square, whose
surrounding buildings, including the Museum and Public
Library, the Theatre, and the Hotel de Ville, are of little
interest architecturally or historically, though the Hotel de
Ville is modeled upon the one in Chaumont.
Sleeping peacefully in the Hotel Moderne, which overlooks
the square, the Place d'Armes, the writer was aroused about
sunrise one morning by the rolling of drums and the occa-
sional flourish of a bugle. Thrusting his head from the
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte l^J
window with a caution calculated to discount observation he
beheld a column of poilus marching with jaunty step across
the square past the base of the Monument du Siege, their
faces in the level morning Siunlight, the drummer and the
bugler at their head. And as his eye embraced, in the same
glance, the tense bronze figures above them, Sancerre in front
with upraised sword and open lips shouting defiance, the
thought came naturally that if in nearly four centuries, the
youth of France has changed so little in courage and pa-
triotism and devotion, as these marching soldiers, veterans of
the greatest war of history, had amply proved, then the
future of France is surely safe, whatever may befall.
A short distance east of the Place d'Armes stands the
Church of Notre Dame, built after the destruction by fire
in 1775 of the medieval structure which formerly occupied
the site and some fragments of which are incorporated in
the present edifice. It is an imposing building of Renaissance
design housing a few valuable pictures and pieces of statuary,
including a painting of St. Charles of Borromea, by Salvator
Rosa. Fire or siege seem to have injured nearly all the more
important ancient buildings of St. Dizier, either before or
during the Revolution, but an atmosphere of pensive anti-
quity haunts the purlieus of the Marne as one follows its
secluded wanderings westward through the Faubourg de la
None, where its surface, shyly reflecting the clambering gar-
dens, rustic fences, and uneven tile roofs of modest subur-
ban cottages, is broken sometimes into rippling laughter as
the current finds, for a moment's sport, the wheel of some
old-fashioned mill to turn.
As one comes out once more upon the flat, open country,
marked north of the river by the rigid lines of the highroad
and the canal extending toward Vitry-le-Frangois, he may
148 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
recall that it was on this lance-straight road, in the early
morning of January 27, 18 14, that the cavalry advance guards
of Napoleon, marching boldly forward from Chalons into the
face of the mighty invading armies of Bliicher and Schwar-
zenberg coming from the Rhine, encountered and hurled back
in panic flight through St. Dizier, Bliicher's strong vanguard
of Russian cavalry under Lanskoi. The maneuver was one
of the strokes of brilliant strategy which illuminated, as by a
series of lightning flashes, the last wonderful campaign of
the Emperor of the French against the armies of confederated
Europe. By the reoccupation of St. Dizier he separated the
forces of his two chief opponents and prepared the way for
the stinging defeat which he inflicted, three days later, upon
Bliicher at Brienne, 40 kilometers to the southwest. But
another locality close at hand is identified with a still more
significant, if also more melancholy, episode in the career of
the Corsican. This will be touched upon in a moment.
Westward and northwestward of St. Dizier the valley of
the Marne expands, stretching away for many leagues in the
great alluvial plain of Orconte ; a region of fertile farm lands
whose winding roads, broad fields, and peaceful villages lie
embowered among poplars, willows, alders, and other of the
heavily foliaged trees which are characteristic of the low-
lands. Rock is scarce in this favored region, "the Mesopo-
tamia of Champagne," and the wayfarer is struck by a sudden
change in the construction of the houses. The massive ma-
sonry of the upper river has disappeared and walls of plaster
or clay bedded between rough-hewn timbers have taken its
place. More often than not the wooden framework is set
with little regard to geometrical symmetry, but its artless
irregularity is singularly pleasing. Though less carefully con-
structed, the houses call to mind the type of dwelling popular
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[Page 132]
Timbered liouses. Hauteville
[Page 156]
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St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 149
in England during the period of Elizabeth. With their low-
pitched, broad-eaved tile roofs and square chimneys and the
heavily shuttered windows set in walls which often support
a carefully trained and trimmed grapevine or pear tree, the
homes of this remote bit of the Marne Valley are charming
to the eye, though to the inhabitants of them perhaps less
comfortable than they would be if built of stone.
The first bend below St. Dizier brings one to Valcourt,
close to which, in the bluffs on the south side of the river,
are some curious caverns hollowed out in days of old in
exploiting a deposit of very fine sand. Great columns of
living rock tower up, supporting a roof which was groined
as excavation progressed and the huge, cloistered galleries,
long since abandoned in favor of more easily worked pits
under the open sky, are now floored with a sheet of limpid
water which has been purified by filtration through the sands.
Through Valcourt the writer and Paul, borne by their
faithful flivver, pursued a country road climbing upward
along a ridge whose base is closely hugged by the Marne.
Just beyond Moeslain it attains an elevation from which the
whole vast valley of Orconte seems spread like a map beneath
the beholder's feet and he may look down a sheer descent of
more than 50 meters to the Marne rushing swiftly along
the base of one of the most singular cliffs that exists on the
entire length of the river. It is called the Cotes Noires.
Semicircular in outline and about a kilometer long, these
black hills are composed of a sort of sooty-colored clay broken
by stratifications of red clay and marl. The black earth has
been washed down by the rains in steep and deeply eroded
channels; the harder substance of the red clay and marl has
resisted the elements and remained projecting in razorback
ridges and fantastic turrets and spires above the general sur-
150 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
face of the cliff, whose seamed and somber face, towering
from the river, contrasts grotesquely with the valley's surface
of smiling green woodlands and golden harvest fields.
Two villages, Hoericourt and Moeslain, lie close at hand,
but they are hidden from view behind the woods which cloak
the swift-flowing river and it is only St. Dizier, raising above
the far eastward horizon the outlines of its spires and factory
chimneys, feathered with smoke, which conveys a remote sug-
gestion of modern industrial activity into the scene. In the
edge of the woodland which crowns the very summit of the
cliff stands a slender brick shaft perhaps seventy feet high,
which the writer took to be a monument commemorating the
battle fought in this vicinity in 18 14. He therefore left the
highroad and walked up a straight, narrow lane, hedged with
blackberry bushes, leading to the monument. His progress
was retarded by the presence of limitless dead-ripe blackber-
ries, the fruit which the normally thrifty Frenchman, animated
by some ancient superstition that blackberries induce fever,
utterly declines to utilize, but he eventually reached his goal
on top of the hill. The shaft, however, proved to be, not a
reminder of a bygone battle but an elaborate surveying monu-
ment, probably a triangulation point on this commanding emi-
nence. A square stone, chiseled with the points of the com-
pass, is set in the ground under the center of the shaft, directly
beneath a hole in its lofty top, and in its base, bricks are also
displaced for sighting to the cardinal points.
From the vicinity of the monument it is possible to over-
look most of the ground covered by the battle of the Cotes
Noires, March 26, 18 14, a conflict not much dwelt upon in
history yet remarkable because it was literally the last vic-
tory achieved by the great Napoleon. Fighting, as always in
the disastrous 18 14 campaign, against foes swarming upon
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 151
him from every side in numbers many times his own, the
emperor, who had lately suffered severe defeats at Laon and
Craonne, on his left flank, in vain efforts to prevent the junc-
tion of Bliicher's army with those of Biilow and von Wintzin-
gerode on the Aisne, formed the desperate but magnificent
design of leaving Paris to its own resources for a few days
and, with his army, moving boldly eastward toward the Rhine.
In the fortresses of Lorraine and Alsace he still had thou-
sands of troops besieged by the Allies. These he planned to
relieve, unite them to his depleted army and then with the
latter, thus reinforced, to turn upon the enemy's main armies
between his own and Paris, cut their communications with
the Rhine, and involve them in a defeat more disastrous than
that of Melas at Marengo.
In normal circumstances, dazzling success would unques-
tionably have rewarded his enterprise. But the Allies were des-
perate. Finding Paris uncovered before them they resolved
to throw discretion to the winds and to possess themselves of
the seat of French empire while the opportunity offered, trust-
ing, even at the risk of military disaster, to compass the over-
throw of Napoleon through the political effect of their coup de
main. For once in their vacillating careers the generals of the
Aulic council read the situation accurately. The emperor,
believing that Bliicher and Schwarzenberg would dare do
nothing but follow him when he moved toward the Rhine,
marched boldly east from the Aube in the direction of Metz.
Pursuing him and diligently spreading the rumor that they
were but the advance guard of Bliicher and Schwarzenberg's
dismayed hosts, came von Wintzingerode with 8,000 cavalry,
3,000 of them, under Tettenborn, keeping touch with the
French rear.
On March 25, Napoleon, becoming convinced that cavalry
11
1^2 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
only and not the main body of the AUied armies, was follow-
ing him, saw that his daring maneuver had failed of its object
and hastily deflected the march of his forces, turning north-
ward toward the Marne at St. Dizier in order to regain a
direct road to Paris. Von Wintzingerode and Tettenborn
alone, with their horsemen, were at hand to oppose him and
their numbers were totally inadequate to the task. Drawing
up his troops along the road between St. Dizier and Perthes,
facing the heights south of the Marne with the Cotes Noires
almost directly opposite his center, von Wintzingerode, on the
morning of March 26, sought to form a curtain behind which
Tettenborn might fly from the approaching tempest. But in
vain. Alison, in his History of Europe from lySp to 1815,
says:
The attack of the French was so rapid and with such overwhelm-
ing force, that there were no means whatever of either stop-
ping or retarding it. Their troops deployed with incredible rapidity;
column after column descended from the neighboring plateau into
the valley of the Marne ; powerful batteries were erected on all the
eminences, which sent a storm of round-shot and bombs through the
Allied ranks; and under cover of this fire the French infantry, cav-
alry, and artillery crossed the Marne at the ford of Hallignicourt
and forthwith fell upon Tettenborn, who was speedily routed and
driven with great loss towards Vitry. Von Wintzingerode's main
body was next assailed by 10,000 French cavalry, supported by a
large body of infantry; while the succeeding columns of the army,
stretching as far as the eye could reach, presented the appear-
ance of an interminable host. The Russian horse were unable to
resist the shock ; they had time only to fire a few rounds ; in a few
minutes cavalry and artillery were fairly routed. In utter confusion,
the Russian horse now made for the road to Bar-le-Duc, where
Benkendorff, with a regiment of dragoons and three of Cossacks, with
some guns, had taken up a good position flanked by an impassable
morass. By the firm countenance of a brave rear-guard the pursuit
was checked, and Von Wintzingerode gained time to reform his men
and continue his retreat to Bar-le-Duc without further molestation,
from whence, next day, he retired to Chalons. The French loss in
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 153
this brilliant affair did not exceed 700 men, while the Allies were
weakened by 2,000, of whom 500 were made prisoners, and nine
pieces of cannon.
After this last victory, Napoleon, rapidly approaching
Paris, which was defended only by a handful of loyal troops,
found the city already occupied by the enemy who had been
welcomed by the disaffected and war-weary elements of the
population. Thus, abandoned in the hour of adversity by most
of the men whom his favor had raised to greatness and power,
he found himself in a few days compelled to abdicate his
throne. Such is the moving drama of glory and disaster which
passes through the mind of the beholder as he gazes from the
crest of the Cotes Noires across the Marne and the slumberous
valley of Orconte.
Passing La Neuville-au-Pont, a few kilometers beyond the
Cotes Noires, the Marne leaves the department of its nativity,
the Haute-Marne, and enters the Department of the Marne
between that village and tree-embowered Ambrieres. A high-
road crosses the river at the latter place and wanders through
flat fields over a flat bridge spanning the straight and dead-
level canal into a flat, sprawling, and unattractive village,
which, nevertheless, was once a place of such importance
that, little of its actual history being known, legend has woven
for it garments of barbaric splendor.
This place is Perthes, in ancient days the capital and met-
ropolis of Perthois, a district 400 leagues square. The ruins
of Roman and Gallo-Roman structures which have been exca-
vated upon a huge circuit around the present village amply
prove that in the days of the Roman power it was a city great
and densely populated. Its early rulers were styled Kings of
Perthois. About the middle of the Fifth century, a. d., one
Count Sigmar was the lord of Perthes, a man who was the
154 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
father of seven daughters, every one of whom was canonized,
the most noted one being Ste. Menehould, after whom the city
of the Argonne is named. Sigmar defended Perthes against
the hordes of Attila when they fell upon it in 451, but his
efforts were in vain. The Huns stormed the city and utterly
destroyed it. The surviving inhabitants, after Attila's depar-
ture, did not rebuild upon the old site but moved a little farther
eastward and settled at St. Dizier. Perthes never regained
aught of its former importance, though the title of Counts of
Perthes continued to be borne for a long time by a powerful
family, one of whose members, Munderic, was the rival of
Thierry, King of Austrasia, in the Sixth century. One may
still see at Perthes a fine parish church of the Thirteenth cen-
tury, while the ruins of its era of greatness are of much
interest.
The canal and the straight National highway to Vitry-le-
Frangois leave the Marne close to Perthes, and the river wan-
ders away eastward like a truant through a long series of short,
deeply wooded bends, upon whose banks only at rare intervals
encroach the modest dwellings of some remote village. Such
conduct on the part of the Marne is characteristic. To feel all
the subtlety of its charm, one must recognize its native shy-
ness, its instinctive shrinking from publicity. The American
artist, Joseph Pennell, once gracefully phrased this mood of
the river when he wrote :
It is not, like the Seine, "bordered by cities and hoarse with a
thousand cries." On its banks is no romantic succession of castles,
as on the Loire and the Rhone, or of pretty villages, as on the
Saone. It is so shy that often, as at Chaumont, you may think
yourself miles away from the nearest house, while beyond the wood
or behind the hill rise the smoke and spires of a thriving town. The
scenery is as quiet. While most rivers starting from a high plateau
force their way violently through gorges and tear like torrents across
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 155
the country, the Marne flows as placidly as the streams of the Lotus-
Eaters' land, and draws its waters as slowly from the purple hills.
Here and there the shores contract and fall to the water in vertical
cliffs, but on a miniature and dainty scale. Then the high banks
gradually lower, and the landscape widens, and on each side stretches
the broad, beautiful plain where cattle are at pasture. Sometimes
the plain meets the white horizon, sometimes it is bounded by low,
rolling hills, and always it is full of variety of light and shadow.
On the Marne one remembers the definition of classic landscape as
one in which everything is elegantly, not passionately, treated; for
everywhere, in the curves of the river, in the tree forms and in their
grouping, in the lines of the rounded hills, in the tender green of
the meadow land, is this elegance — the elegance of Claude, of Corot.
The river never quickens its pace. It is not met by any great tribu-
taries, only occasionally by a sluggish brook, which, however, I always
found dignified into a river in the guidebook.
Such a "river" as Mr. Pennell mentions is the Blaise. It
comes winding down through the great forests from a source
not far from Chaumont and glides so secretly into the Marne
below Perthes that the writer waded for fifteen minutes
through reeds and tall grass and played hide-and-seek among
trees and saplings so dense that their foliage made twilight of
mid-afternoon, before he was able to stumble upon the buried
little stream, whose mouth is yet hardly 600 yards from the
confines of two villages, Larzicourt and Arrigny. The first is
on the north, and the second on the south, side of the Marne
and a long stone bridge, lacking the usual arches, stretches
between them.
Larzicourt's streets of generous breadth are lined with low-
roofed old clay-and-timber houses rambling down toward the
water and above its fruit trees and evergreens an octagonal,
slate-covered spire points to the peaceful blue sky. The
church, quaintly square and solid, uplifts its spire upon a
square tower whose latticed windows give to it an odd resem-
blance to a knightly helmet with vizor lowered. Yet this
156 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
structure is, on the whole, less picturesque than the neighbor
to whom its musical bell gives answer across the meadows, at
Hauteville, a short distance back up the river. Hauteville's
square tower rests upon the transept of the church and tapers
to a slender spire and four pointed turrets, all upborne by
Romanesque buttresses carrying double-arched windows
between them; a gem of a parish church, instinct with
antiquity as a moss-grown boulder. The road leading up
between grassy earthern embankments and slender trees from
the Marne bridge to Hauteville is almost Breton in its minia-
ture prettiness and the triple-arched bridge itself excites curi-
osity because of the fact that above the piers are carven
wreaths, similar to those on the Napoleonic bridges of Paris,
indicating that perhaps the Hauteville bridge, too, owes its
foundation to Napoleon i who did so much for the highways of
France.
It is typical of the wealth of France in historical associa-
tion as well as significant, in such associations, of the place
of the Marne as the protectress of the land and the embodi-
ment of patriotism, that in this sylvan valley of Orconte, per-
haps 6 miles broad and 16 long between St. Dizier and Vitry-
le-Frangois, as secluded a region, surely, as may be found in
France, there lie several spots so eloquent of the nation's
past. Allusion has already been made to the dignity of Per-
thes in the obscure years of declining Rome. Six miles from
this venerable capital and, like it lying close to the canal, is
the hamlet of Matignicourt. In the broad fields thereby, on
September 17, 1891, France signalized to her own people and
to the world her military regeneration from the war of 1870
by a great review held before the then President of the Repub-
lic, M. Sadie-Carnot. Twenty-three years later, in the early
days of September, 19 14, around Frignicourt, 5 or 6 kilome-
St. Dizier and the Plain of Orconte 157
ters below Matignicourt, probably some of the very men who
had participated in that martial spectacle, together with others
who were their worthy successors, fought heroically and suc-
cessfully to defend the crossings of the Marne against the
ancient enemies and proved for all time that the rejuvenation
forecasted at Matignicourt had, in very truth, taken place.
That huge review of 1891, regarded by Frenchmen as so
important that it is commemorated by monuments on the field,
in Vitry-le-FranQois and in Chalons-sur-Marne, was partici-
pated in by four army corps numbering 120,000 men under
General Saussier. It followed extensive battle maneuvers
which had just been completed in Champagne and of its
impressiveness an eyewitness wrote :
The effect produced by that spectacle was magical. Those com-
pact divisions, the leaders followed by a sea of bayonets all undulating
to a rhythmic march, waked an impression of irresistible power and
strength. The plaudits were hushed; in fascination the spectators
watched the progress of those splendid troops, seeming to breathe
with them as, defiling before the chief of the State, they moved with
still more martial carriage, the flags dipped and the sabers of the
officers inclined toward the ground in a salute dignified and noble.
From the dusty artillery teams, the bright dolmans of the chasseurs
and the flashing helmets of the dragoons to the wagons of the trains
there was radiated intense life animated by an indomitable spirit.
Before us passed the soul of our native land.
Twenty-three years later at Frignicourt, at Mont Mort,
and Ecriennes, where the thunderous battle line crossed the
Marne between Paris and Verdun, there was none of the dis-
play and martial glitter of the great review. But in the veins
of the French poilus, staggering under the weariness of long
marches and stained with the grime of battle, there flowed
even more swiftly the spirit of patriotic devotion and self-
sacrifice, presaged long ago in the presence of Carnot, the
martyr president.
158 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
In our leisurely journey down the Marne we have now
arrived at the easternmost edge of the zone, extending thence
nearly to Paris, in which the river has played a major role
in more than one event which has been of supreme importance
not alone to France but to the entire world. Within the next
150 kilometers of the valley lie Vitry-le-Frangois, Chalons,
Chateau-Thierry, and Meaux. Of these, one, Chalons, has
been famed for nearly fifteen hundred years as the spot where
Western civilization was saved from subjugation by the East.
The other three, during the years of the World War, gained
immortal places in the annals of France, England, and Amer-
ica because at their gates the hordes of invasion were again
stayed.
Passing by tiny Frignicourt where, on either side of the
road, lie enclosed in neat fences several rows of those pitiful
wooden crosses which the passing soldier always salutes, rest-
ing places of some of the men of the Twelfth Corps and the
Colonial Corps who defended the bridge across the Marne on
September 6, 1914, we pass over this bridge and, turning
north, go by the station and the railroad yards. Then, with
the Marne traversing the western part of the city a little dis-
tance to our left, we enter Vitry-le-Frangois by the Avenue de
Colonel Moll and the Rue de Frignicourt.
CHAPTER XI
VITRY-LE-FRANCOIS AND THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE MARNE
AS THE ages of cities go in France, Vitry-le-Frangois is
a modern town. Possessing today about 8,500 people,
it was built in 1545 by order of King Francis i to replace
Vitry-en-Perthois, which stood on the slopes of the Saulx
River, 4 kilometers to the northeast of Vitry-le-Frangois, the
former town having been burned in 1544 by the Germans of
Charles v. Although less salubriously located than the place
which it supplanted, the new Vitry was laid out on a regular
and harmonious plan by the Italian architect, Marina, with
wide, straight streets and generous squares and parks, which,
though they lend to the city on account of its flat situation a
rather monotonous and barren appearance, undoubtedly confer
upon the inhabitants a greater degree of comfort than is the
portion of those dwelling in places more ancient and pictur-
esque, but less well supplied with pure air and modern sanita-
tion.
Fortified in the most approved manner at the time of its
founding, the ramparts of Vitry were demolished in the nine-
teenth century. The outlines of most of them can still be
traced in the boulevards and promenades, some of which are
further defined by still existing moats, filled with living water
from the Marne and the canals. But the most remarkable sur-
viving relic of the fortifications is the beautiful Porte du Pont,
at the entrance to the bridge across the Marne on the high-
road leading through the extensive military barracks of the
Quartier des Indes toward Sezanne and Paris. This noble
structure laid of massive oblong blocks of stone is ornamented
above the rounded archway of the gate with the richly blaz-
159
l6o The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
oned arms of the city carved in deeply cut bas-relief, while at
each side of the gate are symbolic groupings of weapons and
flags extending to a height of more than 24 feet above the
pavement. A stone balustrade surrounds the top of the edifice,
while eight sculptured groups of armored figures, each sur-
rounded by flags and implements of warfare, rise above the
balustrade, four on the interior and four on the river side.
Every current of the city tends toward the central Place
d'Armes, where the Church of Notre Dame lifts its formida-
ble bulk above the small shops and the square-cut trees of the
Plaza. A strong resemblance to St. Sulpice of Paris is notice-
able in this Notre Dame, with its massive, turreted square
towers, though the great superposed columns defining the por-
tal and the corners of the towers render the front more impos-
ing than that of the Paris structure. The church was begun
by the king in 1629 and completed through the munificence of
many noble families residing in the vicinity of Vitry. The
bones of numerous members of these families were formerly
interred under the floor, which was solidly paved with tomb-
stones, but both bones and sepulchers have disappeared dur-
ing the course of later restorations.
Some large flouring mills, built, after the sightly manner
of many such buildings in France, over the channel of the
river below the Porte du Pont, or along the banks of the
circuitous canals, give color to the older quarter of the town,
though every section is dominated by the castle-like towers
and roof of Notre Dame, which gives a still more decided
character to the Place d'Armes, with its graceful bronze foun-
tain in the center and its radiating vistas of broad streets
defined by well-built business houses.
In Vitry-le-Frangois, at the outbreak of the war in 19 14,
was located the General Headquarters Staff of the French
^.i.
f H''^ "rr^B'T!'
''^i SL'Mi
JJ e.
■S«s:s^»-
"^Ififc-'
?lj^-
a?f--.
The mills at Vitry-le-Fran9ois
[Page 160]
Vitry-le-Fran9ois has wide, straight streets
[Page 159]
A battlefield of the Marne
[Page 92]
Sector of the Marne battlefield near Mezy
[Page 163]
Vitry-le-Frangois and the First Battle i6i
armies; a fact which rendered the place one of marked impor-
tance during the early phases of the battle of the Marne. The
approach of the German armies forced the evacuation of the
place on September 5 by both the civilian population and the
troops of General Langle de Gary's Fourth Army, barely 500
or 600 inhabitants remaining after the shells of the artillery of
Duke Albrecht of Wiirtemberg began to fall in the streets, at
about 5 :oo o'clock on the afternoon of that day. During the
evening the enemy's cavalry entered and the city became sub-
ject to the usual indignities visited upon French towns by the
invaders, including the detention of prominent citizens as hos-
tages. In Vitry, five hostages were thus seized and held, among
them the cure and the curate of Notre Dame Church, to insure
requisitions, see to the feeding of the civil population and to
answer with their lives for any hostile demonstration on the
part of the people.
For five days thereafter, while the shell fire of the German
batteries to the north and those of the French to the south
crossed overhead and sometimes sprayed the streets with
splintered steel, the town was held by the enemy. The hospi-
tal, the schools and churches, and the large building of the
Savings Bank were filled with German wounded to the num-
ber of nearly 2,500. On the evening of the tenth, in conse-
quence of the defeat of their armies farther to the west, the
Germans retreated, strangely enough leaving the place, except
for the effects of desultory shelling, unmarked by the wanton
destruction which left the hallmark of Prussian kultur upon
most of the French towns occupied by them.
Since for many leagues in our progress down the Marne
we shall now be meeting with scenes which will be forever in
the future associated with the battle which, up to the time of
its occurrence, was the most stupendous in all the history of
i62 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
humanity, we may well pause at Vitry-le-Frangois, where we
have first encountered evidences of that struggle, to trace the
general course of the conflict which determined, with the awful
decisiveness of an act of God, that the structure of democratic
institutions and the fabric of Latin and Anglo-Saxon civili-
zation were not to be swept away by the first overwhelming
blow aimed at them by their enemies, but were to be afforded
time to organize for a struggle to the end in which they might
assert their superior strength and virtues over those of autoc-
racy. Thus only may the reader be able properly to focus,
in their relation to the whole, the significance of the scenes of
local events as they occur along the course of the Marne ; for,
like the stones of a mosaic pavement, such events were but
parts of the great pattern of destiny which men now call the
Battle of the Marne.
In those world-numbing days of August, 19 14, when the
German armies were rolling into Belgium and northern
France, their advance may be appropriately likened to the slow
opening of a gigantic door, hinged upon the fortress of Metz,
whose swinging edge moved ever across Liege, Brussels, Mons,
Cambrai, and Compiegne in the direction of Paris. With the
majestic and seemingly irresistible power of an avalanche the
hosts of the Teutonic Empire surged onward, here pausing,
as at Liege and Namur, before the heroic resistance of little
Belgium, and again struggling hard to overcome the ardent,
but ill-timed, counter-blows of the French at Charleroi or the
dogged opposition of the British along the Mons Canal, but
never halting completely. By September i they had overrun
practically all the smiling country lying north of a line between
Paris and Verdun, the inhabitants fleeing before them in
mortal terror. The Allied armies, suffering under the neces-
sity, inevitable to the defense in such a situation, of fighting
Vitry-le-Francois and the First Battle 163
with relatively weak forces and holding back their mobile
reserves until the enemy should have demonstrated where he
intended to deliver his hardest blow, were making merely a
pugnacious retreat, inflicting upon the Germans as much
damage as possible, but not yet attempting a final stand.
But French leadership had long foreseen that on the out-
break of war, Germany would in all probability perfidiously
violate the neutrality of Belgium for the sake of striking
France on her weakest flank and had made preliminary plans
accordingly. General Joffre, the patient, imperturbable, far-
seeing Commander-in-Chief, was biding his time for a maneu-
ver and a battle whose possibilities, in such circumstances as
were now shaping, had been anticipated. The French offensive
in Alsace and Lorraine, undertaken contrary to such plans
for the sake of its political effect in arousing the enthusiasm of
the nation for the redemption of "the lost provinces," had
failed miserably in the latter days of August, as the wisest
minds in the councils of the nation had feared that it would
fail, and the energies of both combatants had become concen-
trated on the battle along the Paris- Verdun front. German
forces crossed the Marne at Mezy, Chateau-Thierry, Nogent,
La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, and Changis on September 3 and 4, at
Chalons on the latter date, and at Vitry-le-Frangois on the
fifth. All along the vast front of 225 kilometers, the Allied
line was still sagging southward. But this very retiring move-
ment was creating the situation for which Joffre was playing.
So long as Verdun and Paris held firm on the east and on
the west, the Germans advancing in the center were forcing
themselves more and more deeply into a salient and exposing
their flanks to turning movements from one or the other of
the French citadels. In short, they were approaching the
Roman position at Cannae, the classic model batfle in which
164 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Hannibal overthrew the army of the Roman Republic by retir-
ing his center and then closing in upon the enemy with his
flanks. But, at the same time, this situation offered a brilliant
opportunity to the Germans and they were exerting every
effort to utilize it. Theirs were the interior lines and, presum-
ably, the superior numbers. If, by asserting their advantages,
they could pierce the thinner, sagging Allied line at some point
between Paris and Verdun, they might roll back one segment
of the forces of their antagonists upon Paris and there sur-
round and capture it, while the other segment would be
driven upon the frontier fortress line extending from Verdun
southward, there to be similarly crushed in detail. The ques-
tion as to which of these contrary results would be achieved,
resolved itself, ultimately, into a question as to the relative
endurance and moral stamina of the opposing Allied and Ger-
man soldiers.
On September 4, General Joffre decided that conditions
had become as favorable as they ever would be for putting his
plans into execution and gave orders that his armies come to a
stand and prepare to assume the offensive on September 6. At
the time, the Allied order of battle stood, from east to west,
as follows : the Third Army, under General Sarrail, with its
right flank resting on Verdun and its left in front of Bar-le-
Duc, holding the Pass of Revigny, where the rivers Ornain
and Saulx flow westward to join the Marne; then the Fourth
Army, General Langle de Gary, standing astride the Marne
at Vitry-le-Frangois with its left at Sompuis; then the Ninth
Army, General Foch, lying south of the Marches of St. Gond
with its left north of Sezanne; then the Fifth Army, General
Franchet d'Esperey, extending to about Courtacon, north of
Provins; then the British Army under Field Marshal French,
reaching to a point south of Meaux; and then, lastly, the
Vitry-le-Franqois and the First Battle 165
Sixth Army, General Maunoury, covering Paris. The capital
itself was under the direct control of the military governor,
General Gallieni, who had at his command not only General
Maunoury's army but also important masses of troops des-
tined exclusively for the defense of the city; all subject, of
course, to the supreme authority of the Commander-in-Chief.
Of the armies enumerated, those of General Foch and Gen-
eral Maunoury had not participated in the retreat but had been
newly constituted, chiefly from reserves, and placed in line
only in time to take part in the counter-offensive.
Assailing the Allied host the Germans had, approximately
opposite General Sarrail, their Fifth Army under the Crown
Prince of Germany; in front of Langle de Gary the Fourth
Army under Duke Albrecht of Wiirtemberg ; opposite to Foch
the Third Army under General von Hansen; opposite to
D'Esperey the Second Army under General von Biilow, and
opposite to the British Army and the entrenched camp of
Paris, the First Army under General von Kliick.
As a measure of safety, the seat of the French government
had been removed on September 3 from Paris to Bordeaux,
but any elements of the population which feared that this pre-
caution foreshadowed the military evacuation of the metropo-
lis were reassured by the stirring proclamation of General
Gallieni, who announced : " I have received orders to defend
Paris against invasion. I shall do so to the end." Until that
day it was popularly believed that von Kliick's army, on the
marching flank of the German advance, was driving forward
with the intention of taking Paris. This was not the case. No
city, however important, but the destruction of the Allied
armies in the field, was, quite properly, the primary objective
of the German campaign, for, those armies once disposed of,
everything else would of necessity fall into the hands of the
l66 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
victors. But the popular illusion was dispelled when it was
learned on the momentous fourth of September, anniversary
of the fall, in 1870, of the Third Empire after the debacle of
Sedan, that von Kliick's columns, ignoring the garrison of
Paris as being too conscious of its defensive role to initiate
any hostile movements and believing the British Army to be
completely exhausted after its nerve-wracking retreat of 200
kilometers from Mons, had deflected to the southeastward
from their direct march on the city and were passing parallel
to the front of the Allies in the direction of Coulommiers, on
the Grand Morin River. The German intent evidently was to
carry out their cherished maneuver by piercing the Allied line
between the armies of French and D'Esperey and then rolling
the former back upon Paris and the latter upon the eastern
frontier. In the meantime, all the other German armies up
to Verdun were assailing their opponents with the utmost
vigor possible.
The enemy having thus disclosed his intentions and
launched his attack, Joffre, on September 5, prepared the
counter-stroke. Relying upon the staunchness of the British
as well as of D'Esperey's troops to hold their ground and to
advance when the proper time should arrive, he ordered Gal-
lieni to push Maunoury's Sixth Army northeastward from
Paris, strike von Kliick's right flank, which was defiling along
the heights west of the Ourcq and turn it and drive it back
across the latter river. If successful, the efifect of the maneu-
ver would be, after von Kliick should have been disposed of, to
also take von Biilow and von Hansen successively in flank and
rear and to either surround them or force them to retreat pre-
cipitately. As a corollary to Maunoury's attack, Sarrail was
ordered to assume the offensive against the German Crown
Prince and drive him westward, carrying Wiirtemberg with
Vitry-le-Franqois and the First Battle 167
him into a cul-de-sac back to back with the armies of the Ger-
man right. The intervening armies were instructed Hkewise
to attack energetically and under no circumstances to yield
any further ground to the enemy.
Held admirably in hand during their long and difficult
retreat, the armies of Jofifre were able to about-face upon
their counter-attack positions in the best of order and spirit.
On the morning of September 5, General Maunoury's army to
the number of eight divisions advanced across the plateau
north of Meaux and west of the Ourcq and fell upon the five
German divisions of von Kluck's right flank, which were quite
unprepared for such a tremendous onslaught. In desperate
fighting on that day and the next, Maunoury's troops slowly
drove the enemy back across the broad, open fields of the
Multien district and through the crumbling villages of Mon-
thyon, Neufmontiers, Penchard, Chambry, Barcy, and Mar-
cilly until the Germans were clinging precariously to the edge
of the hills overlooking the Ourcq and the Marne.
Meantime, ignorant of the dangers accumulating behind
them, the forward echelons of von Kliick's army were march-
ing confidently across the front of the British toward Courta-
con and the left flank of D'Esperey, not doubting that they
would dislocate the junction of the two armies by a powerful
attack. But at dawn of the sixth, Marshal French's five
British infantry divisions and five cavalry brigades, issued
from the Forest of Crecy behind which they had been resting
and advanced to the south bank of the Grand Morin, driving
back the enemy's covering detachments and establishing them-
selves in good positions for the furious attack which they
delivered the next morning upon the four divisions of von
Kliick's advance. That day saw the British, at the cost of
savage fighting, drive forward all along their front, roundly
12
i68 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
defeating the German cavalry, while deadly British artillery
fire littered the ground with the debris of the retreating Ger-
man batteries. By nightfall they had crossed the Grand Morin
and captured Coulommiers, thus completely baring von
Kliick's flank for further attack. The German general, who
had aroused fully to the menace of Maunoury's attack west of
the Ourcq, had been compelled to detach against it an entire
corps from the offensive mass with which he had designed to
crush D'Esperey. The weakening of his left was fatal.
D'Esperey, relieved of pressure, was able on the seventh to
push across the Grand Morin and bring his front up in line
with the British. In their left center, all was going well with
the Allies.
On the front of Paris, meantime, Gallieni was taking radi-
cal measures. Perceiving that Maunoury, despite his utmost
efforts, was not progressing as fast as was desirable, nor
accomplishing the envelopment of the German flank, he
detached a division from the garrison of Paris to aid him.
On the night of September 7-8, requisitioning taxicabs on the
streets of Paris to the number of not less than t,ioo, he had
the troops loaded into them and sent, at almost express-train
speed, to Maunoury's left flank to extend it for the enveloping
movement. Von Kliick's timely steps for reinforcing his
own flank, however, unfortunately neutralized the effect of
this expedient and during September 8, the French found
themselves compelled to fight hard to escape being them-
selves enveloped.
While, on the seventh and eighth, the armies of the Allied
left were, on the whole, fighting victoriously and gradually
hemming von Kliick into a narrowing salient, the armies of
the center and right, far from being able to advance, were
having a terrible struggle to save themselves from destruc-
Vitry-le-Franqois and the First Battle 169
tion. The German high command, reaHzing that the Anglo-
French counter-offensive in front of Paris might defeat them
entirely, ordered their other armies as far as Verdun to drive
in with all their power and break through the lines of their
opponents at any cost. During September 7, von Biilow par-
ticularly concentrated his efforts on piercing the French line
between D'Esperey and Foch while Wiirtemberg and the
Crown Prince cooperated in a similar effort to carry the Pass
of Revigny, hoping there to separate Langle de Gary from
Sarrail. Their efforts were unsuccessful, either on that day
or the next. But the French, reeling under the blows rained
upon them, were forced back slightly at nearly all points
while Foch, who was sustaining the most furious attacks
from a large part of von Biilow's army and the whole of
von Hansen's, was driven entirely from the Marches of St.
Gond and found himself in a situation in which any gen-
eral less nobly endowed with moral fortitude and martial
insight would have yielded to defeat. But not so with Foch.
He clearly perceived that the violent efforts of the Germans in
the center were dictated by the extreme peril of their right and,
knowing that assuredly their troops could be little less ex-
hausted and in little better heart than his own, he held his
men firm and at the end of the day pronounced the situation
" excellent," despite the fact that the whole Allied line from
Verdun to Sezanne was trembling and seemed on the verge
of breaking.
At Marathon and Chalons and Tours there were days of
destiny. Days when it seemed that an overruling Providence,
intervening only when the very fate of humanity was in the
balance, gave to the forces representing the true progress of
mankind the slight added impulsion necessary to determine
that neither Persian nor Saracen nor Hun should dominate the
170 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
future of Europe. Such another day came in the Battle of
the Marne the ninth of September. Von Kliick, having
already decided, though unknown to his opponents, that his
position between Maunoury and the British, already descend-
ing upon the Marne from Changis to Chateau-Thierry, was
quite hopeless, had begun his retreat northeast, toward Sois-
sons. To cover the movement he withdrew yet another corps
from his left and hurled it upon Maunoury's exposed flank.
The latter was bent back and ever back among the uplands
about Nanteuil-le-Haudouin until it seemed that it must give
way entirely and be driven in rout upon Paris. But still,
hour after hour, it held.
That day, on the center and right, the situation of the
French was even more desperate, if possible, than it was on
their left. South of the Marches of St. Gond the troops of
Foch's Ninth Army were forced back to the line of heights
extending southeast from Soizy to Linthes, which marks the
watershed between the valleys of the Petit Morin and the
Aube. All day they strove intensely to save themselves from
being pushed off the heights to the southward descending
slopes by von Hansen and the left of von Biilow; an event
which, had it occurred, would have resulted inevitably in the
breaking of the line. Despite the fact that von Billow's right,
exposed by the withdrawal of von Kliick, was now being rap-
idly pushed back upon the Marne by D'Esperey, the last
mighty efforts of the Germans to retrieve themselves from dis-
aster by disrupting the Allied center would probably have
been crowned with success had it not been for the heroic devo-
tion of one French division under the stress of numbing
fatigue and heavy losses.
This division was the Forty-second, under General Gros-
setti. For four days it had fought continuously on Foch's
Vitry-le-Franqois and the First Battle 171
left, along the hills just west of the Marches of St. Gond,
maintaining liaison, against the repeated assaults of von Bil-
low, with the neighboring flank of D'Esperey. Reduced to lit-
tle more than a skeleton by its losses, it was relieved on the
morning of the ninth by one of D'Esperey's divisions and
retired for the rest which it had richly earned. Then came
the shattering attacks farther to the right on the line from
Allemont through Mont Chalmont to Linthes, which General
Humbert's Moroccan Division, stubbornly contesting every
inch of ground, was barely able to sustain. Immediately to
the right of the Moroccans, the French, gave ground and
from I :oo o'clock to 3 :oo o'clock in the afternoon the Ger-
mans were within a hair's-breadth of pushing through into the
plain of the Aube, whence they would have swept the Moroc-
cans from the reverse slopes, split Foch's army in twain, and
probably brought about a complete defeat for the Allies.
But Foch had one card left to play. He sent orders to
Grossetti's retiring division to return to the battle and attack
the enemy between Linthes and the village south of it, Pleurs.
Gathering themselves together with superb spirit to obey the
unexpected order, these men took up their march behind the
battle line and at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, with waves
thinned but animated to a superhuman effort, they burst upon
the dismayed Germans north of Pleurs. It was the weakest
spot in the enemy's line, the junction point between the armies
of von Billow and von Hausen. Their troops were expending
the last ounce of their strength to win through to the Aube
Plain and they had no reserves left with which to meet Gros-
setti's stroke. The result was hardly for a moment in doubt.
Utterly discouraged, the Germans broke back toward the
marshes before Grossetti's attack, which was rapidly extended
toward Mont Chalmont and Allemont by the now exultant
172 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Moroccans. Thereupon the German high command, seeing
the long struggle at last irretrievably lost, issued their orders
for a general retreat. By such a narrow margin may a battle
involving even millions of men be lost or won. That night
Foch's pursuing troops gathered in many prisoners and
guns along the obscure roads which thread the Marches
of St. Gond, while farther to the right Langle de Gary and
Sarrail, who had been hard beset to hold their ground during
the last few days of the battle, pressed hotly after the with-
drawing columns of Wiirtemberg and the Grown Prince.
The great battle was over and France, the whole Allied
cause, were, for the time being, saved. Retreating far to the
north of the Marne, the Germans made no attempt to halt
until the thirteenth of September, when they stopped and
established themselves on the line extending north of Soissons
and Reims through the center of the Argonne and north of
Verdun which thereafter became the intrenched, stabilized
front of the four ensuing years of the war.
Behind them the invaders left a country for the most part
ravaged and desolated, not alone by the inevitable destructive-
ness of modern battle but, also, too often, by the hand of wan-
ton and brutal vandalism. It is not the purpose of the present
writer to dwell upon the distressing ruin visited upon the ven-
erable cities, the sequestered villages, and the charming coun-
trysides of northern France during the World War, nor to
marshal the ghastly array of acts of inhuman cruelty, almost
countless in number, to which its unfortunate inhabitants were
subjected by the invaders, especially during the early months
of the conflict. But it will be the part of merely elemental
truth and justice to mention, in passing, a few of the cases
which will fall directly under our eyes as we pursue our way
down the Marne, the river which, though it saw little of the
Vitry-le-Francois and the First Battle 173
crucial fighting in that never-to-be-forgotten September of
19 14, yet flowed through the center of the farflung battle-
fields and witnessed a small percentage of the deeds of the
enemy as it flowed on its placid way toward the sea.
CHAPTER XII
THE CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE
THAT rather vaguely defined district of old Champagne
which, extending northeast, roughly, from Troyes to Ste.
Menehould, at the foot of the Argonne Forest, is known as the
Champagne Pouilleuse, has probably seldom been better pic-
tured in few words than by M. Ardouin-Dumazet in his Voy-
age en France, volume 21. Therein he writes:
If one find a point sufficiently elevated to overlook the details of
the country, he will be able to comprehend with one sweep of the
eye the characteristics of the region. At the edge of a horizon
almost circular, one traces the soft undulations of the woodlands
of little pines which become almost forests on the most elevated
places. Between these distant woods are spread the white savarts,
the clouds of heavy dust revealing the passage of sheep herds which
seek pasturage in the arid lands. On the borders of the villages, the
pine plantations extend in long, low masses, regular in form, planted
upon the triaux, or fallow lands which are put under cultivation only
at long intervals and which furnish to the sheep valuable resources
when the savarts will no longer yield a blade of grass. Nearer still
are the permanent fields, the sombre; a picturesque and striking word
for denoting the contrast with the white earth of the triaux and the
savarts. There, thanks to fertilization, Champagne has been trans-
formed. The cereals — rye, barley, oats, wheat, and buckwheat,
flourish there; clover, alfalfa, and sainfoin furnish nearly all that is
necessary for raising large numbers of cattle.
Such progress is the work of the nineteenth century; indeed, of
the last fifty years of it. When the Allies struggled in these plains
against Napoleon, the Pomeranian grenadiers and the Cossacks could
well believe themselves still in their own sterile native countries.
The waste extended almost illimitable, destitute of pine trees, and
with but here and there a juniper or stunted willow. Around the
villages the straw of the meager rye fields was the only fuel known.
There were few if any cattle, save in the moist grounds of the nar-
row valleys. Nevertheless, the chalk does not lack fertility ; wherever
The Champagne Pouilleuse 175
it has been possible to improve it with marl and some fertilizer it
produces excellent harvests.
Reforestation has transformed everything. The pines have pro-
duced fuel and permitted the straw to be utilized for its customary
purposes as litter and fertilizer. They have modified the climate and
reduced the temperature. Less widely known than the transformation
of the Landes, the Sologne, or the Dombes, the conquest of the Cham-
pagne Pouilleuse is, none the less, one of the works most creditable
to the patient industry of our race.
This description of the Champagne Pouilleuse applies not
only to the broad section of it south of the Marne and to that
great sweep north of the river, extending from Reims to the
Argonne, which was so sadly devastated between 1914 and
1918, but to the wide, shallow valley of the river itself, passing
through the very heart of the region and constituting its prin-
cipal watercourse. Although the country is barren it has
attractions of its own. Some of the villages, commonplace
enough in themselves, which are scattered along the river
between Vitry and Chalons — places such as Loisy, Songy,
and La Chaussee ; Vitry-la-Ville, Omey, Vesigneul, Sarry, and
Compertrix, possess parish churches or other archaic objects
of more than passing interest.
The church at Loisy-sur-Marne is a particularly attractive
thirteenth-century structure, while the one of the same period
at Compertrix is jeweled with a noble stained-glass window
more than six hundred years old, representing Christ upon
the cross and possesses, besides, two medallions of the six-
teenth century showing St. Louis with St. John the Baptist.
The church of Sarry cherishes a finely carved altar chair of
the seventeenth century, a carved panel of the Flemish school
depicting the Annunciation, a sixteenth-century equestrian
statue of St. Julian in carved wood and also carved altar
brackets and wainscotting of later date. At Vitry-la-Ville
ij6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
there is a fine chateau of the eighteenth century and at Chep-
pes the remains of a Roman camp which is often pointed out,
though erroneously, as a camp of Attila's army.
None of these villages are of more than local importance
but, having ample building space, they ramble carelessly over
the valley grounds, their houses, which are sometimes of stone
and sometimes of plaster and timber, hidden away in gardens
where flourish apple and plum, pear and cherry trees, and
where grape- and peavines clamber over walls and trellised
summer houses. Precisely such cottonwood trees as abound
in the American West are everywhere in the villages, but the
distant, low hills show always the dark, narrow ribbons of the
pine plantations against the wastes of white chalk. Since the
chalk beds underlying the Champagne Pouilleuse, so scientists
tell us, extend to a depth of 1,300 feet, the only salvation for
agriculture lies in the creation of a thin top layer of vegetable
humus by the slow process of pine planting and the syste-
matic application of fertilizers. The greatest disaster which
befell the northern part of this country during the late war
was not the destruction of the towns, for these can be rebuilt;
but when, over many thousands of acres, the chalk subsoil
was thrown to the surface by intrenching tools and the explo-
sion of millions of shells, an injury was inflicted upon the
land which can only be repaired by the labor of generations.
The Champagne Pouilleuse might be appropriately desig-
nated the land of somnies; a word of provincial origin mean-
ing "springs." In the names of places on the high plateaus
where many of the brooks and little rivers of the region come
into being the word frequently occurs in compounds such as
Sompuis or Sommesous and, north of the Marne, in the names
of some of the shattered towns which became so very familiar
to many Americans during the battle summer and autumn of
The Champagne Pouilleuse 177
1918; Sommepy, Somme-Vesle, Somme-Tourbe, and Somme-
Suippe.
Depressing, if not positively melancholy, is the general
aspect of this land, beyond the zone of the ever-umbrageous
Marne Valley. The bulk of the immense, pallid hills, swollen
gradually up like rollers of a petrified ocean, stand limned
against a horizon whose cheerful azure seems stricken, also,
with a pallor of the chalk, its jaundiced whiteness but accen-
tuated by the straight, dark belts of small pines. Along the
broad intrenched belt of the Western Front, when it had been
deserted by the armies just before the armistice, the country
was a hades worthy of the descriptive pen of Dante. There
ran in every direction and to the limit of vision the zigzag
gashes of trench lines, seaming the hills with white pencilings,
burrowing snakelike into the hollows, fanged with wide mats
of rusty barbed wire, and broken at close intervals by pustu-
lous dugouts in whose gaping mouths flapped the rags of old
blankets, emphasizing the new and utter desolation of a region
so lately peopled by tens of thousands of toiling, struggling
men. Fluttering camouflage nets along the roadsides, heaps
of tin cans, deserted ammunition dumps on bypaths whose
dust still showed the tracks of the camions and countless thou-
sands of shell holes, many of them littered with the bones of
men or animals exhumed by the explosion, confused the land-
scape, upon which the ghastly ruins of martyred villages, heav-
ing up at wide intervals across the distant plain, painted the
final splotch of horror to give character to a land whose long
agony seemed the handiwork of Satan.
Owing to the open character of the country and to the
fact that the parallel valleys of the Aisne, the Vesle, the
Marne, the Aube, and the Seine, intersecting it, lead directly
into Western France, the Champagne Pouilleuse is crossed
178 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
by the chief thoroughfares connecting Paris with the Rhine;
not alone the railroads and highways but the canals as well,
notably the Rhine-Marne Canal. The currents of human
activity flowing through it have tended to make the country
a battle ground through the centuries, and one admirably
adapted to the maneuvering of armies. From the times when
the Gallic tribes fought for their independence against Julius
Caesar, through the barbaric invasions of the latter days of
the Roman Empire, the Hundred Years' War and the wars of
religion, great conflicts have occurred here at frequent inter-
vals. On the eastern confines of the district, not 35 kilome-
ters from Chalons-sur-Marne, behind those passes of the Ar-
gonne which Dumouriez denominated "the Thermopylae of
France," the French Revolution was saved from destruction
at the hands of the Prussians in the Battle of Valmy, Septem-
ber 20, 1792. In the region between Vitry and Chateau-
Thierry, Troyes and Laon, Napoleon fought out the campaign
of 1814 against confederated Europe.
But as we approach Chalons along the banks of the Marne,
the very artery of the Champagne Pouilleuse, a name and the
echoes of a tradition as strange and terrible as those of the
stern old northern mythologies awaken in the mind. The
name, indeed, is one which contributed not a little to those
mythologies for it is that of Attila the Hun, " The Scourge of
God;" and the echoes are those of the true "first Battle of
the Marne," fought nearly fifteen centuries ago in the portion
of the chalk plains still called the Catalaunian Fields, which
extend northeastward from Chalons toward Valmy. There
nascent France was rescued from barbarism to become a chief
jewel of modern civilization and there was established for Ger-
many and her kin the ill omen of Chalons, standing like a
watch tower by the Marne, the verdure-walled moat of the
The Champagne Pouilleuse 179
inner citadel of France. Northeast and north of Chalons by
the best of roads, lie, at 14 kilometers, the Camp of Attila,
where the great Hun came to bay after his terrible defeat on
the Catalaunian Fields; at 35 kilometers, Valmy, where autoc-
racy failed to quench the newly lighted torch of democracy in
Europe ; at 30 kilometers, Auberive, Souain, and Perthes-les-
Hurlus, the nearest points of the Western Front of the World
War, where Americans of the Forty-second Division shared
honors with their French comrades in repulsing the last des-
perate offensive of the latter-day Huns, and at 40 kilometers,
Medeah Farm and Blanc Mont and St. Etienne-a-Arnes,
where still other Americans, of the Second Division, helped to
tear loose that enemy's hands from their last hold on the in-
trenched lines before Reims and to hurl him back into open
country. But, interesting though all of these places must
henceforth be to Americans, the stories of none of them prop-
erly enter into a narrative of the Marne save that of the field
of the contest between Attila's army and that of the Gallo-
Romans. This epoch-marking struggle we will touch upon
more fully after looking about Chalons.
CHAPTER XIII
chAlons, keeper of the mighty legend
ENTERED through Compertrix and the Faubourg de
Marne, on the west side of the river, the venerable city
which the Romans knew as Catalaunum gives, owing to its
flatness, a first impression of monotony. This is, however,
somewhat reHeved by the overtowering dimensions of the sev-
eral churches which have made Chalons renowned for its
ecclesiastical architecture. The more modern quarter west of
the river, where the railroad yards are located, is given over
to factories and particularly to breweries and champagne cel-
lars and possesses few of the old landmarks save the remark-
able former Manor of Jacquesson, with its two towers. This
stately edifice is now used as a brewery and distillery and has
connected with it no less than 7 miles of cellarage, hewn in
the underlying chalk rock. Although the great center of the
champagne industry, exceeding even Reims in importance, is
at Epernay, some 35 kilometers west of Chalons, the wine
trade of the latter is one of its most important activities and
gives work to a considerable proportion of its 32,000 inhabi-
tants.
Chalons, both in population and volume of commerce, is
easily the most important city lying directly on the Marne
and it is, moreover, the chef-lieu, or capital, of the Depart-
ment of the Marne and a chief military center of France, con-
taining the headquarters of the Sixth Corps and immense bar-
racks for troops in the northeastern faubourgs. The Marne
itself, viewed from the handsome Eighteenth-century bridge
spanning it opposite to the center of the city, with its low
banks and fringes of small trees and brush, has a common-
180
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend i8l
place appearance most unusual to the river of a thousand
charming phases, though perhaps its very homeliness at Chal-
ons may be counted, by contrast, as one of its charms. But
the city which in the days of its greatest prosperity boasted a
population twice as numerous as that of today; which twice
during the Hundred Years' War, in 1430 and in 1434, repulsed
the English invaders, and which was marvelously embellished
with public works and buildings under the favor of King
Henry iv and his successors of the sixteenth century, belies
its poor promise as the visitor proceeds by the broad Rue de
Marne past the imposing bulk of the City Hospital and the
Cathedral of St. Etienne to the Place de Ville and the center
of the city.
The Place de Ville, today still literally, though not practi-
cally, the heart of the city, is probably the same place in which
the men of Chalons gathered to resist the attack of the Eng-
lish and the Navarrois one dark night in 1359; an affair of
which Froissart gave such a lively description in his Chronicles
that it is worth quoting as a picture both of the manner of
fighting in those long-ago days of the Hundred Years' War
and of the stoutness of heart which the burghers of Chalons,
like those of other French towns, had to possess in order to
preserve their independence. Froissart wrote :
It happened that while Sir Peter Audley was governor of Beau-
fort (the English governor, the chronicler means), which is situated
between Troyes and Chalons, he imagined that if he could cross the
Marne above the town of Chalons and advance by the side of the
monastery of St. Peter, he might easily take the town. To carry
the scheme into effect he waited until the River Marne was low,
when he secretly assembled his companions from five or six strong
castles he was master of in that neighborhood. His army consisted
of about four hundred combatants. They set out from Beaufort at
midnight. He led them to a ford of the River Marne, which he
intended to cross, for he had people of the country as guides. On
182 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
coming thither, he made them all to dismount and give their horses
to the servants, when he marched them through the river, which
was low. All having crossed, he led them slowly toward the mon-
astery of St. Peter. There were many guards and watchmen scat-
tered over the town of Chalons, and in the public squares; those
who were nearest to the monastery of St. Peter, which is situated
above the town, heard very distinctly the noise of the Navarrois,
for, as they were advancing, their arms, by touching each other, made
a noise and sounded. Many who heard this wondered what it could
be; for all at once, Sir Peter having halted, the noise ceased, and
when he continued his march the same sounds were again heard by
the sentinels posted in St. Peter's street, as the wind came from the
opposite quarter. And some among them said, "It must be those
English and Navarrois thieves advancing to take us by escalade;
let us immediately sound the alarm and awaken our fellow-citizens."
Some of them went to the monastery, to see what it might be. They
could not, however, make such speed but that Sir Peter and his army
were in the courtyard; for the walls in that part were not four feet
high ; and they immediately rushed through the gate of the monastery
into the street, which was large and wide. The citizens were exceed-
ingly alarmed, because there arose cries from all parts of, " Treason !
Treason ! To arms ! To arms ! " They armed themselves in haste
and, collecting in a body to be stronger, advanced to meet their
enemies, who overthrew and killed the foremost of them.
It happened, very unfortunately for Chalons, that Peter de Chalons,
who had been governor of the city upward of a year, with a hundred
lances under his command had lately left it, on account of not being
able to get paid according to their wishes. The commonalty of the
city were numerous and set themselves in earnest to make a good
defense. It was high time ; but they suffered much and the Navarrois
conquered all the lower town, as far as the bridges over the Marne.
Beyond the bridges the citizens collected themselves and defended
the first bridge, which was of great service to them. The skirmish
was there very sharp ; the Navarrois attacked and fought well. Some
of the English archers advanced and, passing over the supports of
the bridge, shot so well and so continually that none from Chalons
dared to come within reach of their arrows.
This engagement lasted until midday. It was said by some that
Chalons must have been taken if Sir Odes de Grancy had not learnt,
as it were by inspiration, this incursion of the Navarrois. In order
to defeat it he had entreated the assistance of many knights and
squires, for he knew that there was not one gentleman in Chalons.
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The Cathedral of St. Etienne at Chalons
{Page 181]
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend 183
III ' ^^^^'^T'^^™™ ' ' ' ' ^^i^-^ I III — ^^^^^w^— I . ■ I — ■ in ■ — ■ II. I ■
He had come, therefore, day and night, attended by Sir Philip de
Jancourt, the Lord Anceau de Beaupre, the Lord John de Guermillon,
and many others to the amount of sixty lances. As soon as they
were come to Chalons they advanced toward the bridge, which the
inhabitants were defending against the Navarrois, who were exerting
themselves to the utmost to gain it. The Lord de Grancy displayed
his banner and fell upon the Navarrois with a hearty good will. The
arrival of the Lord de Grancy mightily rejoiced the people of Chalons ;
and well it might, for without him and his company they v/ould have
been hard driven. When Sir Peter Audley and his friends saw these
Burgundians they retreated in good order the way they had come,
and found their servants with their horses on the banks of the Marne.
They mounted them and, crossing the river without molestation,
returned toward Beaufort, having by a trifle missed their aim. The
inhabitants of Chalons were much pleased at their departure and gave
thanks to God for it. After expressing their obligations to the Lord
de Grancy for the kindness he had done them, they presented him
with five hundred livres for himself and his people. They entreated
the Lord John de Besars, who was present and a near neighbor, to
remain, to advise and assist them. He consented to their request, for
the handsome salary they allowed him, and set about fortifying the
city in those places which were the weakest.
It is evident that in those days the nobility were no more
averse to turning an honest penny in the name of patriotism
than are the war profiteers of the present.
No vestige survives in the Place de Ville of the buildings
which the Lord de Grancy and Sir Peter Audley knew there
but many historic structures of later date are still extant,
lending dignity to the thoroughfares, while the stamp of mil-
itary character is still upon the city in the sky-blue camions
rolling by and the groups of officers and soldiers walking the
streets or seated about the tables of the cafes. The martial
throng is doubtless augmented by many soldiers from the great
Camp of Chalons, 15 kilometers north of the city; the train-
ing and concentration center established by Napoleon iii in
1856, from which, in 1870, the ill-fated Army of Chalons,
13
184 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
under Marshal MacMahon, set forth to its destruction at
Sedan. At Vadenay Farm, St. Hilaire-le-Grand, which, as
Father Duffy said, "does not look particularly saintly, nor
hilarious, nor grand," and other places in the Camp of Chalons,
the Forty-second American Division, after passing through
Chalons, bivouacked on their way into the Auberive sector,
where they helped to give to the Germans such a thorough
beating on July 15, 1918.
To return to the Place de Ville, the most imposing build-
ing upon it is, appropriately enough, the Hotel de Ville, a
handsome edifice, with the usual Doric columns in the peristyle
and four great lions crouching at the corners of the broad
steps; "four enormous bow-wows in stone," Victor Hugo
irreverently called them. The building was erected in 1772-6,
replacing a structure of the Sixteenth century, said to have
been much more beautiful, because the latter had become too
small for its purposes. In front of the municipal building, a
bust of President Carnot receiving honors from allegorical
female figures in bronze commemorates the great review of
1 89 1 at Matignicourt, previously mentioned. The Library and
Museum are across the square, the former containing 1,100
manuscripts, a number of books printed before the year 1500,
many rare prints and more than 100,000 modern volumes.
The Museum houses antiquities, statuary, and paintings,
among the latter being some by Holbein and Giotto, and a
remarkable collection of images of Hindu gods, given by M.
Eugene Lamairesse, a French engineer who resided during
the sixties in the French establishments about Pondichery.
The actual center of Chalons, despite the importance of the
Place de Ville, is in the Place de la Republique, lying a little
farther to the north, A monumental fountain graces the broad
paved expanse where circulate the slow currents of local busi-
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend 185
ness, and around it are grouped many houses and store build-
ings interesting for their antiquity. Most curious of them is
the four-story hotel, perhaps the best one in the city, called
the Hotel de la Haute-Mere-Dieu. It is so old that it was a
house of refuge in the Twelfth century. Reputed to have been
originally built of wood and plaster, it was remodeled in 1830,
retaining, however, its name, which is believed to have been
derived from a statuette of the Virgin formerly set upon its
fagade. Many a cafe along the Place de la Republique can
furnish to the visitor the best of Chalons champagne and
excellent beer of local manufacture, which does not go amiss
before starting out on a walk through the Jard and the Jardin
Anglais, whose shady promenades and handsome trees and
flower beds border the canals and the Marne in the southwest-
ern quarter of the city.
The Jard is more than a mere breathing place in a modern
city. It has had a stirring part in many of the vital events
of Chalons, from the days in 1147 when, within its precincts,
St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade to the days in
August, 1918, when General Gouraud there decorated the flags
of 28 regiments which had participated with conspicuous valor
in the repulse of the Germans on the Champagne front dur-
ing the previous month. Particularly attractive in this region
of parks is the short Canal de Nau, bordered with stately
poplars and spanned by a tiny bridge, while a little farther
on the graceful passerelle arches, like a Japanese wishing
bridge over the chief lateral canal and gives access to the
English Garden.
Two of the broad boulevards, called allies, laid out in
modern days on the south side of the city, cross one another
not far below the gardens ; the Alices de Forets and the Allees
Ste. Croix. Almost always animated by pedestrians and
1 86 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
pleasure vehicles, these handsomely parked boulevards pass
the large auditorium, the Cirque, and the Allee Ste. Croix
soon arrives at an impressive souvenir of bygone days, the
Porte Ste. Croix. This massive triumphal archway, 60 feet
in height, and imposing even though still unfinished after the
lapse of one hundred and fifty years, was begiui and nearly
completed for the reception of Marie Antoinette, Archduchess
of Austria, on the occasion of her journey from Vienna to
Paris in 1770 to become the bride of the French Dauphin,
afterward King Louis xvi. A gateway of the fortifications
called the Porte Ste. Croix was torn down and replaced by the
present one, which was named at the time the Porte Dauphine.
•Its columns are adorned with heavily carved groups of mili-
tary trophies but the inscriptions on the tablets erected in
honor of the Austrian princess were all effaced during the
Revolution, being repugnant to the eyes of the republicans,
who, in addition to destroying them, restored its original
name to the gateway. Under very different circumstances
Marie Antoinette herself passed once more under the arch
named in her honor when in June, 1791, she, with her royal
husband, was brought back, a recaptured fugitive, from Va-
rennes, to suffer imprisonment and death at the hands of the
revolutionists.
Hard by the gateway of moving memories stands, half
hidden among trees and with its venerable stonework etched
by patches of moss, a fragment of the old fortifications, built
in 1642. Preserved for the curious eyes of future generations
the old Bastion Mauvillain, which formerly guarded the Marne
entrance to the city, looks out upon modern gardens and resi-
dences like a grizzled hermit peering from his woodland
sanctuary, curious but unmoved among the changes wrought
by time. The bridge, a century older than the bastion, which
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend 187
spans the slender stream of the Canal de Mau, near by, is of
unusual construction, its single arch flaring out funnelwise
to much greater dimensions at the edge of the masonry. Four
heraldic escutcheons on the sides of the bridge have been al-
most obliterated by time and perhaps mutilation.
The Allee Ste. Croix, extending northeastward, passes near
the stately building of the Prefecture of the IMarne, where
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were warmly welcomed by
the Chalonais of Royalist sympathies when they came back
from Varennes, and where they lodged on June 22 and 23,
1791. Not far beyond we find ourselves in front of a build-
ing which is not only the most venerable, but also perhaps the
loveliest of the city, the Church of St. Jean. It dates from
the middle of the eleventh century, when the Romanesque
nave was built and contains touches of all subsequent types
of architecture prevalent from the thirteenth to the eighteenth
centuries. The broad, low fagade of the western, or main,
entrance, with its hoary buttresses and flatly arched doorway
surmounted by a similarly arched window reaching almost
to the peak of the roof, is a work of the fourteenth century.
The square tower above the transept is of the sixteenth cen-
tury. A splendid balustrade of lacy stone carving surmounts
the first chapel on the right of the fagade. The interior is
not less attractive, the transept and apse displaying the art
of the thirteenth century, while a good many tombstones, still
either resting in the floor or removed to the walls, recall to
mind the names and virtues of personages who passed from
earth long centuries ago.
St, Jean's, however, contains a less number of gravestones
than the Church of St. Loup, on the Boulevard St. Jacques,
whose square Gothic tower is visible from the former edifice
across the exterior streets of the city. Among the parishes
1 88 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of Chalons, that of St. Loup is the " infant," dating only from
the year 1245, while the building itself, succeeding an earlier
one, was begun in 1459. Though built when Gothic archi-
tecture was beginning to fall into decay, the purity of style
of St. Loup's has caused it to be recognized as one of the
very finest examples of Gothic art in northern France. This
is particularly true of its interior, whose beauty and harmony
of proportions are remarkable. Fine tiles, paintings, and
sculptures, the work of many old masters, enrich both the
body of the church and the chapels, while the floor of the
nave is completely paved with curious tombstones of all epochs.
The extensive military quarters, hard by St. Loup's, in-
clude barracks for several regiments of infantry, artillery,
and cavalry; drill grounds, hospitals, and many other faci-
lities occupying a great extent of ground.
Returning toward the center of the city, past the build-
ings of the Army Headquarters and the Palais de Justice,
one arrives, just back of the Hotel de Ville, at the Church
of Notre Dame, of which Victor Hugo said, writing during
his journey to the Rhine in 1839:
I found what I did not expect — that is, a very pretty Notre Dame
at Chalons. What have the antiquaries been thinking of when, speak-
ing of St. Etienne, they never breathed a word about Notre Dame?
The Notre Dame of Chalons is a Roman church, with arched roofs
and a superb spire, bearing the date of the fourteenth century. In
the middle is a lantern crowned with small pinions. A beautiful coup
d'oeil is afforded here (a pleasure which I enjoyed) of the town, the
Marne and the surrounding hills. The traveler may also admire the
splendid windows of Notre Dame, and a rich portail of the thirteenth
century. In 1793 the people of this place broke the windows and
pulled down the statues; they also destroyed the lateral gateway of
the cathedral, and all the sculpture that was within their reach.
Notre Dame had four spires, three of which are demolished, testifying
the height of stupidity, which is nowhere so evident as here. The
French Revolution was a terrible one; the revolution Champenoise
was attended with acts of the greatest folly.
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend 189
In an earlier paragraph of the same letter, the author of
The Rhine referred to the Cathedral of St. ;&tienne, easily
the show building of Chalons, which we encounter on again
traversing the street leading from the Hotel de Ville to the
Marne, in the following unflattering words :
The exterior of the cathedral is noble, and there are still remains
of some rich stained glass — a rose window especially. I saw in the
church a charming chapel of the Renaissance, with the F and the
salamander. Outside the church there is a Roman tower in the
severest and purest style, and a deHcious portal, of the fourteenth
century. But the dilapidations are hideous. The church is filthy;
the sculptures of Francis I are covered with yellow paint, and the
graining is daubed over also. The fagade is a poor imitation of our
facade of St. Germain; but the spires! I had been promised open-
worked steeples. I counted on these steeples. I found two ; but they
had heavy pointed caps of stone — open-worked, if you please, and
original enough for that matter, but heavily moulded, and with
volutes intermingled with ogives ! I went away terribly disappointed.
The "dilapidations" and filth referred to by Victor Hugo
are not so obvious today, the great church having been well
restored, while an increasing respect for things spiritual and
venerable has accomplished cleanliness. Begun in the thir-
teenth century and not really completed for three hundred
years, its appearance suffered by finally receiving upon its
Gothic bulk a classic fagade of the sixteenth century. But,
as is pointed out by Elise Whi^tlock Rose in Cathedrals and
Cloisters of Northern France;
The treasure of Chalons is its pointed interior — the nave with its
rows of white, round pillars and narrow, foliated capitals, " the trans-
parent gallery " of an ornate and handsome triforium, the high cleres-
tory, and a vaulting which is an example of good rebuilding. In the
choir, the triforium is enclosed by solid masonry, and the capitals and
abaci are almost severe, but the general conception is fine ; and the
three apsidal windows, like a few in the aisles and in the north
transept, contain remarkable stained glass.
190 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Many tales centering about the cathedral have come down
through the years, one of the most touching being that of
Margaret, daughter of James i of Scotland and wife of the
Dauphin, Louis, afterward Louis xi. Of a gentle and poet-
ical disposition, she had been married in infancy to the tur-
bulent and headstrong prince, who detested her sensitive
nature and made her supremely unhappy. On the occasion
of a visit to Chalons she fell ill and, finding that her end
was approaching, she asked to be taken from the chateau to
the quiet cloisters of the cathedral. Here her confessor con-
jured her to forgive all those who had wronged her. After a
long silence the poor, dying girl, who had known only twenty
years of life, replied, turning her face to the wall: "I forgive.
Fie upon existence! Do not speak to me of it."
At the season of Easter during the Middle Ages, the old
cathedral used to see enacted the story of that joyous Chris-
tian festival with elaborate pomp and verisimilitude to the
Gospel narratives. The Angels of the Sepulchre, the three
Marys, and all the other actors in the divine drama took
their parts in speech and action in the white aisles which
have long since become unaccustomed to such naive and
realistic interpretations of the foundation stories of our
faith. It is the mighty bulk of this storied cathedral, loom-
ing above the lesser roofs around it, which overtowers Cha-
lons as one leaves it behind and resumes his journey down
the Marne, and well it seems to embody and typify the solid-
ity of the noble town and the grandeur of the part which it
has played in the long drama of French history.
It may be added that in September, 1914, Chalons suf-
fered fire from the German artillery, which broke some of
the old stained glass in St. Etienne's and crushed in the roof
of the children's ward in the Hospital, which, providentially,
Chalons, Keeper of the Mighty Legend 191
was empty at the time. This occurred on the fourth of the
month, before the Saxon troops of von Hansen's Third
Army entered the streets. A ransom of 500,000 francs was
collected from the city by the invaders before their precip-
itate departure on the night of September 11. There-
after at intervals throughout the war the enemy indulged his
passion for indiscriminate destruction and terrorism by
bombing the city from Zeppelins and airplanes and bombaid-
ing it with long-range guns, thereby compassing the death
of a few noncombatants and the demolition of a few houses.
But for the greatest event of world history with which the
name of Chalons is forever linked, we must go back to the
invasion of the first Huns under Attila, who preceded those
under von Hansen by fifteen hundred years.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SCOURGE OE GOD
FIFTEEN kilometers northeast of Chalons and about
half that distance from the exquisite pilgrimage Abbey
of Notre Dame de I'Epine, there lies within a bend of the
tiny river, Noblette, an immense circular rampart, overlook-
ing the low, sloping roofs of the hamlet of La Cheppe and
enclosing a level space 40 or 50 acres in extent. Standing
upon its turf-grown crest one looks down upon the interior
from a height of about 20 feet but upon the exterior side he
views a surrounding ditch whose bottom, from which large
trees shoot up, is 40 or more feet below him. In 1919 the
interior of this earthwork, which is not more than 15 kilo-
meters behind the forward trenches of the Champagne front,
was littered with the debris of a huge French artillery am-
munition dump, the giant projectiles of long-range guns be-
ing scattered in particular abundance over the ground.
This spot is the one famed in local tradition as the
" Camp of Attila." The vast circular walls of earth, almost as
high as the ramparts of Paris, which the storms of fifteen
centuries have not diminished, are believed to be the work
of the multitudinous hands of the Hunnish Army which had
swept Europe from the Danube to the Loire until checked
at Orleans by the Gallo-Roman forces of the Roman gen-
eral, Aetius, and Theodoric, King of the Visigoths. Nor,
in the opinion of Sir Edward S. Creasy, the most eminent
English authority on that momentous campaign and battle,
.... is there any reason to question the correctness of the title,
or to doubt that behind these very ramparts it was that, fourteen
hundred years ago, the most powerful heathen king that ever ruled
192
The Scourge of God 193
in Europe, mustered the remnants of his vast army which had
striven on these plains against the Christian soldiery of Toulouse
and Rome. Here it was that Attila prepared to resist to the death
his victors in the field; and here he heaped up the treasures of
his camp in one vast pile, which was to be his funeral pyre should
his camp be stormed. It was here that the Gothic and Italian
forces watched, but dared not assail, their enemy in his despair,
after that great and terrible day of battle.
Creasy does not presume definitely to locate the field of
the struggle which had brought the Huns to such a pass.
But, though authorities differ on this point, some contending
that the battle probably occurred in that portion of the Cham-
pagne Pouilleuse lying southwest of the Marne, between
Chalons and Troyes, it seems far more logical to suppose
that it occurred northeast of Chalons, between that city and
the Noblette. Having already learned respect for his foes
on the Loire, so good a general as Attila would hardly have
offered decisive battle on a field where he would have a large
river behind him, which, in case of his defeat, would com-
plete his ruin. Nor, if he had fought on such a field and
succeeded in passing his beaten host over the Marne after-
ward, would he have been likely to throw away the oppor-
tunity of making his later defensive stand behind the Marne
itself rather than behind the little Noblette. The fact appears
to be that, having already passed the Marne before the battle,
he utilized the Noblette afterward as the nearest good defen-
sive position available, so locating his camp as to make the
stream serve the purpose of a natural wet ditch in front of
it, as is quite obvious from even a moment's study of the
site.
It would be presumptuous for anyone to attempt to im-
prove upon the polished English of Sir Edward Creasy's
description of the battle of Chalons in his classic Fifteen
194 ^^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Decisive Battles of the World, or to add matter of value
to his keen and incisive observations. The present writer
will therefore confine himself to the quotation of a few of
the more immediately relevant paragraphs of the English
historian upon the significance and the actual events of " the
first battle of the Marne."
The victory, which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic
allies, had then gained over the Huns was the last victory of Im-
perial Rome. But among the long Fasti of her triumphs few can
be found that, for their importance and ultimate benefit to mankind,
are comparable with this expiring effort of her arms. It did not,
indeed, open to her any new career of conquest ; it did not con-
solidate the relics of her power; it did not turn the rapid ebb of
her fortunes. The mission of Imperial Rome was, in truth, already
accomplished. She had received and transmitted through her once
ample dominion the civilization of Greece. She had broken up the
barriers of narrow nationalities among the various states and tribes
that dwelt around the coast of the Mediterranean. She had fused
these and many other races into one organized empire, bound
together by a community of laws, of government and institutions.
Under the shelter of her full power the True Faith had arisen
in the earth, and during the years of her decline it had been
nourished to maturity, and had overspread all the provinces that
ever obeyed her sway. For no beneficial purpose to mankind could
the dominion of the seven-hilled city have been restored or pro-
longed. But it was all important to mankind what nations should
divide among them Rome's rich inheritance of empire ; whether the
Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states and kingdoms
out of the fragments of her dominions, and become the free mem-
bers of the commonwealth of Christian Europe; or whether pagan
savages from the wilds of Central Asia should crush the relics of
classic civilization and the early institutions of the Christianized
Germans, in one hopeless chaos of barbaric conquest. The Chris-
tian Visigoths of King Theodoric fought and triumphed at Chalons
side by side with the legions of Aetius. Their joint victory over
the Hunnish host not only rescued for a time from destruction the
old age of Rome, but preserved for centuries of power and glory
the Germanic element in the civilization of modern Europe
By the middle of the fifth century, Germanic nations had set-
The Scourge of God 195
tied themselves in many of the fairest regions of the Roman Em-
pire, had imposed their yoke on the provincials, and had undergone,
to a considerable extent, that moral conquest which the arts and
refinements of the vanquished in arms have so often achieved over
the rough victor. The Visigoths held the north of Spain and Gaul
south of the Loire. Franks, Alemanni, Alans, and Burgundians
had established themselves in other Gallic provinces, and the Suevi
were masters of a large southern portion of the Spanish peninsula.
A king of the Vandals reigned in North Africa, and the Ostrogoths
had firmly planted themselves in the provinces north of Italy. Of
these powers and principalities, that of the Visigoths, under their
king Theodoric, son of Alaric, was by far the first in power and
in civilization.
The pressure of the Huns upon Europe had first been felt in the
fourth century of our era. They had long been formidable to the
Chinese Empire ; but the ascendancy in arms which another no-
madic tribe of Central Asia, the Sienpi, gained over them, drove
the Huns from their Chinese conquests westward; and this move-
ment once being communicated to the whole chain of barbaric
nations that dwelt northward of the Black Sea and the Roman
Empire, tribe after tribe of savage warriors broke in upon the bar-
riers of civilized Europe, vchjt unda supervenit undam. The Huns
crossed the Tanais into Europe in 375, and rapidly reduced to sub-
jection the Alans, the Ostrogoths, and other tribes that were then
dwelling along the course of the Danube. The armies of the Ro-
man emperor that tried to check their progress, were cut to pieces
by them; and Pannonia and other provinces south of the Danube
were speedily occupied by the victorious cavalry of these new
invaders. Not merely the degenerate Romans, but the bold and
hardy warriors of Germany and Scandinavia were appalled at the
numbers, the ferocity, the ghastly appearance, and the lightning-like
rapidity of the Huns. Strange and loathsome legends were coined
and credited which attributed their origin to the union of
Secret, black, and midnight hags
with the evil spirits of the wilderness.
Tribe after tribe, and city after city, fell before them. Then
came a pause in their career of conquest in southwestern Europe,
caused probably by dissensions among their chiefs, and also by
their arms being employed in attacks upon the Scandinavian na-
tions. But when Attila (or Atzel, as he is called in the Hunga-
196 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
rian language) became their ruler, the torrent of their arms was
directed with augmented terrors upon the west and the south; and
their myriads marched beneath the guidance of one master-mind
to the overthrow both of the new and the old powers of the
earth
The year 445 of our era completed the twelfth century from
the foundation of Rome, according to the best chronologers. It
had always been believed among the Romans that the twelve vul-
tures, which were said to have appeared to Romulus when he
founded the city, signified the time during which the Roman power
should endure. The twelve vultures denoted twelve centuries. This
interpretation of the vision of the birds of destiny was current among
learned Romans, even when there were yet many of the twelve
centuries to run, and while the Imperial city was at the zenith of
its power. But as the allotted time drew nearer and nearer to its
conclusion, and as Rome grew weaker and weaker beneath the
blows of barbaric invaders, the terrible omen was more and more
talked and thought of; and in Attila's time men watched for the
momentary extinction of the Roman State with the last beat of
the last vulture's wing. Moreover, among the numerous legends
connected with the foundation of the city, and the fratricidal death
of Remus, there was one most terrible one which told that Romu-
lus did not put his brother to death in accident, or in hasty quarrel,
but that
He slew his gallant twin
With inexpiable sin,
deliberately, and in compliance with the warnings of supernatural
powers. The shedding of a brother's blood was believed to have
been the price at which the founder of Rome had purchased from
destiny her twelve centuries of existence.
We may imagine, therefore, with what terror in this, the twelve-
hundredth year after the foundation of Rome, the inhabitants of
the Roman Empire must have heard the tidings that the royal
brethren, Attila and Bleda, had founded a new capital on the
Danube, which was designed to rule over the ancient capital on
the Tiber; and that Attila, like Romulus, had consecrated the
foundation of his new city by murdering his brother; so that, for
the new cycle of centuries then about to commence, dominion had
been bought from the gloomy spirits of destiny in favor of the
Hun by a sacrifice of equal awe and value with that which had
formerly obtained it for the Roman
The Scourge of God 197
Two chiefs of the Franks, who were then settled on the Lower
Rhine, were at this period engaged in a feud with each other; and
while one of them appealed to the Romans for aid, the other in-
voked the assistance and protection of the Huns. Attila thus ob-
tained an ally whose cooperation secured for him the passage of
the Rhine; and it was this circumstance which caused him to take
a northward route from Hungary for his attack upon Gaul. The
muster of the Hunnish hosts was swollen by warriors of every
tribe that they had subjugated; nor is there any reason to suspect
the old chroniclers of wilful exaggeration in estimating Attila's
army at seven hundred thousand strong. Having crossed the
Rhine, probably a little below Coblentz, he defeated the king of
the Burgundians, who endeavored to bar his progress. He then
divided his vast forces into two armies — one of which marched
northwest upon Tongres and Arras and the other cities of that
part of France; while the main body under Attila himself, marched
up the Moselle and destroyed Besan^on and other towns in the
country of the Burgundians. One of the latest and best bio-
graphers of Attila well observes that, " having thus conquered the
eastern part of France, Attila prepared for an invasion of the
West Gothic territories beyond the Loire. He marched upon Or-
leans, where he intended to force the passage of that river; and
only a little attention is requisite to enable us to perceive that he
proceeded on a systematic plan ; he had his right wing on the north,
for the protection of his Frank allies; his left wing on the south,
for the purpose of preventing the Burgundians from rallying, and
of menacing the passes of the Alps from Italy; and he led his
center towards the chief object of the campaign — the conquest of
Orleans, and an easy passage into the West Gothic dominion. The
whole plan is very like that of the allied powers in 1814, with this
difference, that their left wing entered France through the defiles
of the Jura, in the direction of Lyons, and that the military object
of the campaign was the capture of Paris."
It was not until the year 451 that the Huns commenced the
siege of Orleans; and during their campaign in Eastern Gaul, the
Roman general Aetius had strenuously exerted himself in collect-
ing and organizing such an army as might, when united to the
soldiery of the Visigoths, be fit to face the Huns in the field. He
enlisted every subject of the Roman Empire whom courage, pa-
triotism, or compulsion could collect beneath the standards; and
round these troops, which assumed the once proud title of the legions
198 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of Rome, he arrayed the large forces of barbaric auxiliaries whom
pay, persuasion, or the general hate and dread of the Huns, brought
to the camp of the last of the Roman generals. King Theodoric
exerted himself with equal energy. Orleans resisted her besiegers
bravely as in after-times. The passage of the Loire was skilfully
defended against the Huns; and Aetius and Theodoric, after much
maneuvering and difficulty, effected a junction of their armies
to the south of that important river.
Upon the advance of the allies on Orleans, Attila instantly broke
up the siege of that city, and retreated towards the Marne. He did
not choose to risk a decisive battle with only the central corps of
his army against the combined power of his enemies; and he
therefore fell back upon his base of operations, calling in his wings
from Arras and Besan?on, and concentrating the whole of the Hun-
nish forces on the vast plains of Chalons-sur-Marne. A glance
at the map will show how scientifically this place was chosen by
the Hunnish general as the point for his scattered forces to con-
verge upon; and the nature of the ground was eminently favorable
for the operations of cavalry, the arm in which Attila's strength
peculiarly lay.
It was during the retreat from Orleans that a Christian hermit
is reported to have approached the Hunnish king and said to him,
" Thou art the Scourge of God for the chastisement of Christians."
Attila instantly assumed this new title of terror, which thenceforth
became the appellation by which he was most widely and most
fearfully known.
The confederate armies of Romans and Visigoths at last met
their great adversary face to face on the ample battleground of
the Chalons plains. Aetius commanded on the right of the allies;
King Theodoric on the left; and Sangipan, king of the Alans, whose
fidelity was suspected, was placed purposely in the center, and
in the very front of the battle. Attila commanded his center in
person, at the head of his own countrymen, while the Ostrogoths,
the Gepidae, and the other subject allies of the Huns were drawn
up on the wings. Some maneuvering appears to have occurred
before the engagement in which Aetius had the advantage, inas-
much as he succeeded in occupying a sloping hill which commanded
the left flank of the Huns. Attila saw the importance of the posi-
tion taken by Aetius on the high ground and commenced the battle
by a furious attack on this part of the Roman lines, in which he
seems to have detached some of his best troops from his center to
The Scourge of God 199
aid his left. The Romans, having the advantage of the ground,
repulsed the Huns, and while the allies gained this advantage on
their right, their left, under King Theodoric, assailed the Ostro-
goths, who formed the right of Attila's army. The gallant king
was himself struck down by a javelin, as he rode onward at the
head of his men, and his own cavalry charging over him trampled
him to death in the confusion. But the Visigoths, infuriated, not
dispirited, by their monarch's fall, routed the enemies opposed to
them, and then wheeled upon the flank of the Hunnish center,
which had been engaged in a sanguinary and indecisive contest
with the Alans.
In this peril Attila made his center fall back upon his camp;
and when the shelter of its intrenchments and wagons had once
been gained, the Hunnish archers repulsed, without difficulty, the
charges of the vengeful Gothic cavalry. Aetius had not pressed
the advantage which he gained on his side of the field and when
night fell over the wild scene of havoc, Attila's left was still un-
broken, but his right had been routed, and his center forced back
upon his camp.
Expecting an assault on the morrow, Attila stationed his best
archers in front of the cars and wagons, which were drawn up
as a fortification along his lines, and made every preparation for
a desperate resistance. But the " Scourge of God " resolved that
no man should boast of the honor of having either captured or
slain him; and he caused to be raised in the center of his encamp-
ment a huge pyramid of the wooden saddles of his cavalry; round
it he heaped the spoils and the wealth that he had won; on it he
stationed his wives who had accompanied him in the campaign;
and on the summit he placed himself, ready to perish in the flames,
and balk the victorious foe of their choicest booty, should they
succeed in storming his defenses.
But when the morning broke, and revealed the extent of the
carnage, with which the plains were heaped for miles, the succes-
ful allies saw also and respected the resolute attitude of their
antagonist. Neither were any measures taken to blockade him in
his camp, and so to extort by famine that submission which it was
too plainly perilous to enforce with the sword. Attila was allowed
to march back the remnants of his army without molestation, and
even with the semblance of success.
It is probable that the crafty Aetius was unwilling to be too
victorious. He dreaded the glory which his allies, the Visigoths,
had acquired; and feared that Rome might find a second Alaric
14
200 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
in Prince Thorismund, who had signalized himself in the battle,
and had been chosen on the field to succeed his father, Theodoric.
He persuaded the young king to return at once to his capital; and
thus relieved himself at the same time of the presence of a danger-
ous friend, as well as of a formidable, though beaten, foe.
Attila's attacks on the Western Empire were soon renewed;
but never with such peril to the civilized world as had menaced
it before his defeat at Chalons. And on his death, two years after
that battle, the vast empire which his genius had founded was soon
dissevered by the successful revolts of the subject nations. The
name of the Huns ceased for some centuries to inspire terror in
Western Europe, and their ascendancy passed away with the life
of the great king, by whom it had been so fearfully augmented.
CHAPTER XV
THE LIQUID GOLD 0^ CHAMPAGNE
AS FROM Vitry to Chalons, so from Chalons to Eper-
nay, another 30 kilometers, the land unfolds in vast,
level reaches of peaceful fields and woodlands; of pastures
dyed with bluets and poppies, where cattle and sheep graze
in long grasses; of meadows where the hay-makers are toss-
ing the conical cocks upon the waiting wains; of yellowing
grain fields over which fly, cawing, the slow-winged rooks;
of village spires rising in the distance beside the white roads.
Through it all the Marne threads its vagrant, dimpling path-
way of silver, reflecting the blue sky and fleecy clouds and
the lacelike tracery of the trees that bend tenderly above
it; laughing over shallows, slipping silently through shady
pools as if tiptoeing past the drowsy fishermen who sit re-
posefully, rod in hand, in such seductive spots, and gliding
with dainty tread and a soft whisper of waters like the swish
of a maiden's skirt, between the white piers of overarching
bridges.
Not a few of these bridges, formerly graceful with all
the grace characteristic of French stonework, were reduced
to uncouth heaps of ruin when the Germans swept with fire
and sword over the land in the fall of 19 14, and across the
mutilated stumps of their abutments army engineers have
since thrown sturdy but commonplace spans of steel. This
is the case at Matougues, a rambling little lowland village
wherein thatched roofs and tile vie with each other in shel-
tering the squat old houses, and past which the river flows
with more than its accustomed speed and strength. It is the
case again a little way farther on, at the next village, Aul-
201
202 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
nay, where the Marne nearly loses itself in wandering about
among flats and islands rank with marsh grasses as it creeps
beneath a once massive, two-span bridge now overleaped by
a thin roadway of steel as straight and rigid as a crusader's
sword.
Fortunately these pretty, isolated villages escaped much
other damage during the brief sojourn of the invaders. The
low, Romanesque church of Matougues, with the neat grave-
yard and high stone wall around it, is intact. And at Jalons-
les-Vignes, which keeps guard over the spot where the
Somme-Soude steals from its marshes into the Marne, a still
more beautiful church remains as it was before the war. The
pure Roman steeple and cloistered porch and the delicate
modeling of the ribs and the capitals of the columns in its
interior, all deeply touched by the mellowing tints of time,
have united to give to the church of Jalons more than a local
reputation for modest loveliness.
A short distance up the Somme-Soude, in the wide marsh-
lands which lie above Jalons, is one of the most interesting
spots to nature lovers to be found anywhere, the ancient
heronry called the Grand-Ecury. A refuge and nesting-
place for these stately aquatic birds since a time so remote
that its origin has been forgotten, the Grand-Ecury is owned
and protected by the owner of the Chateau of St. Georges,
four kilometers south of Jalons. The chateau itself, built
of alternate courses of bricks and white stone, which, with
its pointed roofs and towers, uplifts itself prettily amid the
surrounding woods, is worthy of a visit. But the prime
object of interest is the great surrounding park, whose noble
trees are the habitations of thousands of herons from Feb-
ruary until August of each year.
The nests of the herons, built of twigs and reeds and
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 203
mud. are sometimes as much as three feet in diameter, re-
sembling clusters of mistletoe, and they are scattered in pro-
fusion among the high tops of the oaks, poplars, ash, and
willow trees which attain to great size in the moist soil.
During the hatching season, to protect the eggs from the
ravens and squirrels, those persistent nest robbers, one or
other of the parent herons generally remains on the nest
while the other seeks for food, so that the colony is always
alive with birds. Local tradition has it that the Grand-
Ecury, one of only three such refuges in France, was first
established by one Count of Sainte-Suzanne to rid the sur-
sounding country of a plague of vipers, of which the heron
is the inveterate foe ; at all events, vipers are today conspicu-
ous only by their absence in the vicinity of these marshes.
Already, as one pursues his way beside the flashing links
of the Marne, he has seen, growing gradually more distinct
in the wide, blue distance before him, the low hills of Avize
and Vertus reaching away to the southwest and the higher
escarpments of the Mountain of Reims stretching along the
northwestern horizon above Mareuil and Ay and Epernay,
their summits crowned with dark forests, their slopes verdant
with the vineyards which are the most renowned and the
most valuable in the world. For we are now approaching
that limited district of ancient Champagne which has made
the name of the whole widespread province familiar to man-
kind everywhere, and whose wine of liquid gold,
quick,
As the wit it gives, the gay champagne,
is, in the opinion of Mr. Henry James, as well as of many
others who could not express themselves so felicitously, the
most agreeable of all the delightful gifts of France to the
204 '^^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
world. In this joyous land it seems that the Marne, casting
aside the demure sobriety with which it has thus far pursued
its journey through life, dances like a nymph of Bacchus
for a while between the hillsides which are a riot of vines,
past Mareuil, Ay, Dizy, Epernay, Hautevillers, Pierry, Dam-
ery, and Binson, before it begins to grow sedate once more
under the reproving glance of Pope Urban ii, above Cha-
tillon, and becomes quite staid again about Dormans. Other
famous vineyards and wine centers lie a little back from
the river; Reims, 22 kilometers north of Epernay, with
Verzy, Sillery, and Chamery on the northern slopes of the
mountain facing it; Vertus, Avize, Cramant, and Moussy on
the slopes and in the folds of the hills south of the river.
But we must confine our attention, as the present writer was
obliged to do, to a glimpse of the vine culture and wine mak-
ing as exemplified in the places which the Marne's own
waters reflect.
Mareuil-sur-Ay, hugging the canal and the river, with the
abrupt rise of its rounded hill, completely robed in vines,
behind it, is the first of such places, and literally the entrance
to the vine country, for here the hills for the first time draw
near together below the great valley which commenced above
Chalons. An appropriate entrance it is, too, for as one stands
on the river bank opposite Mareuil and looks northward, the
outline of the hill behind the village, coupled to its own re-
flection in the water, forms the exact image of an enormous
champagne bottle lying upon its side; the slope of the hill
drawing the taper toward the neck, while a group of trees,
just properly placed, shapes the cork. The place is called
La Bouteille.
Ay, 2 or 3 kilometers down river, is the first town of any
size connected with the industry of the valley. A beautiful
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 205
avenue, named after Victor Hugo, bordered by four rows of
great trees, leads from the railway station and the port of
the canal into the town, which is further surrounded by a
broad boulevard on the site of the long-vanished fifteenth
century fortifications. But though the town of 5,000 people
shows every evidence of prosperity in its comfortable resi-
dences and various factories of articles employed in the wine
industry, such as bottles and packing cases, it has not much
of interest to show to the visitor and is too closely connected
with Epernay, both physically and in a commercial sense,
to be, in reality, more than a suburb of that city.
If one follows the broad highway, or, rather, street, marked
by the tram line from Ay, he enters Epernay through the
suburb of Magenta. But the higher ground on the south
side of the Marne, where the road comes in from Chalons
and Jalons, affords the more extensive and beautiful view
of the city as one approaches it. At one's feet the sparkling
Marne, tinted by the blue sky, flashes between the curving
arches of the highway bridge, turned in perfect ovals by their
own reflections in the stream. Distant roadways, outlined by
tapering poplars and hemmed by green and golden fields of
crops, form a tapestried setting for the gem of the distant
city, whose spires and ornate roofs are etched against the
slopes of the Mountain of Reims, royally robed in the emerald
velvet of the vineyards.
Although then as now the vineyards surrounded the Eper-
nay of the fifteenth century, there is nothing else today to
faintly suggest the appearance of that medieval strong place,
straitly confined within its battlemented walls, the spires of
two churches, as shown in the old prints, dominating it. One
of these churches is now quite vanished; the other, Notre
Dame, shows only, of former features, the fagade and some
2o6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
stained-glass windows. Indeed, the whole city has been trans-
formed by the amazing modern success of its industry, be-
coming as long ago as 1839, when Victor Hugo visited it,
"the town for champagne — nothing more, nothing less,"
which he then found. Everything attests the truth of the
novelist's dictum, from the luxurious, but frequently too
ostentatious, homes of the wine kings, such as the palatial
Chateau de Pekin, on the slopes of Mont Bernon, southeast
of the city, and others only less gorgeous in the same quarter,
to the tall chimneys and spreading roofs of the manufactories
of bottles, stoppers, and packing cases, and machinery for
rinsing, filling, corking, and dosing bottles. There are, to
be sure, other industrial plants; large breweries, factories of
hats and millinery and, on the shores of the Marne near
where the little Cubry brook falls into it, extensive shops of
the Chemin de Per de I'Est. But all the plants last mentioned
are insignificant compared with those of the forty-odd manu-
facturers and wholesalers of wine in Epernay, and the auxi-
liary industries connected with them.
Even the extensive surface buildings of the wine industry
do not truly gauge its magnitude, for the chalky soil beneath
the city and that of the hills around it is honeycombed with
many miles of cellars and subterranean galleries, where by
far the greater part of the fabrication of champagne is carried
on and where all of the finished product is kept in storage
until it is shipped away. Some idea of the extent of these
cellars may be gleaned from the statement of Victor Hugo,
made more than eighty years ago, that while in Epernay he
was urged to visit the show place of the town, a cellar con-
taining 1,500,000 bottles of champagne. He made a well-
intentioned start to do so, but on the way thither passed a
turnip field wherein poppies were blowing and butterflies
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 207
sporting in the sunshine. The poet paused to enjoy these
simple beauties and never saw the cave. The latter still
exists, even larger than it was when Hugo was there, and
there are others as extensive.
During the battle of the Meuse-Argonne, a delightful
young French officer who was stationed at the headquarters
of the First American Army but who, in civil life, was presi-
dent of one of the great champagne companies, informed the
writer that the cellars of his company, under the Mountain
of Reims, contained, at the beginning of the war, 2,000,000
bottles of champagne. During the four years of the struggle
the galleries were thrown open for the use of troops with-
drawn for rest from the sectors of the front lying in the
vicinity of Reims. No restrictions, save such as might be
imposed by their officers, were placed upon the soldiers
regarding the use of the stored wines. The young officer,
while laughingly admitting that the contents of about 800,000
bottles had thus far gone down the throats of French sol-
diers to brighten their sojourn beneath the mountain, declared
himself and his company well satisfied with this drain upon
their stock in view of the fact that but for the presence and
the bravery of the French troops, the entire contents of the
cellars would long before have been consumed or destroyed
by the Germans. During the few days in the fall of 1914
in which the invaders held Reims and Epernay, they put
forth their best efforts but could make only slight inroads
on the enormous wine stocks. But even such inroads had
rather disastrous consequences for them, as has been amus-
ingly pointed out by Edmond Pilon in his little volume. Sous
I'Egide de la Marne. He writes :
In 1914, the German hordes progressed rapidly to the land of
the vineyards. But, accustomed until then to their Bavarian beer,
2o8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
thick and nourishing, they were overcome by the vivacity of the rare
vintages. Their wits befogged, their heads on fire, after some
Hbations they reeled. It was General Foch himself, after the cere-
mony at Ferc-Champenoise, who related to his hosts, the plan of
the Battle of the Marne in his hand, how, two years before, on
entering the Chateau of Mondement with General Humbert, they
scrambled over piles of empty champagne bottles (left by the re-
treating enemy), which lay there, broken, in heaps.
Some of the wine cellars, during their many decades of
use, have become veritable art galleries by reason of paintings
or sculptures placed there by artists more or less famous,
who have thus attested their admiration for the supreme
"cup that cheers." Particularly striking among these works
of art is an eighteenth-century bas-relief in one of the caves,
portraying with admirable spirit a sumptuous banquet hall
around whose table a throng of ladies and gentlemen are
sitting or standing with wine goblets upraised in response to
a young man who stands, with all the vivacity of life, on
a chair with one foot on the table, proposing a toast. But
it is in Epernay itself, in the Hotel de Ville, that one sees
perhaps the most distinguished work of this type, a paint-
ing by Armand Guery. Upon a large canvas appear the
swelling slopes of the Mountain of Reims, clothed with the
vines of folly, while beneath this attractive scene from nature
is gracefully materialized the cellar of the good Dom Perig-
non, to whom tradition ascribes the honor of having dis-
covered the process of making champagne.
The story goes that the Dom Perignon was a monk of
the Abbey of Hautevillers on the slope of the mountain op-
posite to Epernay, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
So skilled was he in vine culture and the preparation of wines
that he was reputed to be able to tell, by tasting a single
grape, from what soil and what vicinity it had come. Hav-
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 209
ing heard something of the use of cork for stopping bottles,
he procured some and experimented with it in a few of his
own wine bottles, in place of the plugs of hemp saturated
in oil which were universally used at that period. The corks
confined in the bottles the carbonic acid gas which thereto-
fore had slowly escaped through the hemp, so that when the
Dom Perignon opened one of his experimental bottles
he was amazed to see pour from it the white foam, or
" mousse," which differentiates champagne from still wines.
By further experiments, the monk was soon able to demon-
strate the superior excellence of the new product, and he
himself so improved the process of producing it that when
he died in 171 5 it was with the satisfying knowledge that
his discovery was meeting with ever-increasing appreciation.
Out on the wide hillsides about Epernay, with the peace-
ful valley of the Marne far below, one may study at leisure
the beginning of the long and intricate process of champagne-
making. The rare combination of soil and climate necessary
to the growth of the proper varieties of red and white grapes,
possessing, moreover, the proper flavor, have made the slopes
of these hillsides so valuable that every available foot of
them is utilized, even though it be necessary to elaborately
terrace large parts of them. Here, throughout the year work
goes on in the vineyards; fertilizing and preparing the soil,
planting the vines, setting the wooden stakes, or vine props,
which, early in the year before the leaves have covered them,
so curiously mark the slopes with their gray, bristling mul-
titudes; hoeing, weeding, pruning, spraying; all these activ-
ities have their time and season.
The gathering of the ripe grapes usually begins in the
first week of October and then an army of men, women,
and children who come in from far and near, are engaged
2IO The Maine, Historic and Picturesque
in the task. The grapes have to be gathered with the utmost
care, no spoiled or unripe ones being permitted to go to the
presses. From the presses the young wine is drawn into
casks in the great cellars and remains there, fermenting, until
winter, when it receives the first racking to remove the crude
sediment. The second racking takes place a month later and
then the wine is fined of all impurities and bottled in certain
proportions of the various growths with an admixture of
old wine. If not sufficiently sweet, enough candied sugar is
added to produce fermentation in the bottle.
Throughout the following summer the bottles lie, corked
and clipped, horizontally in racks while the carbonic acid
gas is generated and the sediment falls to the side of the
bottle. Later they are set in other racks, neck downward
and inclined at an angle of about seventy degrees. For a
month or six weeks they are then daily shaken very slightly
and the angle of inclination gradually increased to loosen
the sediment and cause it to settle upon the cork. When this
has been accomplished, the clip is removed and the cork flies
out, "degourging" the bottle by taking the sediment out with
it. The bottles are then "dosed," or liqueured by being
filled up with a mixture of old wine, cognac, and sugar, the
amount of liqueur added depending upon the climate of the
country to which the bottles are to be shipped, those destined
to cold countries receiving a higher percentage of liqueur
than those destined for warm ones. They are then recorked,
wired, wrapped, and packed ready for shipment. Before the
war about 5,000,000 bottles of champagne were being laid
down annually in the whole champagne district and there was
an enormous reserve supply on hand, in storage; perhaps
between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000 bottles.
In the growing season the hills of the champagne country
%.:'^^4S<^ ;
-Ag^-
r- 1 ^H■ t
r^^^J* f^
HI
■ u
hi
o
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 211
are beautiful and interesting, both as viewed from a distance
and on closer inspection. Fine, white roads wind up the
slopes, closely bordered by the vines, which, though trimmed
and trained too rigidly to have much individual grace, yet
collectively weave a lovely carpet over the rising ground,
while above them thriving forests occupy the higher levels
of the hills, where grapes possessing the proper qualities can-
not be grown.
The writer visited the vineyards on the southern slopes
of the Mountain of Reims on a summer day of mist and
occasional showers, when the vines and grape clusters hung
heavy and glistening with rain drops and when, far below,
the Marne wound like a gray ribbon through the valley with
the varicolored walls and roofs of Epernay, beside it, soft-
ened to dull tones in the humid air. A short distance down
the river, at the foot of the hill of Hautevillers, the straight
trench of the canal, which had marched side by side with
the river ever since the two entered the shadow of the battle-
mented height of Langres, could be seen discharging into
the Marne, which thenceforward until its own entry into
the Seine at Charenton is itself canalized and carries the
burdens of commerce. The habitually cheerful appearance
of the country was sobered to a quality of sadness and the
fact that even this land, associated in all minds with light-
hearted joy, has borne its share of the nation's sorrows was
brought sharply to mind as we ascended the road leading
across the Mountain to Reims. At the moment when we
first glimpsed, near the crest, the roofs of Champillon, we
noticed, also, beside us in the midst of the vineyards a small
wooden obelisk painted white and decorated with wreaths
and little tricolor flags. It was evidently a temporary monu-
ment to be replaced later by one more substantial and on its
212 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
face it bore a tablet inscribed with twenty or more names
of soldiers Mort a Patrie, who had been employees of the
company owning the surrounding vineyards. Thus did the
struggle for national existence strike every hamlet and
gathering place of men throughout France and thus has the
sacrifice been everywhere tenderly commemorated.
In Epernay itself the evidences of war-time devastation
are everywhere, and no more convincing testimonials to the
far-reaching destructiveness of modern war could be found
than in this city, which, though it suffered little during the
few days of actual occupation by the Germans in 19 14, was
in great measure wrecked by long-range artillery fire and
night bombing throughout the remainder of the war. Dur-
ing the second Battle of the Marne in 1918 it received the
greatest amount of damage, though the battle front was at
no time nearer to the city than about 10 kilometers and
most of the time it was more than 20 kilometers distant. The
Church of Notre Dame, the oldest and most important in
the city, whose other churches are quite modern, had its in-
terior completely wrecked by bombs which destroyed the
roof, though the walls and the tall spire continued to stand.
When it shall have been restored it is to be hoped that it
will be in such a manner as to make inapplicable the jibe of
Victor Hugo, who called it "a hideous building, plastered
white," having a heavy appearance, "with triglyphs support-
ing the architrave;" and added that he thought it must have
been built " from the design of M. Porterlet-Galichet, a
worthy grocer, whose shop and name are close to the church."
Even Hugo, however, conceded that the Notre Dame of
Epernay had an exquisite fagade and some fine stained glass.
In the residence streets all over the city, such as the
Rue de Brugny, the Rue Jean Thevenin and the Rue des
The Liquid Gold of Champagne 213
Berceaux, many houses were reduced to rubbish heaps by
bombs; and stores, restaurants, and hotels were similarly
demolished in the business district on the Rue de Chalons,
the Place Hugues-Plomb, the Rue du Commerce, and other
streets, for the night raiders peppered this unfortified city in
every quarter, mercilessly. But though, for a long time after
the armistice, one could go scarcely anywhere in Epernay
without having one or more ruins in sight, a place of such
industrial activity will doubtless repair its injuries speedily.
Farther down the river, in the smaller towns of the wine
district extending toward Chatillon-sur-Marne, the case is
different and here many years may well elapse before the
ravages of war will be effaced.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE SHADOW OP POPE URBAN II
("COMPASSED like an island by the billowing seas of
>l vineyards that cover the hillsides of the Marne's left
banlc 5 or 6 kilometers below Epernay, it is a surprise as
well as a delight to come upon the exquisite Chateau of
Boursault, unharmed by the fighting. High up on the hills
stands this almost regal palace of the Duchesse d'Uzes, in
the midst of a park of fairy-like beauty, the airy towers,
serried windows, and white walls mirrored in the blue bosom
of a small lake whose sculptured stone basin frames it as the
setting of a goldsmith frames a rare turquoise. Although a
modern structure, Boursault is built according to the best
traditions of the Renaissance and with its lovely lines and
its almost unbelievably beautiful surroundings, it is perhaps
the most charming chateau which looks down upon the
Marne in all its course. Seen either close at hand, with the
background of the verdant valley behind it, or from the
opposite hills at Chatillon, it is so chaste, so ethereal, so like
a vision materialized out of the mists of morning or the sha-
dows of evening, that the beholder half expects, like the
Knight of Triermain, to have
The towers and bastions, dimly seen.
And Gothic battlements between
dissolve into thin air and
The rocks their shapeless form regain.
From Boursault one may look across the Marne and
there see, couched among the vines on the towering slopes,
the little vineyard village of Damery; a spot which holds
a romantic interest as the birthplace of the beautiful and
214
In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 215
talented actress of the early eighteenth century, Adrienne
Lecouvreur. In this simple, secluded Marne-side country
played as a child the woman who freed modern drama from
much of its antique pedantry by giving to dialogue its true
accents of eloquence and passion, and who endowed with
pulsing life the heroines created by her great contemporaries,
Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire. Molded of a .surpassing
beauty and with a mind of rare power, yet swayed by -the
strong emotions of womanhood, this daughter of the Cham-
pagne Hills lived in her own person a drama more moving
than any in which she acted, and derived from her relations
with Voltaire and, more than all, with the brilliant and
honored soldier. Prince Maurice of Saxony, the victor of
Fontenoy, a fame transcending that which she owed to her
artistic triumphs. Dead in her fortieth year, probably from
the effects of poison administered by a rival, her checkered
life and tragic death furnished to Scribe, more than a hun-
dred years later, material for a powerful play, and here is
one of the names which seems destined longest to survive
among those of the children of the Marne.
A seemingly limitless panorama of this well-cultivated re-
gion is visible from the top of the great hill of Chatillon, a
veritable promontory jutting into the river valley, so con-
spicuously rearing upon its crest a gigantic statue of Pope
Urban 11 that the mighty figure dominates the country for
miles around and remains for a long time within view of
the trains which, far below in the valley, speed to and fro
between Paris and the Rhine. Standing at the foot of the
statue, erected in 1887, of the virile churchman who was the
organizer, in 1095, of the First Crusade and the most illus-
trious son of the illustrious feudal house of Chatillon, the
spectator sees, far to his left up the valley, the smiling vil-
15
21 6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
lages of Boursault, Villesaint, Montvoisin, and Oeuilly,
tangled among the vineyards and reflected in the bright waters
of the Marne. The white wonder of Boursault Chateau
glimmers in its park; Epernay itself is invisible only because
a rounded hill thrusts out between, though the great forests
of the plateau above it roll away in dark green masses to
the southern horizon. Nearer at hand, cutting its way deeply
down through the hills from the north, lies the vale of the
Belval, with Montigny, Villers, Binson-Orquigny, and Reuil
nestled along the banks of the tiny stream, while south from
Chatillon the little Flagot pursues a sylvan pathway from
the Forest of Enghuien and the sisterhood of lakes that send
it forth, and enters the Marne hard by Port-a-Binson and
Mareuil-le-Port. These busy shipping points on the canal-
ized river, through which pass quantities of lumber from the
forests of the region, present in the distance a pleasing scene
of activity with the barges moving slowly through the water
or lying at the quays receiving their cargoes. Westward
the broadening valley, equally entrancing with its green fields,
its woodland masses, and its red-roofed villages, unrolls
itself past Dormans until the observer may even see in the
blue distance the spires of Passy and Reuilly, at the head
of the great bend of Jaulgonne.
At the very foot of Chatillon Hill lie the remains of
what was, a few years ago, the beautiful Priory of Binson,
once an important monastic establishment of the White
Fathers of Africa and then, more lately, an orphanage. Its
ranges of ancient, low stone buildings, particularly the for-
mer House of the Fathers, with its ogival porch in cloistral
form and its Roman tower surmounted by a slender spire,
all set at the foot of the vine-clad hills, has been said "to
complete the marvel of a vast picture of a grace very capti-
In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 217
vating, very French." But that marvel is now no more. In
the battle days of May, June, and July, 19 18, the Germans
of von Boehn's army assailed and the French of Berthelot's
army defended, in desperate combats, the storied precincts
of the Priory of Binson. In the struggle the weathered walls,
the graceful cloisters, the heaven-pointing spire of the House
of the Fathers, rattled down beneath the shells into heaps
of ghastly ruin.
But Binson did not suffer alone. In their Friedensturm,
or "Peace Battle," beginning on July 15, the Germans on
the west of Reims directed their greatest effort to making
progress up the Marne toward Epernay for the purpose of
carrying the Mountain of Reims, capturing Reims itself, and
then conquering the valley of the Marne as far as Chalons.
Their greatest progress, registered between July 15 and 18,
before the Allied counter-attacks fell like an avalanche upon
their rear, was made along the Marne from the vicinity of
Chatillon to a point just beyond Villesaint, so that Pope-
Urban's statue looks down upon the line of the enemy's
deepest penetration and nearly all the villages within view
of its elevated site experienced the bitter fighting of the sec-
ond Battle of the Marne. At Mareuil-le-Port, where the
Thirty-third Regiment of Colonial Infantry covered itself
with glory by stopping the rush of the enemy on July 15;
at Oeuilly and Reuil and Venteuil and up the valley of the
Belval, the French, aided by two Italian divisions, fought
grimly and successfully to hold the foe back from the Moun-
tain of Reims and Epernay.
Chatillon itself, on its mighty hill, escaped nothing save
total destruction. In 1919, the traveler, mounting the steep,
stony road from the valley to this eyrie of the uplands, found
himself moving through streets defined by the skeletons of
2i8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
houses and lined with rows of building stones and other
debris of battle picked up by soldiers to clear the passage-
ways of the streets. Of the ancient parish church, which
preserved columns constructed in the tenth century, but a
few pieces of tottering wall remained; gaping shell holes in
the hotel were patched with tar paper, and the curious old
market with its short, massive stone columns and high hip
roof was reduced to the stumps of a few columns. Strangely
enough, the huge statue of Pope Urban ii, standing, with
right arm majestically extended above the Marne, on the hill
crest just behind the village, was unscathed, as was the
single fragment of towering, ivy-draped wall hard by it
which is the only remaining relic of the Chateau of Chatillon.
This vast building was razed by the German soldiery of the
Emperor Charles v in the sixteenth century, and its masses
of building stone afterward furnished much of the material
from which the houses of the village were built.
From Chatillon onward for 30 kilometers, along the
sweeping bends which in the Brie district succeed the short
windings characteristic of the upper course of the Marne,
the river flows through the region of fierce fighting of the
second Battle of the Marne. It is the land wherein the
battle river of France, like a lovely naiad roused to fury in
defense of her woods and hills, in very truth caused the in-
vaders to stumble and fall, ready prey to the strong arms
of the Allied hosts which guarded her. Before following
the river through that region wherein the tapestries of the
vineyards gradually give place to the more luxuriant loveli-
ness of cherry orchards cascading down the hillsides, it will
be worth while to gain a grasp of the main features of the
great battle in which Americans, for the first time on Euro-
pean soil participated in large numbers, and in which they
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In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 219
remolded, as it were, the immortal river into a silver thread
uniting forever with the bonds of mutual sacrifice the sym-
pathies of the two republics.
The second Battle of the Marne, considered in its broadest
aspect, lasted for more than two months and divided itself
into four phases. The first of these phases was the initial
break-through of the German armies on the Chemin des
Dames front from Berry-au-Bac, on the Aisne, to Leuilly,
on the Ailette, on May 2y, 19 18, and their subsequent advance
to the Marne, terminating about June 2. The second was the
period of semistabilization, marked still by much active fight-
ing, which lasted until July 15; a period of about six weeks.
The third phase was that of the last great German offensive,
extending from the western edge of the Argonne Forest to
Chateau-Thierry, and continuing from July 15 to 18, and
the fourth phase was that of the Allied counter-attack which
definitely changed the tide of the war and which was driven
forward, at the beginning, from the Aisne near Fontenoy
to Chateau-Thierry, being later extended to the vicinity of
Reims. In this counter-attack, begun on July 18, the enemy
was ejected from the Marne salient, which had been entirely
flattened out by August 4, when the Allied front reached the
Vesle River from Soissons to Reims and the line again came
temporarily to a standstill.
The original intention of the Germans in attacking on
the Chemin des Dames seems merely to have been to force
a wedge down to the eastern side of Compiegne and its great
forest, which were already closely threatened by them on the
north from the positions which they had taken in their March
offensive toward Amiens. Thus they aimed to create a salient
from which the Allies could be pinched out and driven south-
west directly toward Paris. For the purpose of making this
220 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
attack, General von Boehn's Seventh Army, of the army
group of the German Crown Prince, was increased from a
holding strength of 15 divisions to a strength of 42 divi-
sions, of which 28 divisions were picked storm troops. It
is estimated that 1,450 batteries — nearly 6,000 guns — were
concentrated to support the attack, while the infantry was
provided with enormous numbers of heavy and light machine
guns and mine throwers.
Having prepared the attack with the utmost secrecy, von
Boehn was able to take his opponents entirely by surprise.
This portion of the front was regarded as a "quiet sector"
and the Sixth French Army under General Duchesne, on
which the brunt of the attack fell, was holding from Pontoise
to Craonnelle, a distance of 35 kilometers, with only 4 divi-
sions, while from Craonnelle to Reims, General Micheler's
Fifth Army had 6 divisions in line, including 2 British divi-
sions which were resting from their hard fighting of March
in the Somme Valley. The German advance on the morn-
ing of May 27 completely overwhelmed the feeble resistance
which these 10 divisions could offer on so extended a front,
and by nightfall of the first day the enemy had swept clean
the powerful defenses of the Chemin des Dames and reached
the watershed between the Aisne and the Vesle. Three days
later, in spite of the most strenuous efforts of General Foch
and General Petain to rush in enough reinforcements to stop
the drive, the enemy's foremost divisions had reached the
Marne from Brasles to Jaulgonne, in the center, while on his
right he had taken Soissons and was approaching the Forest
of Villers-Cotterets and on his left was closely pressing the
defenses of Reims, struggling for a foothold on the skirts of
the Mountain of Reims, and pushing down the valley of the
Ardre between that important eminence and the Marne.
In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 221
Carried away by their amazing success, the Germans had
by this time apparently determined to consecrate all of their
available forces to the exploitation of the new salient, with
the object of forcing their way across the Marne and spread-
ing southward toward Montmirail and southwestward to-
ward Paris. But the concentration of Allied reserves was
by now sufficiently heavy to contain the attack. Between
May 31 and June 5 the troops defending the front between
the Marne and Reims succeeded in slowing up and halting
the enemy on a line between the latter city and Chatillon-
sur-Marne. From Chatillon to Chateau-Thierry he was held
to the north bank of the river. General Marchand's Tenth
Colonial Division, to which was attached the Seventh Ma-
chine-Gun Battalion of the Third American Division, stran-
gling his violent efforts to cross at Chateau-Thierry. From
this city to the Aisne the Germans struggled with the utmost
determination to advance, and they gained a little more
ground but were stopped in the center just outside the Forest
of Villers-Cotterets.
Now came into being along the front of the new salient,
as elsewhere, the condition of almost stationary warfare
which had generally characterized the Western Front through-
out the war. On both sides, all divisions excepting those
needed for holding the line or for local operations were with-
drawn for rest, training, or employment elsewhere, while
artillery duels, raids, or attacks with limited objectives be-
came the order of the day. During this period, on the line
of the Marne itself the Third American Division took over
a front of nearly 10 kilometers, extending from the vicinity
of Chateau-Thierry eastward to the Jaulgonne bend. On
each of its flanks were French troops and it had in support
the Twenty-eighth American Division.
222 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
By local operations during the month of June the Ger-
mans made two attempts to enlarge the Marne salient by
driving forward its flanks at Reims and north of the Villers-
Cotterets Forest, but both attempts were broken up. Finally,
on July 15, following preparations more formidable than they
had made for any of their previous attacks, they launched
between the Argonne and Chateau-Thierry on a front of
nearly no kilometers, the tremendous ofifensive advertised
to their own troops as the Friedenstnrm, or " Peace Battle,"
which was designed, like von Hansen's and the Duke of
Wiirtemberg's attack on Foch and Langle de Cary in the
first Battle of the Marne, to smash through the Allied center,
separate Paris from Verdun and pour the Teutonic hordes
across the Marne into the heart of France.
In undertaking this gigantic project. Ludendorff and Hin-
denberg put to the hazard virtually all of their reserve
strength in the desperate hope of gaining a decision before
the coming hosts of America should give to the Allies a
preponderance of numbers too great to be overcome. But
in doing so they underestimated both the resisting power of
their opponents and the margin of reserve strength v^hich
the latter already possessed, thereby compassing their own
undoing. Fully advised by a service of information which
was now unexcelled, of the time, the place, and the strength
of the impending blow, General Foch and General Petain
met it at all points with forces just sufficient to smother it,
holding in hand in the meantime for a counter-blow when
the proper moment should arrive, the accumulation of re-
serves which was now available, thanks largely to the steady
inflow of American troops.
By July 18, the Germans, in their desperate efforts to
win through on the Champagne-Marne front, had so com-
In the Shadow of Pope Urban II 223
pletely involved the bulk of their forces in the struggle that
General Foch, with the intuition given only to the greatest
commanders, judged that the moment for the counter-attack
had arrived. It was launched on the early morning of the
eighteenth on the western face of the Marne salient, which
was now virtually the enemy's rear as related to his forces
attacking between the Marne and Reims, and which was
held by relatively feeble numbers. The Allied effort was
instantly, dazzlingly successful. Driving in with the force
of 21 divisions, of which the First, Second, Fourth, and
Twenty-sixth American Divisions formed an important part,
supported by large numbers of tanks. General Degoutte's and
General Mangin's troops hurled themselves upon the 12
divisions of von Boehn's army and penetrated to an average
depth of 4 miles on the first day, capturing 17,000 prisoners
and 250 guns. By the evening of July 19 the assailants were
nearly up to the Soissons-Chateau-Thierry highway and so
closely threatening the railroad from Soissons and Bazoches
to Chateau-Thierry, the enemy's only rail communication into
the salient, that he became seriously alarmed for the safety
of his forces on the Marne-Reims front. In consequence of
the situation, he suspended his attacks on that front and
attempted to break off the action and withdraw from the
small bridgehead which he had succeeded in establishing
south of the Marne, between Villesaint and the Jaulgonne
bend.
But General Berthelot's army and the newly formed
Ninth Army of General De Mitry, taking up the offensive
and extending it northeastward from Chateau-Thierry,
pressed the Germans so hard that the latter succeeded only
with the greatest difficulty in escaping across the river, from
the twentieth to the twenty-second of July, in the vicinity
224 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of Binson, and Dormans; Passy, Marcilly, and Jaulgonne,
on pontoons and foot bridges which were being torn to pieces
as they passed by the raining shells of the Allied artillery
and the bombs of the zealous French and American aviators.
Relentlessly pursued, the Germans fell back on the line of the
Ourcq, where they came to a stand on July 27 and succeeded
in holding until August 2, permitting the greater part of
their material and trains to be withdrawn from the salient.
Then in severe fighting the Allied forces, including the
Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second, and Forty-second American
Divisions, finally broke through and followed the enemy
across the uplands to the Vesle, behind which, on the formid-
able hills north of the river, the Germans came to another
stand for a few weeks. On this line, about August 6, the
second Battle of the Marne may be said to have terminated.
At about the time that the battle ended. Marshal von
Hindenberg, in a comfminiqiie to the German people, at-
tempted to explain and justify the "strategical retreat," de-
claring that "the decisive victory" of German arms had
merely been temporarily postponed. It is doubtful, however,
if even his own countrymen were deceived. All the world
could see that the scales had begun to weigh in favor of the
Allies and that, however long it might take to bring about
the final decision, the second Battle of the Marne was the
beginning of the end of the World War, as truly as the Battle
of Gettysburg had been the beginning of the end of the
American War of the Rebellion. For the third time in its
history, the Marne had proved the inexpugnable bulwark
of the free nations of the world.
CHAPTER XVII
THE REACH OF DORMANS
THERE is a pleasant expanse of valley land stretching
beneath the shouldering Marne Hills from the escarp-
ment of the Chatillon eminence toward Dormans. Above it
the vineyards sweep up to the sky line, the vine poles in
summer standing in rigid forests along the slopes, and in
winter lying piled in neat, conical heaps, so regularly spaced
that at a distance they resemble the tents of an army. The
deep-furrowed valley of the Semoignes River comes down
from the highlands of the Tardenois and terminates in the
Marne above Dormans, and formerly from among the vine-
yards of its hillsides there looked down upon the broad bot-
tom lands the smiling villages of Vandieres-sous-Chatillon and
Verneuil and Vincelles, the hamlet first named lying cupped
in an amphitheater of hills, watched over by a white and
demure old chateau drowsing among the great trees of its
park a few hundred feet up the slopes. Below Verneuil a
now demolished bridge carried across the Marne from Dor-
mans the narrow-gauge railway which winds, with many a
turning, up the valley of the Semoignes to Ville-en-Tardenois
and thence to Fismes, on the Vesle.
But the smile was stricken from these little clusters of
human habitations during the ghastly midsummer days of
1918, and the receding tide of battle left them mere heaps
of tumbled masonry and shattered fragments of walls. The
solidly built church of Verneuil, with its square tower sur-
mounting the transept, became a ruin, gaping with shell holes ;
the spire of Vincelles, framed in wood, was stripped and
stricken sidewise, like a curiously distorted skeleton, its in-
225
226 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
terior piled with broken stone and headless and mutilated
statues. It was along this part of the front that von Boehn's
troops forced their way across the river in greatest numbers
on July 15 and it was to this segment that they clung most
tenaciously a week later, when, reeling backward at all other
points, they maintained their hold upon some seven miles of
the river bank between Reuil and Dormans, in order, ap-
parently, to keep the Paris-Chalons Railroad, along the south
bank, under fire. The Dormans quadrilateral of the French
battle maps, revised to July 17 for the counter-offensive,
showed, besides numerous enemy trenches, battery positions
and trails for the use of troops leading down to the shores
of the river, all of which had been accurately located by
Allied aeroplane observers, a foot bridge just above Port-a-
Binson, a foot bridge and a wagon bridge not far below
Vandieres, a wagon bridge south of Verneuil, two foot
bridges and three wagon bridges at Vincelles, a foot bridge
and two wagon bridges just below Dormans, and a foot bridge
below Treloup. All of these bridges had been laid by the
Germans and used by them in crossing to the south bank
and many of them were later destroyed by the French artil-
lery and bombers. Nevertheless, on such of them as re-
mained, the bulk of the enemy succeeded eventually in escap-
ing to the north and when the troops of De Mitry's army
crossed, in turn and on July 22 established a bridge head in
the bend between Dormans and Barzy, they experienced des-
perate fighting in gaining the wooded heights of the Forest
of Riz, and lost and regained Vincelles village several times
before finally taking it permanently.
Over all this land, as far up stream as Reuil-sur-Marne
and down river to the bends below Chateau-Thierry, the
debris of military occupation was thickly scattered, especially
The Reach of Dormans 227
ammunition. In the summer of 19 19, parties of French
engineers and German prisoners of war were still busy on
all parts of the battlefields, gathering into heaps for salvage
hundreds of thousands of empty shell cases and into other
heaps untold quantities of "duds" and unexploded German
shells from their abandoned dumps and battery positions. The
German ammunition was assembled in spots remote from
buildings and in the center of each heap was placed a deton-
ator, which was then fired electrically from a distance.
Nothing was more common on the still, bright summer days
of the once-more peaceful countryside than to hear the deep
boom of an explosion and to see arise above the treetops
beyond some distant, bare hillside, a billowing cloud of smoke,
betokening the destruction of one more collection of the
projectiles whose deadly power has made of modern war
a hell on earth even more hideous than it has been from time
immemorial.
But at Dormans itself, formerly a place of 2,500 people,
closely hugging the south shore of the river which here runs
straight and smooth, the destruction is still more impressive
because more extensive. This ancient town before the war
derived its chief commercial importance from the shipping
of cherries produced in the orchard district roundabout and
from the conversion of large quantities of the fruit into pre-
serves at several local plants. It was also a port of some
significance for the shipment, by rail and canal, of the grapes
of the neighborhood to Epernay or Reims. But Dormans
was grievously damaged in the fighting and its one long, wide
street, separated from the river by the main line and the yards
of the Chemin de Fer de I'Est, was left lined by crumbling
ruins. A spacious and venerable chateau with a huge, me-
dieval tower at one corner, which occupies a niche in the hill-
228 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
side overlooking the town, was not badly wrecked. But the
fine old church, containing an ogival choir, a Romanesque
window, and rows of columns and capitals of the same order,
was much disfigured by the German artillery fire from north
of the river, though the greater part of its walls remained
standing. This was fortunately true, also, of the tall and
graceful bell tower, with its long, narrow arched windows
on each face through whose airy lattices the bells, hanging
like great flowers from the slender beams, may be distinctly
seen, swung high above the clustered roofs of the town.
It was neither in 19 14 nor in 19 18 that the church of
Dormans first looked down upon German invaders. At this
place on October 10, 1575, the Army of the Catholic League,
under the impetuous Duke Henry of Guise, came up with
the German adherents of the Prince of Conde and defeated
them sharply, "the hunt," so it was said, lasting all that day
and throughout the following night. Guise himself, partici-
pating hotly in the pursuit, followed one mounted antagonist,
whom he had twice touched with his sword, until the other
shot him twice with a pistol, one bullet taking effect in his
leg and one carrying away his left ear and part of the cheek,
thus earning for him the nickname by which he is known
in history, Henry the Scarred (Le Balafre).
In the summer of 1919 the writer, coming into Dormans
about noon of a sunny day, drew up before a small hostelry,
the Hotel Demoncy, whose outer walls and inner ceilings
were pocked with shell splinters while the back yard was a
litter of debris from the outbuildings in rear which had been
knocked down in the bombardments. The good lady of the
house, nevertheless, was able to smile hospitably and to set out
a savory luncheon on the table in the small dining-room,
upon whose cracked wall hung a bright lithograph of a vil-
The Reach of Dormans 229
lage, in whose church tower a tiny clock, keeping correct
time, still ticked busily, as it probably had done while the
shells were falling around. Outside in the street passed a
I long column of German prisoners of war, guarded by leisurely
poilus, going to their barracks from a morning's work among
the ruins, and the sight of them thus engaged in the work
of restoration, as well as the cordial bon jours of their guards
to the American visitors, added a zest to the noonday repast.
Not in Dormans alone but everywhere in the battle zones
of the Marne, a particularly warm cordiality toward Ameri-
cans was evident on the part of the French people. Soldiers,
business men, laborers, women, and children, all alike, broke
into smiles and gestures of greeting at sight of an American
car and American uniforms, once so common in these regions
but later grown so rare. On every hand the soldier from
overseas was made to feel the warmth of the regard in which
he and his country are held by " the common people " who
are the body and blood of France.
Out of Dormans the Marne follows a long southwest-
ward stretch between the orcharded hillsides, past Courthiezy
on the left shore and Treloup and Courcelles on the right,
until it sweeps around northward into the head of the Jaul-
gonne bend ; the longest bend which we have yet encountered,
though much longer ones become characteristic of the river
below Chateau-Thierry. The broad, macadamized National
Route 3, following the left side of the bend through Reuilly,
rambling Sauvigny, and then Courtemont, with the forest
masses of the Bois de Conde clothing the long peninsula of
heights between the Marne and the Surmelin, on the left,
looks down long slopes of billowing cherry branches to the
sparkling tide of the river and, beyond that, up over other
reaches of similar foliage, which in springtime are seas of
230 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
snowy bloom, to the high, dark spurs of the Forest of Ris,
outHned against the eastern sky.
From Courtemont the view is one of rare beauty, for
beyond the Marne, submerged to their eaves amid the orchards
and wholly overshadowed by the forest walls beyond, the
hamlets of Passy, Rozay, Marcilly, and Barzy, lie, like a
loosely strung necklace of coral beads, beyond the ribbon of
the river. Through scores of quiet, uneventful years these
villages had drowsed among their fruit trees, to find them-
selves at last rent asunder in a brief but horrible nightmare
of battle that day when the Thirty-sixth German Division
poured down the slopes and, crossing the river between
Courtemont and Sauvigny, pressed the One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Division over the heights and down into the
valley of the Surmelin at St. Agnan and Sacconey and Dan-
nejeu Farm, where they came in contact with the unyielding
opposition of the One Hundred and Ninth Infantry of the
American Twenty-eighth Division. It was at the demol-
ished wagon bridge across the Marne between Passy and
Sauvigny that there began the action of American troops
which the present author described as follows in the Stars
and Stripes, the ofificial newspaper of the American Expedi-
tionary Forces, in the issue of January 31, 1919:
On the right, the One Hundred and Ninth Infantry and the
One Hundred and Eighth Machine-Gun Battalion had a rough-and-
tumble experience among the woods and hills quite as exciting as
could ever have happened to the ancestors of any of their Penn-
sylvanians in the old days when the Indians haunted the forests of
the Keystone State. The German advance got across the river at
Reuilly and east of there and the front line of the One Hundred
and Thirteenth French Infantry Regiment was compelled to re-
tire, leaving isolated Company M, One Hundred and Ninth In-
fantry, which was guarding the bridge across the Marne south of
Passy.
The Reach of Dormans 231
Nothing was heard of this company for so long that divisional
headquarters feared it had been annihilated. But, on the contrary,
it was doing yeoman service by furnishing for some time the only
solid resistance on this part of the line and delaying the German rush
by standing on its original position until flanked on both sides,
then falling back fighting to another position in the Bois de Conde
and finally to a third, 500 meters south of the isolated woodland
farm, La Grange aux Bois, whence, at about noon, it succeeded
in getting word of its continued existence back to headquarters.
In the meantime, Colonel Brown, with the greater part of the
regiment and some French detachments, established a line of re-
sistance which at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon lay approximately
along the original second position from the northern edge of the
Bois de Rougis to Conde-en-Brie, with the First Battalion on the
right and the Second Battalion on the left and the valley contain-
ing the village of St. Agnan in front. Here the enemy was virtually
stopped in the edges of the Bois de Conde, to the north.
Left of the One Hundred and Ninth, the French had established
a line extending from Dannejeu Farm down the Surmelin through
Connigis, north of which village it had liaison with the Thirty-
eighth United States Infantry of the Third Division. The front
of a good part of these positions, botTi American and French, was
protected by the fire of the One Hundred and Eighth Machine-Gun
Battalion, near Dannejeu Farm, and of the One Hundred and Ninth
Machine-Gun Battalion, near St. Agnan — an assistance of the
most vital importance in the temporary absence of artillery support.
On the morning of the sixteenth, at 10:00 o'clock, the Twentieth
French Infantry Division having come into the sector to counter-
attack, the First Battalion of the One Hundred and Ninth Infantry
under Major Gregory, went forward with it. But the whole attack
was repulsed in spite of the fearless leadership of men like Second
Lieutenant H. Q. GriflRn, who was killed in front of a German
machine-gun emplacement after he had led his platoon to the most
advanced point reached by any detachment, and the work of such
enlisted men as Corporal J. J. Lott, Company C, who twice went
ahead of his platoon, cut the enemy wire and then returned and
guided the troops through the gaps he had made.
Another assault delivered at 6:30 p. m. was likewise repulsed,
while St. Agnan, after having once been retaken by the French,
was lost again before night. After this, however, the situation
began steadily to improve, and on the seventeenth, the Twenty-
16
232 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
eighth Division began moving out of the sector preparatory to tak-
ing its place in the counter-offensive, the One Hundred and Ninth
Infantry having lost about 780 officers and men during its confused
fighting, and the One Hundred and Eighth Machine-Gun Battalion
more than 40.
But although the incident just described was gallant in
the extreme and worthy of the best traditions of our army,
it is on turning the bend of the road beyond Courtemont,
going on a few hundred yards to the ruins of Varennes, and
then climbing the open slopes of the hillside above the latter,
that one sees spread before him the vast panorama, extending
for full 15 kilometers down the Marne and framed by majestic
billows of hills on either hand, which was the stage whereon
America's warrior sons enacted the mighty drama that placed
the Marne forever in our history, and America forever in
the most stirring traditions of the Marne.
CHAPTER XVIII
rut, ROCK OF THE MARNE
FROM the commanding eminence above Varennes, men-
tioned in the last chapter, the visitor to the fields of
conflict of the Third United States Division may scrutinize
as upon a map nearly every point at which the men of that
sturdy organization, which now proudly styles itself "The
Rock of the Marne," hurled back from the shore of the river
committed to their keeping, the repeated assaults of courag-
eous and desperate foes; kept closed the road to Montmi-
rail and thence to Paris, and finally pursued their beaten and
discomfited foes northward across the forested hills in the
first stage of the steady advance which, for the Third Divis-
ion, was to end only when its flag should float majestically
from the walls of the Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, above the
German Rhine.
From the heights of Varennes, one looks down the long
slopes of grain and grass land to the roofless walls of the
hamlet among whose scattered cottages on the morning of
July 15, 19 1 8, as the waves of the German infantry came up
through the valley mists, the left flank of the One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth French Division was in liaison with the
right of the Thirty-eighth Infantry, of the Third American
Division. Thence the eye crosses the level bottom land, inter-
sected by the embankment of the railroad, to the splintered
southern abutment of the suspension bridge at Jaulgonne,
its fallen cables dangling in the water. Close beside it is the
place where the Twenty-eighth American Division laid the
pontoon bridge on which it crossed in pursuit of the enemy.
Beyond the river, one looks over the dwellings of Jaulgonne
233
234 ^^'^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and up the hill slopes beyond toward Le Charmel, whence
the German Fifth Grenadier Regiment descended to the
attack.
Turning westward, one sees at the foot of the slope on
which he stands, the quiet waters of the Surmelin joining
themselves to those of the Marne, and, a kilometer beyond,
in the midst of the wide bottom which is a patchwork of
open fields save for rows of orchard trees or high-trimmed
poplars marking the roads, the square church tower of Mezy.
With its cottages about it the church of Mezy lies huddled
between the railroad and the naked river bank, just as it lay
on the morning of July 15 when a platoon of the Thirtieth
United States Infantry fought to virtual extinction in the
village streets and behind the railroad grade against the Sixth
Grenadiers, who had forced a pontoon bridge over the river
between Mezy and Charteves.
South of Mezy and 2 kilometers distant from it up gently
rolling slopes of grain fields, stretches the white filament of
the Paris-Metz road, embroidered with tapering poplars.
Behind it, where it climbs up from the Surmelin and then
drops again down the slope on the other side into Fossoy,
hidden in patches of woodland above the Marne, stood the
battle line of the Seventh and Thirtieth Infantry Regiments,
thin, but not to be shaken; a line of young soldiers, fighting
their first great battle like heroes.
Northward across the Marne, at the foot of the steep,
orcharded hills running back to the Forest of Fere, rises
Charteves, white-walled beneath its riven church tower and
'beyond it, across the ravine of the Mont I'Eveque rivulet,
Mont St. Pere, clinging to the rugged slopes which even the
blasts of war have not deprived of all their wealth of bend-
ing fruit trees and trellised vines. Farther still to the west.
Charteves, white-walled beneath its riven church tower
[Page 234]
^•r-
Charteves. Two-man rifle pit in foreground
[Page 237]
The Rock of the Marne 235
holding the swinging bend of the Marne in an amphitheater
of heights, the hills of the right shore sweep around, reveal-
ing the clustered houses of Gland at the base of the promon-
tory where the river turns again, but concealing Brasles
among its wheat fields and the more distant mass of Chateau-
Thierry. Far beyond the latter, however, on another long
river bend, Essomes and Aulnois and Rouvroy paint mere
flecks of color against the hill of the Bois des Loup, blue and
shimmering;: in the distance.
If one withdraw his glance once more to the vale of the
Surmelin he sees, almost at his feet, the considerable town of
Crezancy outspread upon the farther side of the small valley
and beyond it the dark green spurs of the Bois d'Aigremont
thrusting down the long slopes between that place and Fos-
soy, beyond which the roofs of Blesmes and Chierry lend
varied color to the verdure of the Marne lowlands. Smiling
beneath the sunshine of summer and dappled by the shadows
of the passing clouds, the whole far-reaching picture, blent
of the elements of bounteous nature and the toil of human
hands, is as fair a one as the Marne may show between Sabi-
nus' cave and the walls of Paris. Yet the sequestered villages
of this little Arcady were riddled by the tempest of war, its
flower-starred fields plowed with shells and its orchards and
vineyards lopped of their verdure, while, in the very first
weeks of the conflict, its gentle and industrious people suf-
fered outrages too horrible for words to describe. It will
suffice to quote a bald statement concerning a few of them
from a volume called The German Terror in France, by
Arnold J. Toynbee, in which every incident related was
amply authenticated by the reports of the French Govern-
ment Commission appointed to investigate alleged violations
by the Germans of the usages of civilized warfare.
236 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
At Charmel, the Germans, arriving on September 3, pillaged the
houses and cellars and burned a chateau. A woman was violated
by a soldier. " He stretched me on a table," she states, " and
gripped me by the throat." At Jaulgonne on the same date, the
Prussian Guard pillaged property worth about 250,000 francs and
killed two civilians — one 87 and the other 61 years old. The for-
mer was found lying shot in a field; the second was seen by the
Germans talking to a French soldier (who escaped), and was
seized as a hostage — he was killed next morning. " One of the
Germans," states a witness, " gave him a bayonet stroke in the
side. There was a dreadful rattling in his throat and they finished
him off with a revolver-shot in the forehead." .... On Septem-
ber 3, the Germans also entered Varennes. " We were received
with a heavy fire," states one of the diarists quoted above, who had
marched thither from Noyon. " It has cost the battalion four dead
and several wounded. Corpses are lying about everywhere in the
street September 6, the village is set on fire, because civi-
lians have joined in the shooting."
Crossing the Marne, von Billow's troops murdered, at Mezy-
Moulins, an old man of y2. At Crezancy they pillaged a chateau
— the damage was estimated by an expert at 123,844 francs. The
owner was not present — fortunately for himself, for a shopkeeper
at Crezancy, who protested against the looting of his shop, was
driven off, blindfolded and stumbling, but urged on by blows and
bayonet thrusts, to Charly, where he was shot. Another inhabitant
of Crezancy was also taken to Charly and killed. " He had a lance-
thrust or bayonet-thrust near the heart." Another, a young man
of 18, was dragged out of a house and shot on September 3, the
day the Germans arrived. After the murder, the German officer
inquired whether the victim was a soldier and remarked, on learn-
ing that he was not : " Well, he might have become one, anyway."
At Connigis (the town on the Surmelin above Crezancy), the Ger-
mans murdered a man and violated a girl in the presence of her
mother-in-law, taking it in turns to keep her father-in-law at a
distance — her husband was with the colors.
Warned by such a hideous lesson of what they had to
expect from the Germans, when the hordes of the kaiser
again poured southward in May, 19 18, the inhabitants of
the valley nearly all fled, leaving the country deserted. From
The Rock of the Marne 237
Jaulgonne to Chateau-Thierry the enemy early occupied the
northern bank of the Marne; the southern shore remained in
the hands of the hardy doughboys of the Third Division. On
July 15 came the German Friedensturm. Of the ensuing
struggle the writer said in the Independent (May 29, 1920) :
General Dickman's Third Division, because it alone was occupy-
ing the front line of its sector, east of Chateau-Thierry, bore a
conspicuous part in the repulse of the great German offensive. At
dawn on July 15, the masses of German infantry came pouring
down from the lofty hills which from the north dominate the low-
lands within the bend of the Marne west of the river Surmelin.
Owing to the great breadth of the sector, over ten kilometers, the
four regiments of the Third Division were all in line, the Fourth
Infantry on the left, then in order, the Seventh, the Thirtieth and
the Thirty-eighth. The attack fell entirely on the last three regi-
ments. Vigorously supported by the fire of the American and
French artillery stationed farther back, even the outpost detach-
ments of the Seventh, Thirtieth and Thirty-eighth Regiments, com-
manded respectively by Colonels T. M. Anderson, E. L. Butts, and
U. S. McAlexander, refused to retire from the river bank and
with their rifles and machine-guns drove back the boats and pon-
toons in which the Germans sought to cross.
At only two points on the left and center did the enemy succeed
in getting over. The small detachment which crossed near Fossoy
was destroyed by soldiers of the right of the Seventh Infantry
and the left of the Thirtieth Infantry. A larger body, amounting
altogether to more than a regiment, which came over from Char-
teves, was met at Mezy and along the grade of the Metz-Paris
Railroad by an advanced platoon of the Thirtieth Infantry, which,
scorning to surrender or even to give ground, fought until it was
practically exterminated, after having inflicted far greater losses
upon its assailants. The Germans who passed Mezy and pushed on
south toward the highway between Chateau-Thierry and Crezancy,
on the Surmelin, were met and repulsed north of the road by
detachments of the Seventh and Thirtieth Infantry under Major
Ditto and Major Paschal. By 8:00 a. m. the fight on the left and
center had virtually ended in our victory.
On the right, however, the Thirty-eighth Infantry had a longer,
if not a harder, struggle. In the hilly, wooded country east of
238 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the Surmelin the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth French Division
fell back when the Germans crossed the river. This exposed the
right flank of Colonel McAlexander's regiment, but instead of re-
tiring from the Marne the flank was merely swung around facing
east and extended down the Surmelin by reserve companies so as
to stop the attack in that direction. Along the Marne at the foot
of the Jaulgonne Bend, Major Rowe's battalion broke the attempts
of the Germans to cross and, though surrounded on three sides.
Major Rowe cheerfully sent back word to headquarters that his
men were holding the line and could do so indefinitely. They
did hold it for five days, until the enemy retired from the hills
east of them.
A few words from a graphic account of his experiences
in the battle, by First Lieutenant Kurt Hesse, of the Fifth
Regiment of German Grenadiers, translated by Major Gen-
eral Dickman, indicates more convincingly than any com-
ments from our own side the terrible effectiveness of the fire
delivered by the Third Artillery Brigade, Third Division,
under command of General William M. Cruikshank. Hav-
ing learned beforehand when the enemy was to begin the
battle, the American batteries opened counter-preparation ten
minutes before the German preliminary bombardment was
to commence. Lieutenant Hesse says:
Is it never going to commence? We were dozing. At last!
A fierce artillery fire begins. I looked at my watch. One o'clock
in the morning. Had our artillery made a mistake? Firing was
not to begin till i :io a. m. I jump out of the hole in which I
was sitting — and as quickly jumped back. In front and rear I
hear the strike of projectiles. The enemy had commenced! Ten
minutes later our artillery fire began, not simultaneously as ordered,
but here and there, and rose for ten minutes to powerful strength,
so that we had the hope that now all would be well. Then it grew
weaker and weaker, and often the enemy's artillery fire was more
powerful than our own. In a short time all telephone connections
forward and to the rear were destroyed
.... After hours of waiting we received a more detailed re-
port as follows : " The First Battalion, which was to attack on the
The Rock of the Marne 239
right, was caught by a fearful artillery fire in the narrow lane
leading down to the river. Only parts of the battalion reached the
river. The pioneers failed. The pontoons remained on the ground,
several hundred yards from the Marne; crossing at this point is
impossible, because strong enemy infantry forces with numerous
machine-guns are making a stubborn defense of the opposite
bank.". . . .
The infantry lying without cover in the great Jaulgonne Forest,
where the brush is so thick that it is impossible to get through,
and where, on the other hand, there is scarcely a tree thick enough
to afford protection against a rifle bullet. There the projectiles
of the enemy's massed artillery are falling. Not a spot is spared.
The place is under the continued fire of a heavy battery. The
explosions in the forest are frightful, nerve-wracking. The clear-
ing near by comes under the fire of a light battery every five
minutes, and in a little while is black with corpses. And the nar-
row lane to the right is swept by shrapnels pursuing their fiery
course like comets. The men run about madly, looking for cover.
And again there are rushing sounds with dull reports : " Gas shells !
Put on your masks!" We already could not see anything — now
surely not. Gloomy despair overpowers many. They feel helpless,
praying for daylight. The wounded cry out. Finally a hoarse
command is uttered by a company commander who even now re-
alizes his duty: "Fall in! Has everybody got a rifle?" Then
we advance in the narrow lanes, so terribly stricken, but which are
the only ways leading to the river. The pioneers are in position
a little distance lower down. Their leader is helpless. He has
only a few men left. The infantry itself takes hold to drag the
pontoons the remaining 200 meters down to the river
Eventually what was left of Lieutenant Hesse's regiment
got across the river, only to be forced to withdraw again
three days later, sacrificing, as he said, "the last of the old
fellows of 19 14" in the retreat. But it was on the north
bank of the Marne that they had really been defeated, in the
first hours of the attack. He continues:
Never have I seen so many dead men, ne/er such frightful
battle scenes. The Americans, lying in a grain field in a semicircle,
allowed two companies to approach within thirty to fifty paces and
240 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
then shot practically all of them down in heaps. This enemy had
nerve; we must give him credit for that; but he also displayed
a savage roughness. " The Americans kill everybody ! " was the
cry of terror of July 15, which for a long time stuck in the bones
of our men. In our home country people joked about the deficient
instruction of this enemy, about "American bluff," and other things.
There is the principal responsibility for the fact that of the troops
led into action on July 15, more than 60 per cent were left dead
or wounded, lying on the field of battle.
The Battle of the "Marne Division" was one of the
finest examples on record of American tenacity in defense
and, later, of American initiative in attack. When General
Dickman's troops were reheved by the Thirty-second Ameri-
can Division on the night of July 29, they had suffered 5,986
casualties but were already standing on the southern bank of
the Ourcq, 10 kilometers north of Charteves.
Before the war, the little center of this secluded valley
was Crezancy, where there existed a factory for the purpose,
peculiar considering its location, of manufacturing buttons
from the seeds of palm trees, or "vegetable ivory." Besides
this industry there were located close to the town in the
Surmelin Valley, an agricultural school of repute, and the
vine nurseries of the Department of the Marne. The town
is served by the railway coming down the Dhuis River and
the Surmelin from Montmirail and Conde, which line joins
the Paris-Metz trunk line at Mezy, thus rendering the latter
a rather important junction in ordinary times.
The church of Mezy, so conspicuous an object on the
battle field of the Third Division, was already badly in need
of restoration before the war, when it was described as "an
exquisite work of the twelfth century with buttresses orna-
mented with medallions, high ogival windows in the choir
and, in the interior, an elegant triforium and columns." Not
The Rock of the Marne 241
less attractive in the distance across the Marne, at the entrance
to the ravine of the Ru de Mont-l'Eveque, are the two Httle
centers, Charteves and Mont St. Pere, hfting each a church
tower on the flanks of the hills. All the country contrasts
with the high plateaus by reason of the freshness of its
scenery; the great riverside prairies bordering the Marne,
the slopes carpeted with vines and fruit trees and the white
villages emerging from the intense verdure.
In the high plateau toward Montmirail, thinly peopled and
heavily wooded, wherein the Dhuis and other small rivers
have their uncontaminated sources, begins the huge Aque-
duct of the Dhuis, which from this virgin country conveys
into Paris the greater part of the city's water supply. In its
course the aqueduct descends the Surmelin Valley nearly to
Crezancy and then makes a sharp bend westward toward
Fossoy, passing, for a few hundred feet, beyond the high-
road on which the Seventh United States Infantry made its
stand on July 15. It is interesting to speculate upon how
much suffering and damage far-away Paris might have
experienced had the enemy been able to wrest from the hands
of the Americans a section of the aqueduct for a long enough
period to have enabled him to cut it and thus break the water
supply of the metropolis.
The valley between Jaulgonne and Chateau-Thierry has
not, in past times, lacked devotees to celebrate its charms,
either in literature or art. At Mont St. Pere, poised at the
head of its moss-grown steps above the river, lived and
worked Lhermitte, the rustic but powerful artist of Cham-
pagne, finding inspiration for his brush in the rural scenery
on every side. Here, also, La Fontaine, native and, as a
young man, resident, of Chateau-Thierry, found the setting
for many of his immortal Fables, not least among them the
242 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Fable of the Fox and the Grapes. But it is in Chateau-Thierry
itself, eloquent with traditions of him as well as of others
as greatly distinguished, that one comes upon the personal
glamour of La Fontaine, eccentric child of the Marne.
CHAPTER XIX
WHERE DWELT THE SLUGGARD KINGS
AT Chateau-Thierry, which, from Blesmes and Chierry,
the traveler comes at by the Paris road passing through
the southern suburbs and across two bridges into the main
part of the city, the flavor of romance in pre-war days must
have been mainly supplied by legends of Jean de la Fon-
taine and Charles Martel, two widely diverse characters,
truly. To these legends, in future generations, will be added
another group, those of les Americains. The three facts are
obvious, immediately one enters the city. At the northern
end of the last bridge, facing west along the broad boule-
vard which borders the right bank of the Marne, stands
a statue, by Laitie, of the great fabulist; chipped by German
and American machine-gun bullets and with the left leg
broken by a shell splinter, but still intact in the main. Set
in the pavement almost at La Fontaine's feet is a square stone
tablet on which are chiseled the words : " Dedicated to the
3rd Division, U. S. A., Aug. 9, 1919." This tablet, placed
on the date mentioned by representatives of the " Marne
Division," indicates the first step in the construction of the
monumental bridge across the Marne which that division
intends eventually to erect as its own memorial in France
and, at the same time, as a gift to the city of Chateau-Thierry
to replace the bridge, built in 1768, which was blown up by
the Americans on the night of June i, 19 18, to prevent the
Germans from crossing the river. Finally, if one stand
beside the tablet and look up the street formerly called the
Rue de Pont but now the Rue du Mareschal Retain, which,
narrow and walled by high buildings, leads northward from
243
244 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the bridge into the Place du Marche, he sees, towering up
beyond the Hotel de Ville, a steep hill slope crowned by
decayed but massive walls. These are the remains of the
once mighty Chateau of the " Sluggard King," Thierry iv of
Neustria, built for him in 720 a. d. by his all-powerful Mayor
of the Palace, Charles Martel, who saved Europe to Chris-
tianity by his defeat of the Saracens at Tours in 732 and
who united France and left it to become the greatest nation
of earth under the genius of his grandson, Charlemagne.
Thus, standing at one spot in this quaint city whose very
center is traversed by the lucid current of the Marne, one
may reflect upon a panorama of events covering twelve cen-
turies and profoundly affecting the whole course of civiliza-
tion; the rise of France to greatness and power, the emi-
nence of its intellectual estate, and its recent salvation from
submergence by a spurious kultur.
But the physical aspects of the city, with which we are
chiefly concerned, are most agreeably revealed from the
elevated ramparts of the ancient chateau, beneath which roll
away to west, south, and east the closely built streets and the
wide stretches of countryside, rich in associations, whose
every vista is enlivened by the ample bends of the Marne. At
mid-height of the hillside a road, leading round through a
quarter of the city which is very quiet and very medieval in
aspect, comes curving presently to the chateau gateway. Its
low, deep arch, pierced between the ponderous octagonal
towers of the barbican, gives access to the long, narrow
interior court which was formerly occupied by the crowded
structures of the citadel, but is now given over to a park
whose drives and pathways wind between large, dense trees.
The chateau was a place of almost impregnable strength
before the introduction of artillery, but it was besieged and
. VP^vii-
Chateau-Thierry itself, eloquent with traditions
[Page S4S]
Hill 204, looking toward Chateau-Thierry
[Page 248]
A street in Chateau-Thierry
[Page 243]
Where Dwelt the Sluggard Kings 245
captured by the English in 1421 and again in 1544 by the
Germans of Charles v. Standing at the southeastern side of
its razed and moss-grown battlements one looks across the
wheat fields to the white walls of Brasles, nestled at the foot
of the towering Bois de Barbillon Hill, and across the Marne
by Chierry and Blesmes to the fair downs and woodlands
beloved of La Fontaine. One may fancy the writer, as a boy,
wandering over the precincts of the deserted chateau, in his
day still covered with a maze of ruined halls and passage-
ways, and from the decaying battlements peopling the distant
countryside with the odd creatures, half brute and half
human, of his awakening imagination.
Walking on to the southern side of the height, at the head
of the long flight of steps which ascends from the Place de
la Hotel de Ville, one contemplates a scene which rouses
thoughts more stirring than pensive. Far across the Marne,
where the hills rise beyond Nesles, there runs between
checkerboard fragments of woodland the straight road to
Fontenelle and Montmirail. Over that road, in the chill
dusk of the evening of February 11, 1814, a watcher on the
chateau would have seen a terrified mass of fugitives, the
Russians of Sacken and the Prussians of d'York, encumbered
with wagons and artillery, pouring northward from the bat-
tlefield of Montmirail toward the bridges of Chateau-
Thierry, pursued and belabored by the exultant cuirassiers of
Napoleon. As the darkness deepened, he would have seen the
demoralized fugitives, or such of them as had not been slain
or captured by the French, spreading through the streets of
the unfortunate city and, stung by defeat and the lust for
vengeance, giving themselves over to pillage and every species
of outrage upon the citizens. Then, as the dawn of the
twelfth broke after the fearful night, he would have seen
246 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the 24 squadrons of Prussian horse under General Horn, as
yet unscathed in the battle, maneuver into position on the
open grounds south of the city for the purpose of stopping
the French pursuit; he would have seen the dark columns
of Ney's cavalry corps swing into position on the slopes
beyond and then, charging in clouds of dust and with thun-
der of hoofs, under the eye of the emperor himself sweep
the hapless foe from their path and gallop on into Chateau-
Thierry, greeted before they could gain its streets by throngs
of men and women and children pouring forth to welcome
their deliverers. He would have seen these civilians working
furiously to repair the Marne bridge for the pursuing French
cavalry and also, alas! he would have seen many of them,
goaded to frenzy by the horrors of the preceding night, slay-
ing without mercy the scattered wounded and prisoners of
the enemy as the latter fled northward into the hills of Orxois.
From the same battlements on September 2, 19 14, the
observer would have looked down upon other German hosts
swarming o^er the surrounding hills, but now advancing and
encircling the town. At about 5 :oo o'clock in the afternoon
the field-gray uniforms would have been noted filtering into
the streets from the west, along the Paris and the Essomes
roads, while the French rear guards, firing sullenly, fell back
southward. Next day Chateau-Thierry would again have
been disclosed, writhing under the hands of pillagers no less
brutal than their ancestors of a century before. Then would
have been seen, in the words of the acting mayor as quoted
by Mr. Toynbee:
Chateau-Thierry completely pillaged. The work was done under
the officers' eyes and the loot was carried away in wagons. Ger-
man prisoners have been found in possession of jewels, stolen here,
and articles of clothing, obtained from the plunder of the shops,
Where Dwelt the Sluggard Kings 247
have likewise been found among the effects of German doctors
who remained behind at Chateau-Thierry when their army left —
and this at the moment when these doctors were being exchanged.
These conditions obtained until the ninth of September,
when the invaders again, as always, recoiled from their im-
placable foe, the Marne, pursued by the French and the
British.
But Chateau-Thierry and the castle which watches the cen-
turies flow by like leaves upon the bosom of the guardian
river, still had to look once more — and may it have been the
last time forever! — upon the faces of the enemies from
beyond the Rhine. It was on the last day of May in 19 18
that the hated field-gray uniforms again came creeping down
the hillsides and into the streets. But now, beside their
French antagonists of immemorial years, there stood to wel-
come them among the houses and along the shores of the
Marne, a new foe; one which neither Charles Martel nor
Charles v nor even Napoleon would have dreamed to see
battling on the soil of Europe. And when, beneath the shells
of Allied and German artillery which crossed above the roofs
and crashed with shattering detonations into the narrow
streets, there vibrated the rat-tat-tat of the guns of the Amer-
ican Seventh Machine-Gun Battalion, the Germans knew that
behind the moat of the Marne the New World, too, was at
bay in the name of civilization. For five long days they
fought there, French poilus and Yankee doughboys behind
mined walls and splintered trees and in hastily dug pits along
the waterside, doggedly clinging to the positions they had
been ordered to hold against the withering fire and oft-re-
peated attacks of men who hesitated at no eiifort or sacrifice to
win their way across the narrow river which alone barred
them from victory. By that time the Allied artillery and
17
248 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
infantry were firmly established on the hills to the south-
ward, from which they were never to move until they moved
forward in pursuit of the finally beaten foe.
It is from the western summit of the chateau hill, looking
between the tree branches and past the rough-hewn tower of
St. Crepin's Church, rising like a huge Druid's stone above
the jumble of roofs almost at the foot of the hill, that the
panorama reaches out over heaving crest and valley and knots
of woodland blasted here and there by shell fire, to other
fields which are now immortalized for Americans. Hill 204,
its slopes mounting up from the Marne at the southwestern
edge of the city, is conspicuous in the nearer distance, with
the shapeless ruins of Vaux just beyond it. These were
places for which the Germans fought furiously throughout
the June and early July of the war, to finally lose the village
to the Ninth United States Infantry, Second Division, and
the hill to the Tenth French Colonial and Third American
Divisions.
Northwest and farther away, just beyond the depression
of the Gobert Creek, is the curving, dark outline of the
famous Bois de Belleau, called now by the French the Bois
de la Brigade de Marine, from which, in stubborn fighting
throughout the month of June, 19 18, the gallant marines and
infantrymen of the Second American Division forced the
Germans foot by foot down into the creek valley. Within
the latter, just hidden from view by intervening hills, are the
villages of Bouresches and Belleau and Torcy and those pop-
pied wheat fields over which the men of the "Yankee Divis-
ion" charged to victory on the misty morning of July 18.
And there, also, a bright flash of color against the verdure
of the renowned woods, are visible on a clear day the folds
of Old Glory, floating above the white rows of crosses of
A "dug-out" and listening post in the famous liois de Bellcau
[Page 248]
Where Divelt the Sluggard Kings 249
the Belleau Wood cemetery, where rest the remains of 3,600
Americans killed in the fighting in that region of battles.
Northward of Chateau-Thierry, but hidden from the cas-
tle by the mounting hills and forests, are the open fields
before Trugny and Epieds and the tangles of the Bois de
Trugny — battle fields of the New Englanders. Beyond them
lie the aisles of the Forest of Fere, and La Ferme Le Croix
Rouge, set in the midst of it, where the Rainbow Division
came into line, and, still farther away, the deadly slopes
along the Ourcq where not only the Forty-second, but the
Thirty-second and the Twenty-eighth Divisions wrote glory
upon their standards. In fact, on every side of Chateau-
Thierry is country which will be visited by patriotic pilgrims
from the New World of generations yet unborn, for it was
in this land that the sons of America gave their first virile
aid to the cause of the Allies in the campaign which turned
the tide of the war.
In the streets of the city itself the effects of battle were
distressingly evident long after the armistice. The Rue du
Mareschal Retain and many other of the narrow streets were
piled feet deep with the debris of ruined buildings and
blocked by the Germans with barricades made of stones and
the furniture from adjacent houses. In front of 27 Rue du
Mareschal Retain, just north of the bridge, was the barri-
cade of their first line of resistance, facing upon the wide
esplanade of the Champ de Mars. The handsome Hotel de
Ville lost one of its towers in the bombardments, though a
little farther down the street the sixteenth-century belfry of
the old Belhan Mansion escaped material injury, as did St.
Crepin's Church on the Rue St. Crepin. The massive fif-
teenth-century tower of St. Crepin's has already been men-
tioned. The church is nobly conceived, with carved but-
250 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
tresses and a roof line of deep, saw-toothed gables, and its
low groined interior and sixteenth-century organ loft, carved
with figures of the prophetesses, are impressive.
When the French and Americans advanced into the city
after the enemy's evacuation, they found in many places
heaps of packing cases and sorted booty, systematically col-
lected by the Germans from the stores and houses and much
of it already marked for shipment to Germany. What they
had not already carried away or prepared for transportation,
they had wantonly destroyed or mutilated. This was attested
by the condition of the interiors of scores of houses wherein
mirrors hung broken and pictures slit on the walls, and uphol-
stered furniture stood ripped open with bayonets, and pol-
ished tables hacked to pieces.
Gentler memories are stirred as one ascends the steep
Rue de la Fontaine, at the western base of the chateau hill,
and pauses at Number 13, where the light of day was first
seen by the erratic son of Charles de la Fontaine, "master
of waters and forests" of the Duchy of Chateau-Thierry,
and his wife, Frangoise Pidoux. Here one is reminded, too,
of the fabulist's suzeraine and generous patroness of later
years, who generally resided in Chateau-Thierry; Anne Man-
cini. Duchess of Bouillon and youngest of Mazarin's nieces;
a young woman who was, according to Mignard's still-exist-
ing portrait of her, as lovely as she was gracious. Garbed
to represent "the Muse of the Marne," in that portrait she
is revivified down the years; "dressed to charm, her hair
falling upon one white shoulder in Italian curls — a young
woman, beautiful, darkly piquant, and vivacious." Is it any
wonder that by such a creature her talented liegeman should
have been inspired to write his collection of famous Tales
and a large number of his imperishable F ablest
Where Dwelt the Sluggard Kings 251
Going out of the principal, or northern, part of the city
across the Marne bridge repaired with steel on the piers of
the structure destroyed by the Americans, one comes to the
row of shattered houses along the southern river bank where-
in fought the Seventh Machine-Gun Battalion, and then, pass-
ing on across the "false Marne," or canal, which shortens
the natural bend before the city, he enters the circular Place
Carnot, where the American battalion commander. Major
Taylor, made his post of command on the evening of May
31, 19 1 8, in touch with his two companies, A, under Captain
Houghton, and B, under Captain Mendenhall, which were
fighting along the river bank.
In the American Legion Weekly (June 3, 192 1) the
author of this book wrote :
Company B was assigned to the defense of the railroad bridge
and the portion of the river bank lying in and immediately beyond
the eastern section of the town. Company A took over the de-
fense of the western portion, including the wagon bridge in the
center of the city. The squads were conducted to their places by
French officers or soldiers and the Americans spent the night in
preparing their positions, receiving some German shell fire from
the hills north of the Marne and an occasional burst of machine-
gun fire from the lowlands nearer the river. For these detach-
ments the serious work had not yet begun. But a handful of 14
men of Company A, under First Lieutenant John T. Bissell, had
a wild night and following day on the north side of the river,
where, with a few French Colonial troops who were holding on
there, they engaged in continuous hot street fighting with the Ger-
man advance guards.
So, with a last impression of it as a city all French, yet
with an aroma of America now hovering about it perpetually,
we must leave Chateau-Thierry, though with only a frag-
ment of all its traditions and its romances told.
CHAPTER XX
fishermen's paradise
THE road through the southern outskirts of Chateau-
Thierry is the direct one to Montmirail, but it is better
to follow the Marne along its right shore as it curves south-
ward past the base of Hill 204 and then leaves the edges of
the little fields which drop down to the water from the out-
strung dwellings of Essomes. The street of Essomes strag-
gles aimlessly along the brooklet which cuts down between
Hill 204 and the equally conspicuous elevation crowned by
the Bois de Loup. Cruelly shattered by German shell fire
in 19 1 8, the exquisite parish church of the village, whose
choir and transept are worthy of a cathedral, still preserves
some of its richly carved stalls and wainscottings ranged
along the rough stone walls, as well as the remarkable medie-
val sculpturing of the pulpit. Nor are other venerable monu-
ments lacking in the quaint riverside village; a round stone
tower with moss-grown, conical roof lifting above ramshackle
poultry sheds and stables a chaste souvenir of a vanished
abbey, and another tower, more dilapidated but not less pic-
turesque with its deep doorways and windows, partly in ruins
and its dense mantling of ivy, whose very name suggests the
superstitions of olden times, " La Tourelle de I'Enfer." Here,
also in its park bordering the river, is the war-wrecked but
once charming chateau, La ColHnette, belonging to M. Henri
Dupont, in the basement of which Mile Dupont maintained
a canteen which will be remembered by many soldiers who
passed through Essomes or camped there. In a place so near
to Chateau-Thierry it was natural that American-army activ-
ities should exist, and the Quartermaster Corps operated for
252
Fishermen's Paradise 253
some time in the village a coffee-roasting plant of huge
capacity.
It was late on a still August afternoon when Paul and the
writer passed down the meandering river road which skirts
the base of the Bois de Loup through Essomes and Aulnois
and Rouvroy. As we turned the sharp bend into Azy,
couched, beside its bridge, opposite to the ribbon of water
pouring into the Marne which is the mouth of the Dolloir,
blue-black thunder clouds capped by dazzling peaks of silver
and rose, were lifting high above the horizon. Then, like
the vision of a dream, there broke suddenly upon our eyes an
entrancing picture. It was the vale of Bonneil, carpeted,
near at hand, by stretches of golden wheat stubble, over
which at intervals stood the grain ricks, symmetrical as
groups of tents. Beyond that rich foreground, mellowed by
the sunshine and the long shadows of afternoon, the white
walls and ruddy roofs of the village reclined as upon a divan
on the hill slopes towering above it, gay with orchards and
vines, while, over all, the dark forests of the crests glowed
vividly against the stormy sky. At our left glinted the
placid current of the Marne, its waters dividing to embrace
the fairy-like island whose trees partly veiled the long walls
and low roofs of La Ferme de I'Abbeye Chateau, dreaming
beneath the hill of Chezy. Here was beauty and nature
unscarred reposing in a peace as profound as if war had
never been; yonder, just behind the hill of the Bois de Loup,
was desolation and ruin indescribable. Dramatic contrast
could not be more sharply drawn.
But the whole land is now become suddenly one of peace
and, locally, at least, of plenty. The road, following the
long sweeps of the river, winds south and then west again
between the hills and the lowland meadows where poplars
254 ^^'^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and willows here and there wave their plumes above the
water and where cattle graze among the deep grasses. V/hite
villages, each clustered about its guardian church tower, suc-
ceed one another at short intervals; Romeny and Le Pont
and Saulchery near at hand and, beyond the Marne, the more
considerable groups of Chezy and Nogent-l'Artaud, with
great sweeps of agricultural land and at wide intervals the
buildings of a farmstead, between them.
Nogent, which stands guard over the mouth of the Dol-
loir, became of a good deal of importance in the Middle
Ages through the efforts of an able commoner, native of the
place, who was later ennobled by the Count of Champagne
and made lord of the seigniory. His tombstone is still to be
seen in the parish church. The town today has corset and
button factories as well as manufactories of optical instru-
ments and it boasts a more curious industry in the dyeing of
moss for use in funeral wreaths and bouquets of artificial
flowers.
The peaceful valley broadens as we leave Saulchery be-
hind and the well-tilled fields of the Orxois draw back to
give place to levels of velvet verdure on both shores of the
river, whose shining expanse rolls between, unshadowed by
more than an occasional bush or low tree, the white towpath
embroidering its right bank. Across the sunny fields pres-
ently appear the low, spreading outlines of a town evidently
larger than any we have encountered since leaving Chateau-
Thierry. It is Charly-sur-Marne, growing like a flower gar-
den out of the gentle slopes along the Ru du Domptin where
that little stream creeps down from the Orxois Hills below
Coupru and La Ferme de Paris, and hence from ground very
familiar to the rear echelons of the Second and Twenty-
sixth American Divisions in the midsummer of 1918.
'V
/
;_j<, j», >»«
The Abbey Tower, Essomes
{Page 2')2\
*»-j,>
¥i^^
Charly's main street unrolls its wliite ribbon toward Paris
[Page 255]
Fishermen's Paradise 255
Charly's main street is, in truth, only the main highway,
still unrolling its white ribbon toward La Ferte and Meaux
and Paris. But far in the outskirts it assumes the appear-
ance of a city street, with villas set in pretty gardens defining
its course. The business section is concentrated at the cross-
ing of the road which winds up the valley of the Domptin,
but it is all quiet and unperturbed enough for such small
factories as exist are situated well in the suburbs. There are
quaint, musty byways in Charly, bordered by venerable
houses with deep, embrasure-like doors and windows peeping
out through the greenery and over the mossy walls, and there
is an ancient hospice so buried among shrubs and trees that
the very pathways which approach it seem scarcely able them-
selves to find it. Across the meadows by the riverside, a
half-dozen or more wide, flat canal barges, like a flock of
ungainly ducks, are usually riding lazily in the port, waiting
their turn to go through the lock at one end of the dam whose
wall of white water boils unceasingly over into the shallow
channel below.
Calm once more after its exciting plunge, the river turns
southward into the bend by which it encircles the hill of
Poteron. Along the shore, caressed by tiny ripples, are to
be found, as elsewhere on almost any afternoon of summer.
the women of the adjacent villages kneeling on flat stones or
strips of clean sand with baskets of soiled linen beside them,
industriously washing. Along such reaches, also, though
generally in more secluded spots well sheltered from the sun,
are encountered the omnipresent French fishermen, seeking
their supine relaxation from the cares of life in the same
element to which the women resort for some of their most
strenuous labors.
It was a fundamental tenet of faith among the American
2^6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
soldiers that French fishermen fish and fish and fish and never
catch anything. Whether or not this be strictly true, they
certainly demonstrate, by their tireless persistence, the cardi-
nal virtue of patience. Perhaps the infrequency of bites con-
tributes to the air of meditative solemnity in which they are
continually wrapped as they sit, rod in hand, with their feet
stretched out upon a bank of greensward or dangling over
the edge of a dock or a mossy stone wall, or else recline indo-
lently upon the handrail of a bridge. Merchant or farmer,
tired business man or poilu in horizon blue, all Frenchmen
seem soothed to one mental attitude; to become members of
one great, somnolent fraternity, when they fish. Whether
the day be bright with sunshine or mistily dark with rain, an
endless succession of them, more or less distantly spaced,
brood like river spirits upon the face of the waters all the
way from the meadows beneath the buttes of Langres and
Chaumont to the embowered bends, darting with canoes
and rowboats, that reflect the maritime cafes and villas of
Bry and Chennevieres, hard by Paris. Fishing is obviously
one of the great sedatives of the French people and the
Marne administers the soothing potion to its due proportion
of the population.
In a carelessly elongated double row of shops and dwell-
ings, Pavant stretches its length along the left bank of the
Marne as the latter begins its swing of a full half-circle
around the promontory of Porteron. Devoted, like its up-
river neighbors, to the production of buttons and beads, the
place, though seemingly so far removed from the world of
fashion and all its thoughts, yet has added to its industries
that of the fabrication of whalebone corset stays, for the use
of milady of the Paris boulevards and the Riviera. Below
Pavant the land becomes even more lovely as the Marne
Fishermen's Paradise 257
descends toward the Department of Seine-et-Marne and the
mouth of the Petit Morin. The hills swell in contours more
gentle and their mantling of cultures, owing no doubt to the
constant succession of sweeping bends molded between
heights which present an infinite variety of exposures to the
sun, become more luxuriant and varied in character. Viewed
from the upland above Petit Porteron, the river, circling
round Citry and Saacy, into the bend, still more acute, which
almost leaves Mery-sur-Marne upon an island, suggests in
miniature the curve of the Bay of Naples, the succession of
towns that, like jewels, encompass the latter, being simulated
by Crouttes and Nanteuil and Mery embroidering the skirts
of the hills with their walls and gardens. Crouttes, which
belongs still to the Department of the Aisne, reclines, as it
were, upon the edge of a shell, its amphitheater of dwellings
beneath the church tower looking across the Marne to the
little plain, verdant with fruit orchards and woods and a
checkerboard of cultivated fields, which encircles Citry.
Behind the latter and extending to east and west as far
as the eye can see, a strongly marked line along the flanks
of the southward hills is a feature of the landscape which is
at first mystifying. It neither rises nor descends but follow-
ing the same contour save when it cuts across a depression
or penetrates beneath a summit, it preserves a winding but
unbroken course in the direction of Paris. It is the Aque-
duct of the Dhuis, which is almost as horizontal in fact as
it appears to the eye, having a descent of only 60 feet in its
length of nearly 82 miles.
Nanteuil, first village of Seine-et-Marne, lies on the right
bank and attests by its comfortable homes to a population
which is well-to-do and the reason is sufficiently evident in
the vineyards occupying the sunniest hillsides all about it
258 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
and the neatly divided strips of farm land marking the level
grounds. So v^ith Mery, next of the Marne's fair daughters
of buxom, rustic type, and then we meet with a surprise on
crossing the river and discovering in Saacy a place which
resembles a suburb of Paris in so far as concerns the making
and vending of corsets, 'laces, sashes, ribbons, and embroid-
ered military 'insignia. In small workrooms and shops no
larger than they, but often fitted in metropolitan style with
plate-glass fronts, several hundred skilled workers, most of
them women, carry on at Saacy an industry whose products
reach not only Paris but New York and San Francisco, and
many other of the world's distant cities. It is curious to
reflect that this orchard-walled hamlet, tucked away among
the Marne hills, should contribute such articles of refinement
to the wants of more or less luxurious city dwellers.
The modest little manufacturing center lies more than a
kilometer south of the Paris-Metz Railroad, which crosses
the river and plunges through a long tunnel under the penin-
sula on which Mery stands, to come out over another convex
bend and then curve southward to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre.
But well north of the railroad the river itself follows its
sinuous valley, in the head of which the long-flung streets of
Ste. Aulde mark the right bank, white and clean and half-
hidden behind the fruit trees that tumble down the hills in
cascades of verdure. Around Ste. Aulde, the most important
products of the orchards are prunes, while many fields are
devoted to the growth of petits pots, the delicious French
peas which all the world relishes.
Beside the highway cutting across the peninsula south of
Ste. Aulde, Luzancy, charmingly situated upon the upper ter-
races of the vine-robed hills, adds its bit of color to the pan-
orama of unfolding beauty. A great public property here is
Fishermen's Paradise 259
devoted to the care of the anemic children of the eighteenth
Arrondissement of Paris (Montmartre) and during the sum-
mer months these unfortunate Httle ones, in parties of about
200 at a time, are given the joy of spending a few weeks in
this invigorating air and among these scenes of rural love-
liness.
As the Marne drops southward, now, toward La Ferte,
past the low, ample houses of Vaux whose hospitable door-
ways seem to invite the wayfarer to enter and rest; past
lovely Chamigny beneath its gray and faded church tower,
massive as the fragment of a fortress, round which
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
past Reuil, where the grass lands, close cropped by troops of
sheep, stretch to the river's margin as smooth as the lawns
of a park, an expanding sense of the benign graciousness of
the land steals warmly into the heart. Perhaps it is here,
swaying in long, careless bends between the hills of the
Orxois and the Brie, that the Marne is happier than any-
where else in its course. Now deeply green beneath the
shadow of a shouldering hill, now azure under an undimmed
sky, now shot with silver where a passing breeze skims its
surface, now boiling impatiently over a dam, but always
cheerful, always gentle, always dimpling with a thousand
moods of merriment or pensiveness, the river is the gracious
presiding spirit of the country, in all of whose beauties it is
the perfecting element. There are no factories to darken its
bosom with clouds of coal smoke or to soil it with their
refuse, no rude cliffs to cramp its wanderings, nor canals to
rob it of its own full flow of waters; only white villages to
26o The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
smile upon it and green meadows to caress and the far, for-
ested hills and over-arching sky to reflect. There is an ampli-
tude, a tranquility, a sweet peace of well-being here which is
the very essence of the spirit of the Marne. And to those
who know and love it, that means something which is akin
to the beauty and the peace of heaven.
CHAPTER XXI
DREAM COUNTRY
WHEN he set forth on his journey to the Rhine, Victor
Hugo took passage in a diligence, which went bowl-
ing along the fine highroad through Claye and Meaux toward
La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. But, for all the excellence of the
road, a wheel of his vehicle presently broke. Then he aban-
doned it, changed to another which chanced to pass and con-
tinued his journey, perched upon the imperial between a
hunchback and a gendarme, enjoying himself thoroughly
what with their ingenuous conversation and the attractions of
the landscape. He found the time perfect for traveling, and
wrote :
The fields are full of laborers, finishing the harvest and build-
ing immense stacks at different spots, which in their half -completed
condition are not unlike the pyramids in ruins that are met in
Syria. The ridges of corn are so arranged on the brow of the
hills as to resemble the back of a zebra.
And, well content, the novelist came presently to La
Ferte,
.... a pretty little town, with its three bridges, its old mill sup-
ported by five arches in the middle of the river, and its handsome
pavilion of the time of Louis xiii, which, it is said, belonged to
the Duke of Saint-Simon, and is now in the hands of a grocer.
As Victor Hugo found it, so La Ferte remains, in great
degree, today, but enlivened, it is true, by the presence of
two railways; the Paris-Metz line which we have seen for
so long threading the Marne Valley, and another which
comes down the Petit Morin from Montmirail and joins the
greater artery at La Ferte, even as the small river there
261
262 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
unites with the Marne. There are factories, too, at La Ferte
but they never obtrude rudely upon the dreamy quiet of the
place nor bring discordant features into the harmonies of
white walls, dazzling streets and roadways and wandering
blue waters gleaming out shyly from the luxuriant leafage of
gardens and boulevards beneath the even greater waves of
the hills rolling away on every side.
To men entering it in the olive-drab uniforms of the
American Army several months after those uniforms had
ceased to be everyday affairs in the lives of the inhabitants,
La Ferte-sous-Jouarre gave most heart-warming sensations.
Even along the country roads miles before the roofs of the
city came into view, the cordiality of passers-by began to
assume greater warmth and their smiles and salutations to
seem more like those of personal friends. Arrived at the
cozy little Hotel de I'Epee, in the bustling center of the town,
the marks of regard lavished upon Paul and the writer,
despite the travel-worn appearance of their antique Ford,
became, if possible, even more amicable. The hotel proprie-
tor shook hands with us as we signed our identification pa-
pers, the porter sprang for our luggage as though we hon-
ored him in permitting him to touch it, the maids gazed upon
us with liquid eyes as upon men who had just rescued them
from sudden death.
Out on the sunny street, lined with bright shops, neat and
cheerful, it was the same. Everyone smiled, many nodded
and spoke, as to long-lost cousins. In nearly every trading
place the owner or the clerks brought forth a few words of
English for our delectation, spoken with a delicious accent and
a bashful, almost tender, pride. It was market day in La Ferte
and as the writer passed through the market place, crowded
with shoppers and the carts and tiny stalls of the vendors of
Dream Country 263
vegetables, flowers, embroideries and knick-knacks, and
ascended the high steps of the Hotel de Ville, he turned to
make the embarrassing discovery that he was unconsciously
playing the role of, "lo, the conquering hero comes." Busi-
ness in the square had virtually suspended while tradespeo-
ple and customers alike had turned their eyes in his direction
and a politely modulated buzz of talk came to his ears, in
which the phrase officier Americain was especially noticeable.
In an atmosphere charged with such friendliness one loves to
linger and the writer confesses to a desire, then and there to
purchase a cottage in the lovely environs and among the hos-
pitable people of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre and there to remain
indefinitely. But, alas, it could not be, the returns of his
previous month's pay voucher having already arrived too
near to the vanishing point.
The explanation of the cordiality of the people of La
Ferte to Americans is not far to seek. In June and July,
1918, while the United States divisions were fighting their
first battles along the Marne salient and in the valley of the
Ourcq, General Pershing spent the greater part of his time at
La Ferte, observing the operations of his troops and caring
for their welfare, though they were still directly under French
army command. Here, on August 10, 19 18, the First Amer-
ican Army came officially into being and its staff organization
was perfected. Hence, for several months during the very
crisis of the war, the city was the rendezvous for large num-
bers of American soldiers and a great many of their most
prominent officers, all of whom appear to have produced
upon the inhabitants a profoundly favorable impression.
La Ferte has a respectable antiquity, for it was a walled
town in the sixteenth century, which was probably even
before the manufacture of mill stones had begun to bring to
18
264 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
it commercial prominence. There are contemporary draw-
ings still existing of the charming Chateau of La Barre,
which then occupied the Marne Island in the lower part of
the town, still lovely, but robbed of its mansion of other
days, one of whose melancholy distinctions it was to have
been the last stopping place of Louis xvi on his return to
Paris from Varennes. But it is on the hills of Haute-Brie,
2 or 3 kilometers south of La Ferte and accessible from the
latter by a road climbing steeply up from the valley, that
Jouarre, quaint and somnolent, gathers to itself the chief
archaeological interests of the region.
Jouarre, once the Divodurus (Divine Fortress) of the
Gauls and later the Roman "Jovis ara," possesses many sou-
venirs of the long-past centuries. Chief of them undoubtedly
is the crypt, lying behind the fifteenth-century church. Al-
though it is embellished with handsome pillars erected during
the cycle of the Merovingians, the crypt itself much ante-
dates their time. It is, indeed, said to be the most ancient
Christian structure existing in the region of Paris, which is
only 50 kilometers from Jouarre. The ponderous stone sar-
cophagi of six early Christian notables occupy the crypt,
among them being that of St. Eoregisile, Bishop of Meaux
in the eighth century. The presence of such intimate relics
of the early upholders of the faith, still resting in the place
of their original sepulture, arouse in the visitor to this silent
spot, whose very rocks seem weary with age, a feeling of
awe mingled with increased reverence for the greatness
and vitality of our religion which has survived so many
centuries and grown immeasurably in majesty and
power.
Quaint and venerable houses have their settings along
the quiet streets and above them, a symbol of the past, mounts
Dream ^Country 265
skyward the superb Romanesque Tower of Guet, a buttressed
relic of a thirteenth-century abbey, while in the empty Place
that echoes to the feet of the occasional wayfarer, a hoary
stone cross of the same epoch points the eternal way through
the slow currents of time that lap the faded structures of old
generations on every side. The church itself, though almost
juvenile in comparison with the crypt which it guards, shows
a charming interior with massive columns blossoming into
the low groins of the ceiling and it shelters some rare stained
glass of the sixteenth century and shrines of the thir-
teenth.
But the musty lore of ancient things is sharply displaced
in the mind by an awakening sense of recent days when one
catches a glimpse from the hilltop of the silver thread of the
Petit Morin creasing its deep, narrow valley down through
the uplands from the southeast, and recollections are stirred
of that eighth of September, 1914, when the weary soldiers
of Marshal French's British Army, restored to splendid
energy by the prospect of forward fighting once more, struck
the advanced elements of von Kliick's hosts and forced them
northward across this sluggish little vein of water and its
more formidable trough of hills to finally reach the Marne
bridges of La Ferte and win a passage across them against
bitter opposition. All about the hill of Jouarre the British
soldiers then swarmed, their coming saving the old town
and the larger community at its feet from further molesta-
tion by the enemy.
The bridge on the Rue des Pelletiers, the chief business
thoroughfare of La Ferte, was destroyed during the fighting
of 19 14 but its stonework has been replaced by not ungrace-
ful steel arches, while the stone Pont Neuf, farther down
stream, still casts the moving reflections of its sturdy piers
266 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
upon the bosom of the river. Just below the Rue des Pelle-
tiers, on the right bank, occurs a succession of stately old
mansions, their foundation walls descending sheer into the
river and the boughs and vines of their gardens leaning out
coquettishly to catch their own images in the bosom of the
stream. Flowers and water grasses softly cushion the base
of the wall, which here and there just above the water's edge
is pierced by a massive, mossy door giving into the interior
of one of the houses and suggesting midnight romance, lurk-
ing bravos, or stealthy elopements by the shining pathway of
the Marne.
On the other shore of the river, squarely opposite to the
dignified mansions of local aristocrats, like practicality set
face to face with romance and staring it out of countenance,
extends a long line of warehouses and not too obtrusive
workshops, mainly the emporiums of concerns manufactur-
ing or dispensing mill stones. Such stones, it is unnecessary
to say, are among the most ancient implements employed by
mankind in industry. They are made from a siliceo-calcar-
eous rock of a peculiar rough texture adapted to grinding
flour, deposits of which are found only in a few places in
Europe and America. One of these deposits, and perhaps
the largest is close to La Ferte, in the hills of Abymes and
Tarteret, between the Marne and the Petit Morin. Here the
slopes are furrowed by the great trenches of the quarries
where for ages the rough stone has been taken out. The
industry of preparing the stones for market was formerly of
much greater volume than it is today, for other processes of
making flour by improved mechanical methods have largely
superseded the ancient practice of grinding, but the trade is
still considerable and at la Ferte it gives employment to
hundreds of workmen.
Dream Country 267
The city, however, is not wholly dependent for prosperity
upon the millstone quarries. It possesses another flourishing
industry in the handling of cheeses. Though far outranked by
Meaux in the volume of its trade in this commodity, La Ferte
has attained a standing in it which is due in no small degree
to the efforts of one M. Georges Roger, who established here,
on the hillside overlooking the railroad station, a laboratory
in which he produced artificially the bacilli of fermentation
which experience has proved to yield the best flavors in the
different varieties of cheeses. The attainment of uniformly
excellent results by the use of such bacilli, in place of the
uncertainties of former haphazard methods, conquered the
prejudices of even the conservative French farmer. Al-
though in the vicinity of the city itself dairying is not much
practiced, the cultivation of grapes and orchards being more
profitable, the high plateaus of the Brie, the Orxois, and
Multien produce large quantities of cheese a proportion of
which finds its way to market through La Ferte.
It is the district called the Multien. defined quite vaguely
in general but separated from the Haute-Brie and the Orxois
by the Marne and the Ourcq and extending thence 15 or 20
kilometers west over St. Soupplets to form a sort of irregu-
lar triangle with Meaux at its base, which looks eastward
toward La Ferte across the vast Marne bend, in the bight
of which the Ourcq enters the parent stream. From La Ferte
a straight raceway of the Marne flows down through gentle,
open farming country to the head of this bend at Changis.
At Sammeron and Uzy, the one on the left bank, the other
on the right, the straight flow of the stream is interrupted by
the leafy Ile-Notre-Dame, in whose tiny, shadowed coves
lurk the flat-bottomed scows of fishermen and between whose
feathered branches flash exquisite vistas of the ivy-clad Ro-
268 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
man church towers of the two villages, around which, on the
meadows, one may
.... watch the mowers, as they go
Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even stroke their scythe they swing.
In tune their merry zvhetstones ring
The cattle graze, while, zvarm and still.
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill.
And bright, where summer breezes break.
The green wheat ripples like a lake.
Probably John T. Trowbridge sang of an American val-
ley scene, but he sang as truly for one in the valley of the
Marne, where, above Sammeron, the broad grain fields are
enlivened in August by the harvesters, men and women,
loading the bundles upon the two-wheeled wains, drawn by
stout, cream-colored oxen, and building up the huge circu-
lar stacks which, when completed, are thatched with straw
as carefully and systematically laid as the roof of a house.
Here and there the smoke of a steam threshing engine drifts
above the treetops, betokening peaceful industry in place of
the smoke of batteries in action which filmed this landscape
a few years ago. For this is a part of the region of which
Edmond Pilon passionately and poetically wrote in his Sous
I'Egide de la Marne:
In September, 1914, also, it was autumn; September with its
grain fields; September with its clustered grapes! And the days
were fair and warm. In the furrows the quails ran; above the
vineyards sang the thrush. The bumblebee, gorged with the booty
of the flowers, droned in the air about the daisies and the little
blossom clusters of the prairies, and the sky above the waters of
the Marne between Meaux and La Ferte, was so blue, so pure,
that one could well understand that this was, indeed, the country
of tales; that pleasant land to which La Fontaine in his time re-
turned without ceasing and from which the good Joinville departed
only with great grief. It was an opulent country, exquisite, fecund ;
a country where the cricket chirps, of fair fields, of gorse-covered
r1-
iV:-lf
-■^i»i"fe
Garden walls washed by the river, La Ferte-sous-Jouarre
[Page 266]
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St. Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux
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Dream Country 269
hills, of verdant grasses, of successions of farms where the grow-
ing things perfume the air and barnyard fowls scratch and maraud.
Everywhere, on the roads, in the lanes, came and went the people
of that " race sober and fine," of which Taine spoke.
The sky was so transparent, the air so light, that one could
hear in the distance, above the flowers where the bees were flying,
all at once in this quiet, in this calm and peace of nature, tran-
quillity of people and repose of flocks, as on a day of storm, a
dull rumble, distant, prolonged. And here where the Huns had
swept by, where Napoleon had passed, flying to Fontainebleau in
haste, overwhelmed by fate, shaking his fist, his eagles baffled and
brought low, sudden the Germans came pouring Conquerors
at Charleroi, having forced and ravaged northern France, they
descended in an avalanche, and ahead of their host, as once ahead
of Attila, arrested in Champagne by the same waters which had
arrested him, they broke the millstones, pillaged the houses, seized
hostages and, from time to time, along the wall of a farm shot
down with rifles an old man or an infant.
M. Pilon perhaps had in mind, in his last statement, a
murder of September, 1914, at Congis, where, as recorded
by Mr. Toynbee,
.... the Germans arrested a man 66 years old near a spot called
Gue-a-Tresmes, tied him to a cattle-tether and shot him — out of
spite, because they found no money in his purse. After this murder
the Germans prepared to set Congis on fire. " They stuffed twenty
houses with straw and drenched them with petrol, but the arrival
of the French troops fortunately prevented them from carrying out
their purpose."
Congis, where the above revolting incident occurred, lies
in a pocket of the valley just below the mouth of the Ourcq
and it will soon be encountered in following the long bend
of the Marne which, a few kilometers below Uzy, elbows its
way between the two guardian villages of Changis, on the
right bank and, on the left, a place whose name is verbal
music — St. Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux. Nor are the charms
of the latter village confined to its name alone. With its
winding, grassy streets, bordered by tumble-down, ivy-cov-
270 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
ered walls which are on terms of intimacy with the fruit
trees leaning over them; its squat little church like a holy-
father seated meditatively by the roadside ; its ancient, octag-
onal "dove-cote," molded with that rude artistry of stone-
work which modern tools of precision are utterly unable to
imitate; its foaming dam flanked by the solid walls of the
barge lock and the sloping cobbles of the watering place for
cattle and horses below it, all modified by a not too prosaic
touch of modernity in the long arches and battlemented cop-
ing of the bridge, massive as a Roman aqueduct, which con-
ducts the highway across the Marne to Changis, it would be
hard to find a place possessing at once more of the varied
beauties typical of hamlets of the French countryside.
From St. Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux the river sweeps round
the amiable vale of Changis and thence east and north on its
tortuous course of 24 kilometers to Trilport, disdainfully
ignoring the short cut of 4 kilometers across the neck of the
bend between the latter place and St. Jean. A fertile soil
blesses all this demesne, wherein cattle and sheep abound,
where stretches of grain billow over the uplands and beet and
potato fields make vivid green patches on the bottoms, and
whose every neatly walled farmstead is a producing center
for the most far-famed of the Brie cheeses.
Over St. Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux looks down through the
fringes of the Bois de Meaux one of the romantic ruins of
the Old World; that of the Chateau de Montceaux, built for
Catherine de Medicis, the queen of Henry 11, in 1547. It
was later magnificently embellished by Henry iv and given
by him to his beautiful favorite Gabrielle d'Estrees. It was
there, at the Chateau de Montceaux, that early in the year
1596, Henry iv was visited by his ancient enemy of the Cath-
olic League, the Duke of Mayenne, and there that the two
Dream Country 271
became warmly reconciled. Maximilian, Duke of Sully,
related in his memoirs an amusing anecdote of the two,
which occurred immediately after the completion of the for-
malities of their reconciliation. Walking into the gardens,
the king took Mayenne by the hand
and began to walk him about at a very great pace, showing him
the alleys and telling all his plans and the beauties and conveniences
of this mansion. M. de Mayenne, who was incommoded by a
sciatica, followed him as best he could but some way behind, drag-
ging his limbs after him, very heavily. Which the king observing,
and that he was mighty red, heated, and was puffing with thick-
ness of breath, he turned to Rosny (Sully), whom he held with
the other hand, and said in his ear, " If I walk this fat carcase
here about much longer, then am I avenged without much difficulty
for all the evils he hath done us, for he is a dead man." And
thereupon pulling up, the king said to him, " Tell the truth, cousin,
I go a little too fast for you ; and I have worked you too hard."
" By my faith, sir," said M. de Mayenne, slapping his hand upon
his stomach, " it is true ; I swear to you that I am so tired and
out of breath that I can no more. If you had continued walking
me about so fast, for honor and courtesy did not permit me to say
to you 'hold! enough!' and still less to leave you, I believe that
you would have killed me without a thought of it." Then the king
embraced him, clapped him on the shoulder, and said with a laugh-
ing face, open glance, and holding out his hand, " Come, take that,
cousin, for, by God, this is all the injury and displeasure you shall
ever have from me; of that I give you my honor and word with
all my heart, the which I never did and never will violate." " By
God, sir," answered M. de Mayenne, kissing the king's hand and
doing what he could to put one knee upon the ground, " I believe
it and all other generous things that may be expected from the
best and bravest prince of our age "
After the death of Gabrielle, Henry gave Montceaux to
the Queen, Mary de Medicis, who held many brilliant func-
tions there. But it was neglected by her son, Louis xiii,
while Louis xiv would have nothing to do with it whatever,
preferring Versailles and Marly, so that the palace on which
Italian architects had lavished all the arts of the Renaissance,
272 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
fell into a decay from which it was never rescued. Today,
lost among the trees of the forest, a part of one stone pavil-
ion, the skeletons of two towers framing a doorway, and
another doorway formed between two moss-grown columns,
are all that remain of the once enchanting rendezvous of
royalty, beauty, wit, and valor. How perish the glories of
the world!
Great, wind-swept hills of Orxois look down from the
east side of the long Marne bend upon the presqu'ile of Ar-
mentieres and Isles-les-Meldeuses, and the white and elegiac
church spires of these hamlets, pricking above the treetops,
are duplicated on the farther shore by those of Jaignes and
Tancrou and Mary-sur-Marne. Cozy, smiling bailiwicks of
the farmers of the neighborhood, these places in July, 1918,
heard the thunders of the Allied advance on Belleau and Bus-
siares and Hautevesnes roll down the open slopes from the
northeast, and a thin trickle of the blood so freely spilt there
found its way into their quiet precincts.
It was on the hilltop a few hundred feet above the low-
roofed cottages of Mary, with the links of the Marne coiling
among the trees and grass lands far below, that the writer
came, one afternoon, upon the village cemetery. The older
portion, wherein "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"
is enclosed within a neat stone wall. But the terrible casual-
ties of the first and second battles of the Marne, which had
raged over all the surrounding country, had compelled an
addition to even this isolated place of the dead, and just out-
side the wall were half-a-dozen rows of graves; all, appar-
ently, at first glance, those of French soldiers. Each mound
was neatly rounded and planted with bright flowers and at
its head each was marked with a little tricolor flag and the
black wooden cross bearing a tricolored rosette which is the
Dream Country 273
last tribute of France to her fallen sons. But a second glance
discovered in one of the rows 5 white crosses, scattered
between the black headboards of 21 poilus. They indicated
the resting places of Lieutenant Arthur T. McAllister, of
the Fifty-ninth United States Infantry and 4 enlisted men of
the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Infantry and the Tenth
Machine-Gun Battalion, all of the Fourth Division. As
shown by the legends on the crosses, all of these soldiers,
French as well as Americans, met death on July 18, 19 18,
when the troops of the Eighth Infantry Brigade, Fourth Div-
ision, with those of the One Hundred and Sixty-fourth
French Division, to which they were attached, attacked and
carried Hautevesnes, Chevillon, and the Sept-Bois.
Laid here by the village cemetery of Mary-sur-Marne,
far separated from the hosts of their fallen comrades who lie
in large cemeteries exclusively American, the condition of
these graves of Americans revealed as nothing else could the
touching tenderness with which the French regard the memo-
ries of the New World allies fallen on her soil. On every
American grave the flowers planted by the women of Mary
seemed, if possible, more carefully tended than those on the
French graves adjoining them, and at the head of each mound
a small American flag fluttered in the same breeze which
stirred the folds of the Tricolors three or four feet away. The
caretaker of the cemetery, a white-moustached veteran of the
war of 1870, stood reverently with us as we looked down
upon the resting places of our dead countrymen, and at his
side his little grandson, like the old soldier, straight, clear-
eyed, serious, shared our mood with a depth of comprehen-
sion which no child could have felt who had not himself lived
under the shadow of war. And beyond the crosses, white
and black, sparkled in the distance the waters of the Marne,
274 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
that wondrous, impersonal incarnation of the immortal love
of country which united the past of the veteran, the present
of ourselves, and the future of the lad, and whose silver
thread, by virtue of the mingled graves scattered all along
its shores, today knits together in sentiment, let us hope for
always, the hearts of France and America.
Both a highway bridge and a bridge of the Chemin de
Fer de I'Est, the latter on the line following the Ourcq Val-
ley from Meaux to Reims, cross the Marne in front of Mary.
The original stone spans were blown up by the Germans on
the eve of their retreat, September 8, 1914, and the super-
structures have since been replaced by steel. Lines of trenches
and machine-gun pits for a long time marked the river banks
above and below the bridges, showing where the enemy vainly
prepared to stand against the Franco-British advance.
For a time after the withdrawal of the Twenty-sixth
American Division from the Marne counter-offensive, in the
summer of 191 8, Mary-sur-Marne was the headquarters of
some of the echelons of the New Englanders. But it was
at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, tucked, only a kilometer to the northwest,
into the last bend of the Ourcq River before the latter
mingles with the Marne, that there was far greater American
activity when General George H. Cameron had there the
headquarters of his division, the Fourth, while his troops
were fighting under French command at Hautevesnes and
Noroy. Therefore Lizy, like La Ferte, than which it is less
than half as large, is a place where Americans are still re-
garded with more than casual interest. The crowd in the
main street, which is narrow and, with its cobbled sidewalks
and dingy, two- and three-story buildings, rather shabby in
general appearance, gave us those sort of glances which need
no spoken word to attest that they mean welcome. The
Lizy — tucked into the last bend of the Ourcq river
[Page 27If\
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Pomponne — with Lagny across the river
[Page 300]
The confluence of the Ourcq and the Marne
[Page 276]
The Chateau at Lizy-sur-Ourcq
[Page 275]
Dream Country 275
place, though old, has few monuments beyond the parish
church and a certain quaint stone bridge. The latter, a relic
of the twelfth century, spans the slender Ourcq with its nar-
row, round arches, pillared piers, and mossy stone railing,
on a little-frequented woodland road just above the town.
The church is a fifteenth-century edifice, having a roof line
serrated, like that of St. Crepin's at Chateau-Thierry, with
deep gables, and a square tower much broken by German
shells, which may have been fired in 19 14, when Maunoury
and von Kliick were fighting for the line of the Ourcq, or
perhaps in July, 19 18.
During the first battle, while the Germans remained in
possession from September 3 to 9, Lizy suffered severely
at the hands of pillagers. Mr. Toynbee relates :
The contents of chemists' shops, ironmongers' shops, bicycle
shops were loaded on motor-lorries and horse-wagons and hand-
carts. " The most eager pillagers were men wearing the Red Cross
badge If one attempted to stop and watch them at work,
they came and thrust their revolvers at one's chest." The In-
spector of Gendarmerie at Lizy states that all the communes in his
district were plundered in this thoroughgoing fashion, and the
booty carried ofif in vehicles commandeered from the inhabitants.
A huge factory of ferronickel is about the only industry
which Lizy can boast, though in the rich, rolling uplands
of the Multien, to the eastward, are some of the largest farms
of France, among them the great estates of Beauval and
Echampeu, this region furnishing much Brie cheese to the
market at Meaux. A sixteenth-century chateau, solid, but
not large, and surrounded by a thickly wooded park, lends
a touch of dignity to the environs of the typical country
town. But the chateau was badly shattered during the days
of the war and stands in pitiful need of repair in the midst
of the park, grown unkempt from neglect.
276 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
It is a matter of perhaps 2 kilometers from the edge of
Lizy to the mouth of the Ourcq, a spot which the writer was
resolved to visit, if only for the sentimental interest attach-
ing to the junction point of the two so historic rivers. With
Paul teetering the wheel madly we went down a farm road
pitching steeply and stonily into the valley of the Ourcq. The
track grew narrower and fainter as we proceeded, trees and
tall grass hedging it in, until it led us almost across the door-
step of a very small cottage buried in the woods. The face
of a Frenchman, stricken with amazement at the sight, not
to mention the very raucous sound, of an antique Ford rush-
ing past his isolated domicile, stared out at us, and as we
rattled on he was to be seen at his door, waving his arms
and frantically shouting something to the effect that there
was no road. He spoke truth. A few hundred yards more
and we were brought to a halt by hummocks of water grass,
and, clambering out, we pushed our way on foot through
dense bushes and weeds a quarter of a mile farther, when
our exertions were rewarded by our arrival on marshy ground
beside the sluggish confluence of the two rivers.
Although scores of miles of the shores of both streams
had witnessed some of the most desperate fighting of the
great war, it is doubtful if the foot of either an Allied or
a German soldier had pressed this soil, remote alike from
roads, villages, and commanding ground. A water-logged
scow lay moored to a slanting pole by the opposite shore of
the Ourcq, and beyond it could be seen a road, cultivated
fields and, some distance up the Marne, the roofs of Mary,
low-eaved against the hillside. Down stream, Isles-les-Mel-
deuses, with its large power dam, was invisible behind the
trees of a succession of little islands, but, on our side of the
Marne, a great embankment against the hillside supported
Dream Country 277
one of the serpentine curves of the Canal de I'Ourcq and
below it by the river bank several massive old abutments,
like the ruins of a chateau wall, marked the site of some
abandoned work of the canal. It was altogether difficult to
imagine that the two placid arms of water coming together
in such a little wilderness could have flowed through the fields
on which were decided the destinies of civilization.
Lizy itself had to be quite regained in order to come,
once more, upon the road leading along the hills of the south-
ward-bending Marne to Congis and Vareddes and thence
straight into Meaux. In the lowlands on the other side of
the river lies Germigny-l'Eveque, an ancient domain of the
Bishops of Meaux and a favorite retreat of the great Bossuet,
which, after having been sold in 1793, was repurchased for
the church in recent years by Monseigneur de Briey. Well
below it, where the Paris-Metz Railway crosses the Marne,
Trilport raises its fourteenth-century church spire against the
skirts of the Bois de Meaux from the midst of truck gardens
and fields of carrots and turnips. Here one begins to sense
the proximity of a city, for at Trilport on holidays the sur-
face of the river resembles that near Paris, being gay with
canoes and the boats of fishermen, while other pleasure seek-
ers from Meaux resort to the shades of the Bois de Meaux,
well quartered by avenues leading to sheltered resting places.
But on the right bank of the Marne, at Congis and
Vareddes, lying at the base of the abrupt escarpment of the
Goele Plateau where obviously in ages past the river has
flowed, and at Poincy, where the Canal de I'Ourcq deflects
from the river in the direction of Meaux, the traveler again
finds himself suddenly in the midst of battle fields. It was
in the shelter of the hills about Congis and Vareddes that
von Kliick's army had some of its strongest and most heavily
278 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
concentrated artillery positions, the guns firing westward over
the open uplands of the Goele Plateau, which, around Mon-
thyon and Penchard, Chambry, Barcy, and Marcilly, all
directly north of Meaux, was the scene of the desperate fight-
ing of Maunoury's army in its assaults on von Kliick's right
flank. On this plateau, indeed, the first Battle of the Marne
was virtually decided, for when von Kliick had been driven
from it across the Ourcq, the whole German plan of cam-
paign for enveloping the Allied armies and capturing Paris
in one grand coup, fell to pieces.
Every corner of these spreading hills looking down upon
the Marne and the far vista of Meaux, blue in the distance,
was scored in the fighting which swept back and forth across
it, and after the enemy's retreat it was sown with the bodies
of the slain, with waste ammunition, and with demolished Ger-
man cannon and limbers. Many of the French dead were buried
where they fell and each grave was neatly fenced and marked
with a black cross. On a day of commemoration, such as
the seventh of September, 1919, when the fifth anniversary of
the battle was celebrated and the graves decorated, it is a sad,
but an inspiring, sight to see, as the writer then saw, the long,
drooping palm branches and French flags waving in the wind
over each of these sepulchers, dotted, as far as the eye could
see, all over the grain fields and meadows and along the edges
of the woods on the scenes of Homeric conflict at Barcy and
the Chambry cemetery, Marcilly, Champfleury Farm, the
Quatre Routes, Poligny Farm, and scores of other places
famous in the story of that struggle.
Congis and Vareddes suffered the customary German
frightfulness. Both places were badly damaged by shell fire
and at Vareddes, which is a large village of nearly 1,000 peo-
ple, the Germans seized 20 hostages whom they carried away
Dream Country 279
with them when they retreated. On the first day of the
retreat the hostages were forced to march 17 miles. Says
Michelin's Guide to the Battlefields of the Marne, 191 4:
M. Jourdain, aged yy and M. Milliardet, aged 78, taken away
with only slippers on their feet, were the first to fall from exhaus-
tion; they were shot point-blank. Soon after, M. Vapaille suffered
the same fate. The next day, M. Terre, an invalid, fell and was
killed with revolver shots ; M. Croix and M. Llevin stumbled in
their turn and were also shot. All three were from 58 to 64 years
of age. Finally, M. Mesnil, aged 67, utterly exhausted, gave in;
his skull was smashed in with blows from the butt end of a rifle.
The other hostages, better able to endure, held on as far as Chauny
and were sent to Germany by rail. They were repatriated five
months later.
Outrages of similar nature were committed in every vil-
lage on the Goele Plateau which was occupied by the Germans
during the battle. But let us turn from such horrors to sub-
jects less revolting.
Although there are a number of large farms in the region
around the rural community of Vareddes, it is an odd fact
that many of them have been formed by the leasing to one
proprietor of numerous almost unbelievably small holdings.
It is said that around the town 800 hectares, or about 2,000
acres, of land are held in no less than 15,000 parcels, an aver-
age of less than one-seventh of an acre each. One farmer
has contrived for his own use a farm of respectable propor-
tions by buying or leasing 381 such parcels, while the public
park of Vareddes, containing a little less than four acres of
ground, was formed by uniting 31 individual bits of ground
of which the largest was about one-fifth of an acre in extent,
while the smallest contained 34 centiares, or about that num-
ber of square yards !
Such tiny holdings, when still in the hands of an individ-
ual proprietor, are devoted usually to the intensive culture of
19
280 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
garden vegetables. Sorrel for medicinal purposes is also cul-
tivated, many mushrooms are raised in the abandoned gal-
leries of rock quarries on the hillsides and there are, in places,
rather extensive plantations of gnarled elms, the wood of
which is fashioned, at a factory in Vareddes, into wagon-
wheel hubs, though these articles are less used now than for-
merly.
The Marne makes the last southward sweep of its bend
from Vareddes past Poincy and Trilport and then turns east
to Meaux around the base of the pleasant Brie Hills whence
flows the Ru des Cygnes, famous trade mark of Brie cheeses.
On this tiny stream stand the villages, nurtured by fruit
orcharding and dairying, of Fablains and Brinches, Vincelles
and Routigny, the manufacturing town of Nanteuil-les-Meaux
and that St. Fiacre where, in the year 670, died and was
buried the hermit of that name, an Irish nobleman by birth,
who lived in the adjacent forest under the protection of the
Bishops of Meaux, clearing the land and planting fruit trees
and thus becoming, after his canonization, the patron saint of
gardeners in general and of the Brie in particular. It is an
odd fact that the word fiacre, which was in common use
before the extensive employment of automobiles as the name
for the French hackney coach, was first applied to the vehi-
cles that carried pilgrims from Paris to the tomb of the saint
in the hills just beyond Meaux.
The Soissons-Meaux highway does not follow the Marne
but strikes boldly across the hills, from whose crests a beau-
tiful view of the city is outspread with the mass of St. £ti-
enne's Cathedral overtowering it, and then descends into the
streets through the eastern suburbs past patches of cultiva-
tion which gradually merge into the gardens along the Rue
St. Nicholas.
CHAPTER XXII
MEAUX
IT IS a far cry down the ages from the twilight dawn of
French history when Meaux, known to the Romans as
latinum, was the capital of the minor Gallic tribe, the Meldi,
to the present day, when, as a manufacturing center of no
mean importance, it is the chief emporium of the rich Haute-
Brie and Multien districts, a market of grain and preserved
vegetables, and perhaps the largest center of France for the
production and handling of flour and cheese. In the long
interval between those two epochs, Meaux has seen the Ro-
mans pass from Gaul and the kingdom of Austrasia rise to
dominion over the lands in which it lay. It saw the Nor-
mans come, burning and pillaging, in 865 ; paid tribute to the
Counts of Vermandois and of Champagne; won its communal
charter in 1179 and was joined to the royal domain a cen-
tury later; experienced, owing to its perennial importance as
a religious focus, eight great councils of prelates between the
ninth and the sixteenth centuries; saw the Jacquerie cut
down under its walls in 1356 by the French and English
nobles; fell into the hands of the English in 1422 only to
be rescued by the French seven years later under the divine
stimulus of Jeanne d'Arc; suffered many sieges and disorders
during the wars of religion, in which for a time it was the
nerve center of Protestant activity; became famous as the
episcopal seat of Bossuet, "the Eagle of Meaux," who almost
drove Protestantism from France, and was laid under con-
tribution by the armies of Germany and her allies in 1652,
1814-15, and 1870.
The history of Meaux is enriched by numerous memoirs
281
282 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
of those olden times, curious and moving. One which gives,
perhaps as well as any other, a flavor of the precarious life
of the medieval metropolis of the Brie, is the quaint account
of Jean Froissart of the defeat of the Jacquerie, the misera-
ble peasantry which in despair had revolted against the cruel-
ties and exactions of the nobles during the black days of the
reign of John 11, in the Hundred Years' War. Said the faith-
ful chronicler of the first half of that dreary struggle between
France and England; himself, naturally, no democrat but
an ardent believer in the rectitude of the feudal aristocracy:
At the time these wicked men (the Jacquerie) were overrunning
the country, the Earl of Foix and his cousin, the Captal of Buch,
were returning from a croisade in Prussia. They were informed,
on their entering France, of the distress the nobles were in; and
they learned, at the city of Chalons, that the Duchess of Orleans
and 300 other ladies, under the protection of the Duke of Orleans,
were fled to Meaux on account of these disturbances. The two
knights resolved to go to the assistance of these ladies and to
reinforce them with all their might, notwithstanding the captal
was attached to the English; but at that time there was a truce
between the two kings. They might have in their company about
60 lances. They were most cheerfully received on their arrival at
Meaux by the ladies and damsels ; for these Jacks and peasants
of Brie had heard what number of ladies, married and unmarried,
and young children of quality, were in Meaux; they had united
themselves with those of Valois and were on their road thither.
On the other hand, those of Paris had also been informed of the
treasures Meaux contained and had set out from that place in
crowds : having met the others they amounted together to 9,000 men
and their forces were augmenting every step they advanced.
They came to the gates of the town, which the inhabitants
opened to them and allowed them to enter; they did so in such
numbers that all the streets were quite filled as far as the Market
Place, which is tolerably strong, but it required to be guarded,
though the river Marne nearly surrounds it. The noble dames
who were lodged there, seeing such multitudes rushing toward
them, were exceedingly frightened. On this, the two lords and
their company advanced to the gate of the Market Place, which
Meaux 283
they had opened, and marching under the banners of the Earl of
Foix and Duke of Orleans, and the pennon of the Captal of Buch,
posted themselves in front of this peasantry, who were badly armed.
When these banditti perceived such a troop of gentlemen, so well
equipped, sally forth to guard the Market Place, the foremost of
them began to fall back. The gentlemen then followed them, using
their lances and swords. When they felt the weight of their blows,
they, through fear, turned about so fast they fell one over the
other. All manner of armed persons then rushed out of the bar-
riers, drove them before them, striking them down like beasts and
clearing the town of them ; for they kept neither regularity nor
order, slaying so many that they were tired. They flung them in
great heaps into the river. In short, they killed upward of 7,000.
Not one would have escaped if they had chosen to pursue them
farther.
On the return of the men-at-arms, they set fire to the town
of Meaux, burnt it; and all the peasants they could find were shut
up in it because they had been of the party of the Jacks. Since
this discomfiture which happened to them at Meaux, they never col-
lected again in any great bodies ; for the young Enguerrand de
Coucy had plenty of gentlemen under his orders, who destroyed
them, wherever they could be met with, without mercy.
More fortunate in 1914 than during the time, a century-
earlier, when the Prussians and their confederates exacted
huge tributes from the city and visited great indignities upon
its people, Meaux did not suffer the blasting presence of the
Germans except for a fleeting foray by some cavalry patrols
which followed up the British retirement across the Marne
bridges on September 2-3. In their retreat the British
destroyed the floating wash-houses and boats on the river
which might have served the enemy as pontoons, and blew
up the Market Bridge and the foot bridge below it. But a
week later they reentered the town, which, meanwhile, had
been filled to overflowing with French wounded from the
battle fields on the Goele Plateau. These unfortunates
received priceless aid from the few inhabitants who had
remained in the place and were effectively organized by the
284 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
heroic bishop, Monseigneur Marbeau. A few shells fell in the
suburbs but they did little damage and the charming old
town, built around a U-shaped bend of the Marne, is there-
fore still intact today.
Elevated above the crooked and often narrow streets of
the city, the Cathedral of St. Etienne, occupying a command-
ing site at the head of the Rue St. Remy, is easily the out-
standing landmark of Meaux. The edifice excited the dis-
criminating admiration of the master of French letters, who
gave his impression of it in a few words in The Rhine. Said
Hugo:
The cathedral is a noble-looking building; its erection was begun
in the twelfth century and continued to the sixteenth. Several
repairs have lately been made but it is not yet finished; for of
the two spires projected by the architect, one only is completed;
the other, which has been begun, is hidden under a covering of
slate. The middle doorway and that on the right are of the four-
teenth century; the one on the left is of the fifteenth century. They
are all very handsome, though time has left its impress upon their
venerable appearance. I tried to decipher the bas-reliefs. The
pediment of the left doorway represents the history of John the
Baptist; but the rays of the sun, which fell full on the fagade,
prevented me from satisfying my curiosity. The interior of the
church is superb: upon the choir are large o;?^ees, and at its entry
two beautiful altars of the fifteenth century; but unfortunately, in
the true taste of the peasantry, they are daubed over with yellow
oil-paintings.
To the left of the choir I saw a very pretty marble statue of
a warrior of the sixteenth century. "(Philippe de Castille.)" It was
in a kneeling position, without armor, and had no inscription. Op-
posite is another; but this one bears an inscription — and much it
requires it, to be able to discover in the hard and unmeaning marble
the stern countenance of Benigne Bossuet. I saw his episcopal
throne, which is of very fine wainscoting, in the style of Louis
XIV. ....
On going out of the cathedral I found that the sun had hid
himself, which circumstance enabled me to examine the fagade.
The pediment of the central doorway is the most curious. The
Meaux 285
inferior compartment represents Jeanne, wife of Philippe-le-Bel,
from the deniers of whom the church was built after her death.
The Queen of France, her cathedral in her hand, is represented at
the gates of Paradise; St. Peter has opened the folding-doors to
her. Behind the queen is the handsome King Philippe, with a sad
and rueful countenance. The queen, who is gorgeously attired and
exceedingly well sculptured, points out to St. Peter the pauvre
diable of a king, and with a side look and shrug of the shoulaer,
seems to say:
" Bah ! Allow him to pass into the bargain."
The uncompleted tower hidden under a covering of slate,
which Victor Hugo remarked, is in the same state today as
it was in his time. It is known as "The Black Tower."
Although its condition destroys the symmetry of the church's
exterior, the building is too majestic to be rendered ugly by
even so serious a blemish. The one completed tower, whose
great corner buttresses, sloping steeply upward, impart to
it an appearance of almost Egyptian solidity, is so tall, 250
feet, that on clear days the heights of Montmartre and Mont
Valerien, in Paris, may be seen from it. The body of the
cathedral is 275 feet long and 105 feet high. The rose win-
dow over the middle one of the three ogival doorways con-
tains exquisite old stained glass and the front of the edifice,
especially about the doorways, is encrusted with delicate
Gothic carvings and statuettes, much of the work sadly muti-
lated by weather, as the building was constructed of a very
soft variety of stone. During the numerous disorders of
which the church has been a witness, the hands of vandals
have added much to the damage wrought by time. Another,
smaller entrance of notably lovely sculpturing opens from
the north ofif the choir upon the courtyard of the Chapter
House. It is called the Porte Maugarni, immortalizing the
name of a criminal who was hanged in front of it in 1372
by the bailiff of Meaux. The canons of the cathedral were
286 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
greatly incensed at this desecration of ecclesiastical ground
and entered into a long lawsuit against the bailiff on account
of it.
But, after all, the crowning glory of St. fitienne de Meaux
resides in the extraordinary height and lightness of its in-
terior. The superb clustered columns, rising unbroken from
the floor to the spring of the roof groins and lending to the
nave and the side aisles their awe-inspiring altitude, supported
in the original church a series of vaulted galleries above the
aisles, like those of Notre Dame de Paris. These galleries
were removed about the end of the twelfth century, thus
leaving the upper part clear.
The author of Les Miserables would have been thrilled
to eloquence could he have seen, as the present writer was
privileged to do, the interior of St. ^fetienne's decorated for
the celebration of mass on September 7, 1919; the first an-
niversary of the first Battle of the Marne to occur after the
close of the war. Conducted by several of the most dis-
tinguished French prelates and attended by eminent repre-
sentatives of all the Allied powers and by a vast assemblage
of people, many of them from Paris, this commemorative
religious service saw the tall arches between the aisles and
nave draped with tricolor bunting, and the lovely shrine of
Jeanne d'Arc, in which The Maid, dressed in armor, is clasp-
ing her banner to her bosom, similarly decorated. But above
and before all, from the narrow arches composing the mighty
vault of the choir, depended great flags of the Allied nations,
those of Great Britain and Italy at the sides and those of
France and the United States in the center. Such a setting,
on such an occasion, no American could ever forget, or re-
call without a thrill of pride.
The pulpit from which Bossuet preached as many eloquent
Meaux 287
sermons as he delivered before the court of Louis xiv, is
still, in reconstructed form, the pulpit of the cathedral, stand-
ing at the right of the altar; his tomb, marked with a black
marble tablet, is in the choir, and the spirited monument to
him, executed by the sculptor, Ernest Dubois, in 1907, stands
in the north aisle near the main entrance. The fiery preacher,
who was said to be the only living man able to impress Louis
XIV with any sense of moral or religious obligation, is rep-
resented in his priestly robes, preaching with upraised hand.
Below him is the symbolic eagle, with outspread wings, and
at the foot of the pedestal are the figures of five great per-
sonages whose lives were profoundly influenced by Bossuet.
They are. Marshal Turenne and the Prince of Conde, the
brilliant military leaders of the epoch of French triumphs
under Louis the Magnificent, of whom the former was con-
verted by Bossuet while the latter was his intimate friend;
Mile de Lavalliere, also converted by "the Eagle" and turned
nun after she had been supplanted in the affections of the
king by Mme de Montespan; Henrietta, Queen of England,
whose death inspired Bossuet to one of his most eloquent
funeral sermons, and the Dauphin, Louis, whose tutor the
great churchman had been.
Meaux, especially in its ecclesiastical precincts, is, indeed,
overshadowed by the memory of Benigne Bossuet, who dom-
inated the spiritual affairs of France during his lifetime, which
ended in 1704, almost as completely as his royal master dom-
inated its political existence. Hard by the cathedral is the
episcopal palace, where he, as well as many other bishops
before and after him, lived and worked, for it dates from
the twelfth century though it was altered in the sixteenth
and seventeenth. One of the chief points of interest is the
little pavilion known as " Bossuet's Study," on the site of
288 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
a tower of the ancient fortifications whose line is now oc-
cupied by the terrace of the handsome palace gardens. This
pavilion is said to have been his favorite retreat when he was
in Meaux and here he composed many of his sermons and
sometimes slept and ate when engrossed in an important piece
of work.
Another bishop than Bossuet is credited with having built
the inclined plane that leads from the ground to the second
floor of the palace, desiring, so the story goes, to ascend to
his apartments without dismounting from his mule! In this
building with its simple roof lines and windows, its arched
doorways and balcony on the side of the garden supported
by nine chaste arcades, are rooms of fine Renaissance archi-
tecture, some of them containing tapestries, paintings, and
sculptures of very great value. Two of these rooms on the
second floor were occupied by Louis xvi and Marie Antoinette
on their return from Varennes. In the same room which was
then used by the king. Napoleon slept on the night of Feb-
ruary 15-16, 1 8 14, during the campaign before Paris and
it was again occupied by royalty in 1828, when Charles x
lodged there. In 1870, General von Moltke stayed once in
the palace during the German advance into France, saying
while there, "In five days, or a week at most, we shall be
in Paris," forgetting the possibility of a siege.
Just behind the bishop's palace and close to the right rear
end of the cathedral, stands a quaint old stone building with
tiny, deep windows, an oddly sloped roof at its southern end
and a round turret at the opposite extremity. Its most rare
and attractive feature, however, is the one described by
Victor Hugo, who, in spite of his omnivorous hunger for
information, seems not to have learned the name or character
of the building.
Meaux 289
To the right, on entering the town, is a curious gateway lead-
ing to an old church — the cathedral; and behind it an old habita-
tion, half fortification, and flanked with turrets. There is also a
court, into which I boldly entered, where I perceived an old woman
who was busily knitting. The good dame heeded me not, thus afford-
ing me an opportunity of studying a very handsome staircase of
stone and woodwork, which, supported upon two arches and
crowned by a neat landing, led to an old dwelling. I had not time
to take a sketch, for which I am sorry, as it was the first staircase
of the kind I had ever seen.
This building is the Chapter House of the cathedral and
it was originally erected sometime in the thirteenth century
as a granary, being afterward altered to a dwelling place
for the canons of the cathedral. Its outside staircase, as
might be conjectured, is famous among archaeologists.
The straight, narrow street of La Cordonnerie leads
steeply down from the cathedral upon the Quai Victor Hugo,
from the balustrade of which one commands a view of the
whole abrupt bend of the Marne within the city; the bridges,
overshadowed by their remarkable old mills, above; the at-
tractive promenades of the Trinitaires and the Place La-
fayette, shaded by huge old trees, below, and, across the river
in the peninsula, the trade and manufacturing section hing-
ing upon the market place and the Rue Cornillon, with the
Cavalry Barracks in the background. On the point of the
peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the river, once stood
the Roman fortress of latinum, which was later succeeded
by other fortresses protected on their fourth side by a moat
across the peninsula, now converted into the Canal de Cor-
nillon. The district, once all martial, is today given to less
impressive but more remunerative uses, for it is in and around
the Place du Marche that the city's enormous trade in Brie
cheeses is conducted, and on market days it is thronged with
farmers from all over the surrounding country.
290 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
Scarcely less striking than the cathedral and, in a sense,
even more rare and curious, were the ancient mills of the
Market Bridge, which withstood the blowing up of that struc-
ture in 1 9 14 only to fall prey to a conflagration in 1920. In
losing these mills, together with several millions of francs
worth of flour and grain, Meaux was robbed not only
of its most picturesque group of buildings but of a great
share of one of its chief industries, for the mills of
Meaux supply Paris with the greater part of its flour.
Dating from the sixteenth century and buJlt entirely
across the bed of the river, the old mills rested upon a
number of irregularly planted groups of piles; a fav-
orite device of the middle ages for utilizing water power.
Half-a-dozen buildings of entirely different types of archi-
tecture but all five or six stories high and all made of wood,
some of them strikingly timbered, stood huddled along the
bridge. Roofs of flat or pointed tiles laid at every imagina-
ble angle, gables, chimneys, exterior additions clinging like
turrets to the sides, projecting joists and pieces of wall, gave
to the mills an extraordinarily fantastic appearance, while
below them the great wheels foaming through the green river
waters added an illusion of motion to their grotesque bulk
which made them seem almost like strange, myriad-legged
monsters slowly wallowing up the channel of the Marne.
Another set of four mills, built halfway out on the Pont de
I'Echelle, several blocks below the older ones, are far less
curious than the latter, having been rebuilt in 1845, ^^ stone
set upon stone piers.
A Hotel de Ville of the dignified architecture usual to
French public buildings, and a small but excellent museum
and public library connected therewith, a number of hand-
some modern residences in the suburban district along the
The charming old town of Meaux
{Page 291\
The ancient mills and the ruins of the ^Market Bridge, Meaux
\Page 290]
Charenton, where the M^rne enters the Seine
[Page 304]
i' ,*.••'
V.
■4* 1
■^'■•'!*
V
The placid river at Chelles
[Page 302]
Meaux 291
Chaussee de Paris, some fine monuments of the present era to
notable men of the city in the pretty parks and along the Bou-
levard Jean Rose, which traces the line of the old fortifica-
tions, all leave in the mind of the visitor a pleasant impression
of Meaux in its role as a modern city, while the flavor of
antiquity lent by the cathedral and the mills is heightened by
the old houses here and there dotting the narrower thorough-
fares of ancient origin.
Officially, Meaux was never much of a center for the
activities of the Americans in olive drab of war times, for
the reason that it was far to one side of the duly defined
American areas. In point of fact, however, from June until
September, 19 18, it was thronged with those who were about
the business of the United States divisions fighting along the
upper Marne, on the battle line between Chateau-Thierry and
Soissons, and, finally, along the Vesle. It was the headquar-
ters of our Third Army Corps, under Major General Robert
Lee Bullard, before the counter-offensive of July 18, and at
Meaux a large number of the troops of the "Yankee Divis-
ion" celebrated July 4, 19 18, with a parade, an athletic meet
and a band concert. Few who were in the city on that or
other occasions will soon forget the grateful shade trees of
the Trinitaires along the river shore, or, looming against the
sky, the heavy cathedral tower with the pigeons circling about
it. For Meaux, although in this motor age almost a suburb
of Paris, has a charm which is all its own. It carries itself
proudly, too, and seems, as Victor Hugo said, " to be proud
that Meaux is not Paris."
CHAPTER XXIII
ILE-DE-I^RANCE
AMONG the country folk about Trilport there is a saying
still extant, handed down from the Middle Ages, that
when they cross the Marne at that place on the way to
Meaux, they are "going into France." It is to be presumed
that in using the phrase in the old days, people meant by it
that they were going into the province of Ile-de-France,
whose eastern limits ran somewhere near Meaux. It is
through the heart of that region that the Marne flows from
the city of Bossuet until it enters the Seine at Paris.
A pleasant, poplar-shaded road conducts one out past the
Trinitaires and southward by the Apple-Tree Mill, lying pic-
turesquely on an arm of the river, to the square of the manu-
facturing village of Villenoy, beneath its three tall lime trees.
A huge beet-sugar factory, one of the largest in France, with
two tall chimneys, lies close to the Marne shore, while saw-
mills and other industrial plants surround the village, whose
only center of beauty is its parish church, Ste. Aldegonde's.
It was erected in 1648 by the then Bishop of Meaux, Monseig-
neur Seguier. It contains some excellent paintings and stands
in the middle of the parish cemetery, whose graveled walks
are bordered with hedges of boxwood so tall that they hide
the time-worn tombs behind them.
Across the river below Villenoy, Mareuil-les-Meaux, and
Voisins lie couched on the hill slopes and just below the lat-
ter, the river, in one of its characteristic curves, turns north-
ward again past Isles-les-Villenoy, where the railroad to
Paris crosses it on a long bridge. The great spur of the Brie
Hills that cuts off the Marne Valley from that of the Grand
292
lie- de-France 293
Morin ends abruptly above Conde-Ste.-Libiaire, leaving
extended before it a valley encircled by the Marne in a bend
almost as far-flung as the one between St. Jean-les-Deux-
Jumeaux and Trilport.
It was to an old farmhouse which she remodeled to suit
her own tastes, standing exactly on the summit of this spur
of the Brie Hills, that Mrs. Mildred Aldrich, the American
writer, came in the spring of 1914, "to seek," as she said,
"a quiet refuge and settle myself into it, to turn my face
peacefully to the exit, feeling that the end is the most interest-
ing event ahead of me — the one truly interesting experience
left to me in this incarnation." And then, as if specially to
prove to her the whimsical temperament of Fate and the folly
of predicting, in any situation, that the " interesting experi-
ences" of life are over, there came and spread itself on the
vast stage beneath her very door, the first battle of the Marne,
which she, from her viewpoint of it, so graphically and mov-
ingly described in her little book, A Hilltop on the Marne.
French and British, even German, soldiers — for she was in
the very No Man's Land of the fray — came and went about
her house, and with her glasses she followed the smoke
clouds and the flashes of the guns which gave evidence of the
fierce fighting on the plateau north of Meaux. We will quote
nothing of Mrs. Aldrich's fascinating story of those nerve-
straining days of battle, but her description of the lovely
scene extending on every side from her hilltop at the time of
her first arrival there, is too graphic and too pertinent to our
journey down the Marne to be omitted. Under date of June
3, 1914, Mrs. Aldrich wrote, in a letter to her relatives in
America :
I am sure that you — or for that matter any other American —
never heard of Huiry. Yet it is a little hamlet less than 30 miles
294 ^^^ Marne, Historic and Picturesque
from Paris. It is in that district between Paris and Meaux little
known to the ordinary traveler. It only consists of less than a
dozen rude farmhouses, less than five miles, as a bird flies, from
Meaux, which, with a fair cathedral, and a beautiful chestnut-
shaded promenade on the banks of the Marne, spanned just there
by lines of old mills whose water-wheels churn the river into foam-
ing eddies, has never been popular with excursionists. There are
people who go there to see where Bossuet wrote his funeral ora-
tions, in a little summer-house standing among pines and cedars on
the wall of the garden of the Archbishop's palace, now, since the
" separation," the property of the State, and soon to be a town
museum. It is not a very attractive town. It has not even an out-
of-doors restaurant to tempt the passing automobilist.
My house was, when I leased it, little more than a peasant's
hut. It is considerably over one hundred and fifty years old, with
stables and outbuildings attached whimsically, and boasts six gables.
Is it not a pity, for early association's sake, that it has not one
more? ....
But much as I like all this, it was not this that attracted me here.
That was the situation. The house stands in a small garden, sep-
arated from the road by an old gnarled hedge of hazel. It is
almost on the crest of the hill on the south bank of the Marne —
the hill that is the water-shed between the Marne and the Grand
Morin. Just here the Marne makes a wonderful loop, and is only
fifteen minutes' walk away from my gate, down the hill to the north.
From the lawn, on the north side of the house, I command a
panorama which I have rarely seen equaled. To me it is more beau-
tiful than that we have so often looked at together from the terrace
at Saint-Germain. In the west the new part of Esbly climbs the
hill, and from there to a hill at the northeast I have a wide view
of the valley of the Marne, backed by a low line of hills which is
the water-shed between the Marne and the Aisne. Low down in
the valley, at the northwest, lies Ile-de-Villenoy, like a toy town,
where the big bridge spans the Marne to carry the railroad into
Meaux. On the horizon line to the west the tall chimneys of Claye
send lines of smoke into the air. In the foreground to the north,
at the foot of the hill, are the roofs of two little hamlets — Jon-
cheroy and Voisins — and beyond them the trees that border the canal.
On the other side of the Marne the undulating hill, with its wide
stretch of fields, is dotted with little villages that peep out of the
trees or are silhouetted against the sky-line — Vignely, Trilbardou,
Ile-de-France 295
Penchard, Monthyon, Neufmontier, Chauconin, and in the fore-
ground to the north, in the valley, just halfway between me and
Meaux, lies Mareuil-on-the-Marne, with its red roofs, gray walls,
and church spire. With a glass I can find where Chambry and
Barcy are, on the slope behind Meaux, even if the trees conceal
them.
But these are all little villages of which you may never have
heard. No guidebook celebrates them. No railroad approaches
them. On clear days I can see the square tower of the cathedral
at Meaux, and I have only to walk a short distance on the route
nationale — which runs from Paris, across the top of my hill a lit-
tle to the east, and thence to Meaux, and on to the frontier — to
get a profile view of it standing up above the town, quite detached,
from foundation to clock-tower.
This is a rolling country of grain fields, orchards, masses of
black-currant bushes, vegetable plots — it is a great sugar-beet coun-
try — and asparagus beds; for the Department of the Seine-et-
Marne is one of the most productive in France ; and every inch
under cultivation. It is what the French call un paysage riant, and
I assure you, it does more than smile these lovely June mornings.
I am up every morning almost as soon as the sun, and I slip my
feet into sabots, wrap myself in a big cloak and run right on to the
lawn to make sure that the panorama has not disappeared in the
night. There always lie — too good almost to be true — miles and
miles of laughing country, little white towns just smiling in the
early light, a thin strip of river here and there, dimpling and danc-
ing, stretches of fields of all colors — all so peaceful and so gay,
and so " chummy " that it gladdens the opening day, and makes
me rejoice to have lived to see it. I never weary of it. It changes
every hour and I never can decide at which hour it is the loveliest.
After all, it is a rather nice world.
Now get out your map and locate me. You will not find Huiry.
But you can find Esbly, my nearest station on the main line of the
Eastern Railroad. Then you will find a little narrow-gauge road
running from there to Crecy-la-Chapelle. Halfway between you
will find Couilly-Saint-Germain. Well, I am right up the hill about
a third of the way between Couilly and Meaux.
It is a nice historic country. But for that matter so is all
France. I am only fifteen miles northeast of Bondy, in whose forest
the naughty Queen Fredegonde, beside whose tomb, in Saint-Denis,
we have often stood together, had her husband killed, and nearer
20
296 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
still to Chelles, where the Merovingian kings once had a palace
stained with the blood of many crimes, about which you read, in
many awful details, in Maurice Strauss's Tragique Histoire des
Reines Brunhaut et Fredegonde, which I remember to have sent
you when it first came out. Of course no trace of those days of
the Merovingian dynasty remains here or anywhere else. Chelles
is now one of the fortified places in the outer belt of forts surround-
ing Paris.
In her gracious description, Mrs. Aldrich has told so
much of the paysage riant lying between Meaux and Lagny
that not a great deal remains to be added to it; nothing, cer-
tainly, to add to the sense of its charms. The villages, whose
musical names sing like strains from some ballade of the
troubadours — Vignely and Trilbardou, Charmentray and
Precy and Annet-sur-Marne — dreaming along the shores of
the slumberous river, have really few distinguishing features
beyond the winsome charm which clings like a perfume, to
every Marne village. Though almost within sound of the
whistles of Paris, not yet is the sweet rusticity of the river's
wanderings spoiled in the smallest degree by proximity to one
of the world's greatest capitals.
At Esbly, where the canal crosses the peninsula of the
Marne and where the railroad from Crecy, coming down the
Grand Morin, joins the Paris-Metz line, there is growing up,
it is true, beside the gray and still sequestered old village, a
new town of villas and suburban cottages where, in charming
rural surroundings, dwell city folk attracted thither by the
frequent train service which enables them to go daily to their
work in Paris. Old Esbly boasts a monument to the memory
of one of her sons of whom she is justly proud. Major Ber-
thout, an army ofificer of high intellectual attainments who
lost his life in the colony of Tonkin while engaged in the task
of mapping that country.
Ile-de-France 297
A canal, starting at Meaux and designed to shorten by 16
kilometers the journey of barges, by cutting off the meander
north of Esbly, makes a termination in the Marne at the west
side of this bend, between the hamlets of Lesches and Chali-
fert. Its final course over the neck of the peninsula is fav-
ored by a peculiar configuration of the ground. Owing to
the fact that the Grand Morin comes down past Esbly and,
amid groves of poplars, enters the Marne hard by it, there
is across the neck of this peninsula, instead of the tongue of
high land usually occupying such a point, a valley so much
lower than the adjacent surface that it is almost a marsh. On
either side of the canal the low, damp soil is planted to a
luxuriant forest of poplars belonging to the commune of Les-
ches, the village whose cottages stand at the head of the small
valley under a wooded crest robed with vines. This crest,
sloping easily to the borders of the Marne, is crowned by
the Chateau of Montigny.
Of all the places near the mouth of the Grand Morin,
Conde-Ste. Libiaire alone preserves, in its name, the recog-
nition of the ancients of this meeting place of waters, Conde
being a corruption of the Gallic word condate, meaning, con-
fluence. North of Esbly, hiding its wanderings, if possible,
even more shyly than it does in more remote regions, the
Marne reflects the rural center of Charmentray, and Precy,
where basket-work flourishes, and then stretches protecting
arms about the sandy vale of Jablines, dotted with grain
shocks and stacks of golden straw. Coupvray, between
Esbly and Chalifert, looks down upon rich soil once belong-
ing to the ducal family of Trevise, whose ancestral chateau
still dominates them from the summit of the near-by hills.
Chicory, much used in the north of France, and endive, lux-
298 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
uriate on these grounds, whose farms are well cultivated and
good to look upon.
In the square of Coupvray stands a bust upon a modest
pedestal which commemorates the features of a man, native
to the village, whom thousands of unfortunates all over the
world have blessed and still bless with the fervent gratitude
which they might bestow upon a saint. The bust was erected
by the students, whom he had trained, to Louis Braille, born
in Coupvray in 1809; the genius who, blinded himself at the
age of three years, invented the Braille system of printing
for the blind by means of raised letters, thus lighting the
lamp of knowledge in the brain for those for whom the lamp
of the sun has been forever extinguished.
Across the deep-embowered valley of the Grand Morin,
Mrs. Aldrich's "hilltop on the Marne" looks to another hill-
top swelling above Montry and Coupvray. This gentle emi-
nence bears up the Chateau of Haute-Maison, *' with its man-
sard and Louis xvi pavilion;" the building in which Jules
Favre held his first conference with Prince Bismarck on Sep-
tember 18, 1870, while the German armies were encircling
Paris, and France was in chaos. To the chateau, which
belonged in 1591 to the noble family of Reilhac, Bismarck
was conducted by an old French soldier named Hoppert,
after having declined to meet Favre in the humble cottage of
the veteran. The latter, distrustful of the Germans, would
not leave his home with Bismarck until the latter had placed
a guard over it.
In his discussion with the Iron Chancellor at the chateau,
Favre stood out bravely against the inflexible German, who,
expressing his eager covetousness in rude words and harsh
voice, demanded booty and ransom so huge that the French
Minister of Foreign Affairs indignantly refused to consider
Ile-de-France 299
such terms. But a few months later, alas! Paris taken, and
France brought to her knees, the new republic was obliged
to accede to conditions even more humiliating. It is consol-
ing to reflect that forty-four years later in this same valley
and again in September, a German officer was obliged to
write in his diary of a superior who had aspired to emulate
Bismarck ; " Caught sight of von Kliick. His eyes, usually
so bright, were dull. He, who was wont to be so alert, spoke
in dejected tones. He was absolutely depressed."
Like a child, weary of its long play at hide-and-seek
among the laughing hills of Orxois and Brie, at Chalifert the
gentle Marne turns westward as if treading the path toward
home and, with scarcely another turn, rolls on into the very
eastern suburbs of Paris. At Lagny it is that one first senses
the nearness of the great city. The river valley above it,
framed between the orchards and vines of the hillsides, encom-
passes Chessy and Montevrain on the south shore and Damp-
mart on the north; smiling suburban places whose villas, set
in ample lawns, the homes of country-loving Parisians, form
a pleasant avenue leading above the river to Lagny. Even
the railroad bridges and the medievally massive Aqueduct of
the Dhuis, which, after its long journey beside the Marne,
crosses it above Dampmart to find a more northerly route
into Paris, add to the beauty of the landscape by their fairly
proportioned arches of chiseled stone.
The river front of Lagny, always peopled by canal boats
sparred out from the shore and connected with it only by
long, narrow landing planks, looks upon the little capital of
this part of the valley between arching trees and past river-
side residences which are often elegant and always comfort-
able. The town, of a population of 7,000 people, counting
those in Thorigny and Pomponne, directly across the river.
300 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
was the Latiniacum of the Romans and it has had a check-
ered history. It was burnt by the English in 1358, pillaged
by the Duke of Lorraine in 1544, and captured in 1591 by
King Henry iv from the Duke of Parma. At its very center,
Lagny exhales a perfume of antiquity, a curious fountain of
the Middle Ages, bearing a Latin inscription and called the
Naiad's Fountain, playing its jet of water in the midst of the
market place, itself the old " Place du Marche aux Bles,"
appropriate to a town of the grain country. Near by is the
quaint old Church of St. Furcy, long since given to secular
uses, with curtains fluttering in the latticed windows beneath
the beautifully carved ogival fagade, which, set between two
pinnacled turrets and heavy buttresses, rises high above the
doorway wherein stand the tables of a modest cafe. St.
Furcy's is the last relic of a famous abbey founded by the
Irish monk of that name at Lagny in the seventh century.
A more imposing ecclesiastical structure is the early
Gothic Church of St. Pierre, near the market place. It is
really the choir only of an abbey church designed in the thir-
teenth century to be one of the most vast in France, but never
completed. With its handsome radiating chapels, however,
the noble fragment is alone large enough to accommodate all
the worshipers who ever assemble there.
On the Pomponne side of the river, along the hill slope
which is topped by the delightful park and Bois de Pomponne,
much fine fruit is produced for the Paris markets, the garden
of one M. Mottheau, in particular, having acquired a high rep-
utation for the magnificent pears and apples which are raised
there by the methods of arboriculture practiced in the Gar-
dens of the Luxembourg. Situated upon the sunny slope
above the railway station, with Lagny outspread across the
river, the orchards of M. Mottheau are enclosed in walls and
Ile-de-France 301
cross-walls which are equipped to hold straw mats and slid-
ing roofs of tiles for the protection of blossoms and young
fruit in the time of late spring frosts or other inclement
weather. The pear trees are trained against the walls in
many symmetrical designs such as lozenges, candelabra, palm
leaves, urns, etc., and the production of each tree, apple as
well as pear, is confined to a very few carefully nurtured speci-
mens of fruit. Naturally, fruit produced by such painstaking
and costly methods finds its way only to the tables of the
best hotels and the homes of wealthy families.
Dimpling again for a space through a bit of valley remote
from the traffic of highway or railroad, and smiling back at
St. Thibault-des-Vignes, Vaires, and Torcy, the river
approaches Noisiel but before reaching there is broken into
two channels by a long, narrow island, leafy as always, the
upper end of which is graced by the " Mill of the Isle," and
the lower end by the abandoned " Mill of the Moat." Ap-
proached from the shore by a mossy stone causeway, the
empty wheel chute of the Mill of the Moat bestrides an arm
of placid water which reflects as in a mirror the gray stone
piers, framing a vista of woodland greenery, the upper stories
of plaster and decaying, close-set timbers, and the branches
of the forest trees that hedge it in.
Perhaps the Mill of the Moat and the Mill of the Isle
were in the mind of the eccentric, nature-loving poet, Gerard
de Nerval when he wrote,
/ love Chelles and her water-cress beds
And the soft tick-tack of the mills,
for Chelles, looking down over long cascades of treetops
from the hills north of Noisiel, is only a short distance away.
At Noisiel we are again in a modern manufacturing
302 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
town, with a multitude of workmen's cottages ranged along
straight streets, much as in an American town of similar
character. The whole life of the place revolves about the
huge chocolate manufactory of Menier. The substantial and
well-arranged buildings of this company, whose signs are
familiar sights in every French village and railway station
and whose product was eagerly sought by millions of Allied
soldiers during the weary days of the war, stretch for a great
distance along the shore of the Marne, interspersed with
pretty gravel paths and flower beds.
Noisiel is modern and devoid of interesting traditions but
it is far different with Chelles, lying on the north side of
the river beneath the grim but no longer formidable walls of
Fort de Chelles, first unit of the outlying enceinte of defenses
about Paris which the Marne approaches in its course. As
Mrs. Aldrich related in her Hilltop on the Marne, Chelles was
the seat of a palace of the Merovingian kings, and the Forest
of Bondy, northwest of it, is the place where, according to
legend. Queen Fredegonde in the year 673 accomplished the
murder of her husband, Chilperic i, by having him assassi-
nated as he was dismounting from his horse after a hunting
excursion. This resourceful, if not too scrupulous, lady, who
was only one of several wives of Chilperic, during her career
of crime likewise succeeded in compassing the death of all
the numerous progeny of the other royal consorts, thus leav-
ing the dynastic coast clear for her own children, none of
whom, however, appear to have been worth the trouble she
had taken on their behalf.
The palace, which was the royal residence of three Mero-
vingian kings and was later used by Robert the Pious, second
of the Capetians, was abandoned under the latter dynasty and
fell into a decay of which not even ruins remain today. The
nLJ'^.K
!A^.'V
Le Moulin de Doubes, Noisiel
[Pcif/e 301]
lie-de-France 303
adjacent abbey, however, a great religious institution founded
by Ste. Clotilde, wife of Clovis the Great, endured from the
sixth century until the eighteenth, when it, together with
the tombs of the numerous princesses who had been its
abbesses, was utterly destroyed in the Revolution. Some reli-
quaries, containing bones of Ste. Bertille and Ste. Bathilde,
of whom the latter, wife of Clovis 11, had had the place
rebuilt in the seventh century, and some wood carvings still
to be seen in the church of Chelles, alone survived that de-
molition.
Louis XIV, during the brief period in which he was infat-
uated with, the lovely and unfortunate Mile de Fontanges,
conferred the almost royal dignity of Abbess of Chelles upon
her sister, and it was in this retreat that Mile de Fontanges
sought a refuge after she had become distasteful at court.
She arrived, so wrote Mme de Sevigne,
. . . . with four coaches of six horses each, her own with
eight; the beneficiary of a yearly income of 40,000 ecus (about
120,000 francs), but, wanting the heart of the king, which she had
lost, bloodless, pale, changed, bowed down with sadness. I do not
think that I have ever seen an example of a woman at once so
fortunate and so unfortunate.
The present town of Chelles, especially along the main
thoroughfare of the Boulevard de la Gare, with its shade
trees trimmed square like boxes set on posts, is virtually Paris
in appearance as truly as the Marne in front of it, winding
between little islands and past the Moulin Baviere, is still
the placid, sylvan, heaven-reflecting Marne of Bassigny and
Champagne and the Brie. At Gournay, on the river bank,
which has a railway station in common with Chelles, and near
which the Marne leaves the Department of Seine-et-Marne
and, for a very brief span, enters that of Seine-et-Oise, the
304 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
views up and down stream are most attractive. Especially is
this true from the floor of the highway bridge, beneath which
the water is usually enlivened by canal boats passing with
lumbering deliberation, while the sweep of the bounding hills,
dotted with suburban homes, is broken into vistas by the
foliage of the tree clusters on the low lands.
It seems a pity that a place so storied and so attractive
as Chelles should have to be connected in American minds
with Prison Farm 2, an institution which has left probably
the most sinister memory of any connected with the Ameri-
can Expeditionary Forces, unless a possible exception be-
made of "The Bastille," at 10 Rue Ste. Anne, in Paris. The
two places were, in fact, closely connected in operation. The
American soldier offenders, most of them "A.W.O.L.'s" in
Paris, were first gathered in at " The Bastille " and later
put in confinement at Prison Farm 2, where they were sub-
jected to the outrageous brutalities of the commanding offi-
cer, First Lieutenant Frank H (" Hardboiled ") Smith,
and his subordinates. Second Lieutenants Charles Mason and
Warren Helphenstein, and Sergeant Clarence E. Ball. Some
comfort, however, is to be derived from the thought that,
having been proved guilty of practicing upon prisoners under
their charge, cruelties utterly unwarranted by military law,
these men all eventually received punishment in the United
States.
On the high hills west of Gournay, Noisy-le-Grand holds
a lofty seat far above valley-built Neuilly and just beyond
the latter town, in a deep southward bend, the Marne begins
its last series of meanders and, at the same time, leaves the
Department of Seine-et-Oise and enters that of the Seine.
The latter, which is virtually the metropolitan district of
Paris, embracing nothing save the city and its immediate
Ile-de-France 305
suburbs, is at once the smallest department of France in area,
185 square miles, and much the greatest in population, having
nearly 4,000,000 inhabitants.
Henceforth the Marne, shy recluse of arboreous valleys
and bosky meadows, is a city dweller — but a dweller in what
a city! Paris has expended upon her boulevards, parks, and
suburban recreation places more intelligence and art and per-
haps more superficial space, than any other city in the world.
So seductive has she made the pathway for her lovely rustic
guest, the Marne, that the river, seemingly covered with dis-
may as she approaches the city and bent upon plunging
straight into the Seine, quickly overcomes her bashfulness
and lingers, instead, in many loitering curves, as if to enjoy
as long as possible the pleasant playgrounds wherein, beloved
and caressed by the nature-loving Parisians, young and old,
she surrenders wholly to their pleasure the charms which
have adorned her since far-off Langres and Chaumont and
St. Dizier.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PLAYMATE OF PARIS
ALREADY the double-decked tramcars from the Porte
de Vincennes are at the river shore in widespread,
hilly, and very modern Perreux and they go roaring across
the bridge into the little square of more venerable and sedate
Bry-sur-Marne, a place at the very gates of Paris which
preserves in its name a trace of that rich and storied Brie
region which we for so long have traversed.
An old Mairie, a square-towered church, an esplanade of
densely foliaged trees leading of¥ up a slope, and a rambling
hotel with an open-air cafe where tables stand beneath trees
and arbors of grapevines; these things look from the square
of Bry upon the bridge and the surface of the river, where,
on holidays, canoes and rowboats dart hither and thither
over the trembling water. And out in the sunny open before
the Mairie a bronze bust is borne up on a modest pedestal
whose legend tells that it was erected to the memory of Louis
Jacques Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerreotype, who
lived in Bry and died there in 1851.
The town is, in fact, almost as well supplied with remind-
ers of the father of the modern art of photography as is
Meaux with those of Bossuet. Daguerre was almost as great
an artist as he was an inventor, being particularly gifted in
the portrayal of light and shade and it was as an artist that
he developed the diorama, whose realistic effects are obtained
by the manipulation of lights and shadows thrown upon the
canvas. Indeed, for a long time Daguerre was more cele-
brated as the inventor of the diorama than of the daguerreo-
type until the development of photography showed what a
306
The Playmate of Paris 307
boundless field of possibilities he had opened with the latter
invention. The small parish church of Bry contains a remark-
able example of Daguerre's peculiar art. Filling the entire
vault behind the altar is a painting, lighted from above, of a
vast Gothic cathedral choir, so skillfully executed that the ob-
server experiences the sensation of actually looking into that
spacious interior, to which the actual church seems but an
antechamber.
A short, winding street extends from the church past the
Bellan Orphan Asylum and up the abrupt hill, beyond whose
crest lies Villiers-sur-Marne. On the wall of a plain stone
building just at the base of the hill are fixed two tablets, so
high above the pavement that they might easily be passed
unnoticed. The upper one states that this property was owned
by Louis Daguerre and that he died in this house, July 10,
1 85 1. The lower tablet is larger and its inscription, in this
quiet street, with the sunlight filtering through the branches
bending over the wall across the way, and the sparrows twit-
tering in the dusty road, brings to the reader, with the shock
almost of a sudden bugle blast, a realization of what trans-
pired here, what was transpiring all around Paris, in the ter-
rible battle autumn of 1870. The legend, in French, reads:
By this road, on the thirtieth of November, 1870, bravely
ascended the soldiers of the Fourth Regiment of Zouaves, under
the bullets and the shells of the Germans. They gained the top,
driving back the enemy until they reached the moat of the Park
of Villiers, filled with water, where they were brought to a halt
in a bloody combat. Here 6 officers and 170 enlisted men were
killed and 380 severely wounded. Colonel Fournes, who led them,
had two horses shot under him. — To their memories!
It is an echo of the first great sortie of the French armies
defending Paris against the besiegers, on November 30, 1870.
Extending along the entire southeastern side of the city, the
3o8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
attack, driven home by no less than 100,000 troops, at first
gave fair promise of success, but it was finally repulsed and
the besieging lines of the Germans were drawn about Paris
more closely than ever.
As one ascends the narrow street and, coming out on
the upland, walks by winding paths northward between the
tiny plots of truck gardeners, it is difficult to realize that such
scenes have ever been enacted in this quiet land. Here, by
the path, a double row of grapevines on a bit of slope, faces
the sunny south; there, a square of cabbages or potatoes or
some carefully trellised peas occupy a patch of level ground,
around which the red clover blossoms and soft grass over-
bend the field path. Yonder is a little orchard, crimson apples
bending the branches low, and between them, toward even-
ing, one looks down long slopes of billowing treetops to the
blue mist rising from the bosom of the Marne and the white
homes of Neuilly glimmering duskily beyond. It is peace,
not war, that the whole land radiates; peace that the Marne,
for all its martial traditions, loves and clings to and lives for,
here near its ending under the walls of Paris, as well as yonder
in the bosky dell below the Cave of Sabinus.
Nor is there, of a long summer evening, any more cozy
place for dinner among the dozens of cafes that border the
Marne from Gournay to Charenton, than beneath the arbors
and spreading trees of the hotel-restaurant at the end of the
Bry bridge. Here the soft air drifts in from the breast of
the river, cool after the heat of the day, and the indistinct
sounds of passing water craft mingle with the low voices of
those who dine at adjacent tables and sometimes with the
strains of the small orchestra somewhere back on a balcony. A
few hundred yards upstream is a passerelle across the river,
from which, on moonlit nights, the home lights on the hills
The Playmate of Paris 309
and those of the barges resting quietly at their moorings
under the land, cast long, wavering reflections in the water
until the thin mist, suffused by them, seems, all dreamlike, to
blend earth with the starry vault above. Ah, Bry-sur-Marne,
with the dusk falling and the quiet sights and sounds of even-
ing breathed upon by the soft airs of romance, how quietly,
how drowsily it lies by the waters, as if harking for the ves-
per chimes from the unseen belfries of Paris, a child of coun-
try lanes stolen in to peer wonderingly at the hives of men!
The dew has gathered in the flowers
Like tears from some unconscious deep.
The swallows whirl around the towers.
The light runs out beyond the long cloud bars.
And leaves the single stars;
' Tis time for sleep, sleep, sleep,
' Tis time for sleep.
Around the turning of the river below Bry is another
spot, dreamlike, also, and still lovely, but deriving its subtle
charm from the perfume of olden days. It is the Ile-de-
Beaute, still softly verdant and vibrant with bird songs as in
the far-off days when Agnes Sorel, "the lady of beauty,"
dwelt there in the chateau built for her by King Charles vii.
It stood, so tradition avers, in the midst of a park where
swans, deer, peacocks, and other birds and animals roved at
will over the lawns and among the little lakes, the fountains
and the vines and woodlands beloved of the gentle and patri-
otic lady whose noble character was undefiled by a mode of
life which the thought of her day scarcely frowned upon.
Here she lived and wrought many deeds for the good of
France which furthered the work begun earlier in the reign
of Charles by his devoted maiden champion, Jeanne d'Arc.
Nogent, high on the hills and backed by another fort, is
3IO The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
just beyond the He de Beaute and between the two passes
that high viaduct of the Chemin de Fer de I'Est, coming
down from the busy railroad yards of Noisy-le-Sec and pro-
ceeding toward Troyes and Chaumont and Belfort, from
which many an American doughboy, looking downward out
of the open door of a 40 Homines, 8 Chevaux, caught his
first glimpse of the Marne as he was trundled slowly east-
ward from Le Havre or Brest to one of the training areas.
Nogent, with its numerous country houses climbing up the
parklike hillsides toward the Bois de Vincennes, overlooks
other islands in the river; I'lle-Fanac, I'lle-Loupe, and the
long, parked island of Polangis, haunted by canoeists, while
its view stretches onward across the vale of Joinville-le-Pont,
encompassed by a U-shaped bend, and up to the hill crest
beyond, crowned by the clustered dwellings of Champigny.
Antoine Watteau, sickly, nervous, but palpitating with
energy and the fire of genius, gave to Nogent a name in art.
There he did some of his best work and enjoyed the com-
radeship of his charming friend, Mme de Julienne, the
inspirer, it is said, of his most celebrated painting, " The
Embarkation for the Isle of Venus." Here, also, in the
house of M. Lefebvre, the gentle artist passed away on July
18, 1 72 1, making, the story goes, a tribute to his beloved art
in his very last words, when he exclaimed to the priest who
held a common crucifix before his eyes. " Take away that
image! How was any artist able to conceive so badly the
features of the Saviour?"
It seems a singularly happy coincidence that, as at Chau-
mont and Langres, both close to the source of the Marne,
were established two of the first and most vital centers of
American activity in France — General Headquarters and the
Army Schools — so there should have been enacted at
'^ ^^
»*««^^^_^
~i*L'
'fc^^
:- r^
'r.-^r-'t?^-'
The Marne, deeply green, near Nogent
[Page 259]
The river road — Nogent
[Page 310]
The Playmate of Paris 31 1
Joinville-le-Pont, almost at the end of the river, the last impor-
tant act of the United States in the drama of the World War.
In that act America, about to withdraw her armed hosts
entirely from Europe, gracefully took the part of host to her
Allies in the great military Olympic, as large and almost as
representative as the Olympic Games themselves, which,
under the name of the Inter- Allied Games, celebrated the
common victory by a series of friendly athletic contests.
The games were held from June 22 to July 6, 19 19, in
Pershing Stadium, an athletic field nine acres in extent sur-
rounded on its northern, eastern, and southern sides by con-
crete bleachers, or Tribunes Populaire, having a seating
capacity of 22,500 spectators, and on its western side by the
covered concrete grandstand, or Tribune d'Honneur, seating
2,500 persons. This truly imposing structure was built by
the Young Men's Christian Association at a cost of 600,000
francs. On the opening day of the games, amid impressive
ceremonies and before a crowd so huge that thousands had
to be turned away, the stadium was presented by Mr. E. C.
Carter, Chief Secretary of the A. E. F.-Y. M. C. A., on
behalf of his organization to General Pershing, representing
the American Expeditionary Forces, who, in turn presented
it to M. Georges Leygues, French Minister of Marine, rep-
resenting Premier Clemenceau, as a gift from the American
Army to the French people, to perpetuate forever its memory
among them.
It was the privilege of the present writer to be given the
duty, during the summer of 1919, of editing, for the Ath-
letic Section, General Staff, of the American Expeditionary
Forces, the History of the Inter-Allied Games, which was
written by various officers connected with the games and
published by the Y. M. C. A. A few extracts from this vol-
21
312 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
ume will outline the interesting facts concerning the games
perhaps better than they could be told in other words.
Arising out of the epochal circumstances of the greatest war
of history, the Inter-Allied Games stand out as an event unique in
the annals of modern sport. Never before in recent times has
there been a gathering of athletic stars with a setting so unusual,
and it is safe to assume that the occasion will not be duplicated
within the memory of the participants Its only parallel
might be found in the classic games of the Homeric age when the
armies of Agamemnon, " intrenched " before the walls of Troy,
amused themselves with games and sports not unlike the competi-
tions at Pershing Stadium.
That an athletic tournament of any sort could have been held
after fifty-two months of devastating war, with the Allied countries
impoverished by heavy losses, exhausted by long-sustained effort,
weary after a seemingly interminable period of fighting, was in
itself a remarkable exhibition of the sportsmanlike spirit which had
distinguished the peoples leagued against the Central Powers.
Inspired by love of the game, a desire to recognize the share that
athletics played in making possible the victory, and the wish to con-
tinue and strengthen the ties of comradeship developed on the bat-
tle field, the countries which had suffered most from the war's deso-
lation entered the tournament with the same whole-hearted enthu-
siasm as nations emerging from the conflict in a less exhausted con-
dition.
The meet was " military " only to the extent that every partici-
pant had been an officer or enlisted man in one of the Allied ar-
mies. The question of eligibility was answered by an affirmative
reply to the interrogation, " Were you a soldier in the Great
War?" ....
The invitation to participate in the Inter-Allied Games was
issued by General Pershing, as Commander-in-Chief of the Ameri-
can Expeditionary Forces, on the ninth of January, 1919, less than
five and a half months before the opening of the events themselves.
. . . . Twenty-nine nations, colonies or dependencies were invited
to participate and, in the end, nearly 1,500 athletes, representing
eighteen nations or dominions, took part. The list of entrant coun-
tries differed, of course, materially from that of any Olympiad, as
only those nations linked together in the common cause of justice
in the war were eligible to compete
The Playmate of Paris 3 13
In view of the fact that admission was entirely free to all the
competitions, the actual attendance at the games could not be accu-
rately checked. Only estimates could be made, but a daily average
of 20,000 at Pershing Stadium was easily maintained for the fifteen
days from opening to closing. Between 300,000 and 320,000 saw
the competitions at the stadium. As there were several other places
where events were staged it is perhaps a very conservative estimate
to say that the Inter-Allied Games played to a gallery of half-a-
million persons
The concluding ceremony of the games took place on Sunday,
July 6, when the medals were presented to the victors by General
Pershing, the Allied flags lowered and the French standard left
to float alone over Stade Pershing — now the official property of the
French nation — an abiding monument to the most unique sport
carnival in athletic history.
The lovely Park of Vincennes and the countryside and
suburban villages lying on both banks of the Marne near it,
were described by the author in a chapter in " The Inter-
Allied Games " entitled " The Site and Construction of Persh-
ing Stadium," in w^hich he said :
For the permanent use to which it will be put in coming years —
the practice of athletic sports among the French people — the site
of Pershing Stadium was happily chosen. Situated within the east-
ern edge of the Bois de Vincennes, on the ancient highway between
Vincennes and Joinville-le-Pont, it lies in the midst of what is not
only one of the most beautiful of the many lovely parks of Paris,
but in the one which is frequented, perhaps more than any other,
by the average classes of the city, who, in Paris as elsewhere, make
up the body and blood of its population. Of the Bois de Vincennes
an Englishman wrote, a few years ago : " On Sunday afternoons in
summer the Bois is crowded. Under every tree, along the edge of
every lawn, by the bank of every stream, are family picnic parties,
easily satisfied and intensely happy. Stolid Englishmen are aston-
ished at the eagerness with which grown-up people are playing at
ball or battledore. Nowhere is the light-hearted, kindly, cheery
character of the French middle classes seen to greater advantage."
It is precisely to these classes that a great stadium for the prac-
tice of athletic sports will be most valuable because from them must
come the chief strength of generations able to repair the cruel
ravages of war in the French nation. No parting gift that Amer-
314 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
ica could have made to her ally would have better attested her deep
desire for the speedy rehabilitation of France, or have offered greater
possibilities for aiding to that end, than the stadium which was
named in honor of the Commander-in-Chief of the American Expe-
ditionary Forces.
Lying just without the southeastern walls of Paris, whose near-
est gateway, the Porte de Vincennes, is distant less than four kilo-
meters, the stadium has around it a region rich in reminiscences of
the eventful history of Paris and of France. In nearly every direc-
tion, but particularly toward the southeast along the lofty hills
which follow the picturesque windings of the Marne, are a number
of fine old chateaux, each with its sheaf of legends from the past.
But the Bois de Vincennes itself is the appropriate center of such
a region. The Bois, whose dense treetops, forming a pleasant back-
ground of green, look over the walls of the stadium on every side
save that occupied by the Tribune of Honor, was, as a fragment
of primeval forest, a hunting preserve of King Louis ix (St. Louis)
in the thirteenth century, and^the weathered obelisk which stands
near the south corner of the Ecole de Polytechnic, beside the main
road from the Porte de Vincennes to the stadium, is a memorial
erected on the spot where, it is said, formerly grew a great oak
tree beneath which the good king was accustomed to dispense jus-
tice to his subjects. The original forest was replanted in 1731 by
Louis XV and under Napoleon in was converted into a public park
which at present contains about 2,275 acres, a great part of this
area being given over to the Champs de Manoeuvers in the center
and to the race course of Vincennes immediately southwest of the
Pershing Stadium. This race course is the oldest and largest of
the several around Paris.
Immediately north of the Bois is the suburb of Vincennes which
originally grew up about the Chateau of Vincennes, a royal resi-
dence founded in the twelfth century and used and enlarged by the
royalty of France until 1740. In this chateau died several kings of
France and other famous personages, including Henry v of Eng-
land, while in the great Donjon, 170 feet high, which is the last
one remaining of nine towers, a long list of notable prisoners have
been confind at one time or another. The chateau was defended
for Napoleon against the Allies in 1814-15 by General Daumesnil,
whose memory is perpetuated by a statue in the town and by the
largest of the lakes in the Bois de Vincennes. Converted into a
powerful fort and artillery depot by Louis Philippe in 1833-34,
The Playmate of Paris 315
the ancient stronghold still retains the latter function. The large
Champ de Manoeuvres and the Polygone de I'Artillerie, as well as
the fecole de Pyrotechnic and the Camp de St. Maur, occupying the
whole central part of the Bois, are all in a sense military depen-
dencies of Fort de Vincennes, as the work on the site of the old
royal chateau is now called. It is, indeed, what might be termed the
citadel of the powerful system of detached fortifications guarding
Paris on the southeast from the crossings of the Marne River as
it approaches its junction with the Seine at Charenton. North and
south of Fort de Vincennes are several of the bastioned masonry
forts which guarded the city during the siege of 1870-71, while
east of it, on the hills beyond the Marne, lie Fort de Villiers and
Fort de Champigny, works considered modern until 1914, and
designed to protect the bridgehead of Joinville-le-Pont. On the
nearer side of the river, entirely covering the loop of its last sweep-
ing bend before it enters the Seine, stand the older, but once very
powerful redoubts of Gravelle and Faisanderie, connected by a bas-
tioned curtain separating the southeastern corner of the Bois de
Vincennes from the town of St. Maur-les-Fosses, and commanding
from their heights the whole populous suburban district embraced
within the bend of the Marne.
The traditions of St. Maur-les-Fosses lead back to the most
remote event recorded of this region, for it was here that in the
year 287 A. d. the Roman emperor, Maximianus, attacked the Gallic
peasants, the Bagaudae, who had revolted against the oppressions
of Rome. The rebel leaders, Aelianus and Amandus, lost their
lives and their forces were utterly crushed, Maximianus thus mak-
ing good for a while longer the waning Roman power. East of
St. Maur, on the hills rising along the opposite bank of the Marne,
stands the village of Chennevieres, from which the views toward
Paris and over the surrounding country are so superb that Louis
XIV seriously thought of making the place his royal residence and
expending upon it the vast wealth and labor which he eventually
lavished upon Versailles. It was at Chennevieres that the long-
distance and cross-country riding events of the horse-riding com-
petitions were held.
About two kilometers east of Joinville-le-Pont, whose railroad
station is the one most convenient to Pershing Stadium for su-
burban trains from Paris, lies, in the lap of the hills rising east-
ward, Champigny-sur-Marne. It is in the loop of the Marne form-
ing the bridgehead of Joinville-le-Pont, previously mentioned. Here,
22
3i6 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
on the twenty-ninth of November, 1870, Paris being already in the
throes of famine, large French forces under command of Generals
Trochu and Ducret began the most formidable of the repeated sor-
ties which, during the four months' course of the siege, were made
at various points in the hope of breaking through the lines of the
besieging Germans. Some ground was gained on that day and the
next, but a bridge needed for the crossing of troops at Champigny
was not thrown in time to be of use, while the French Army of
the Loire, directed in dispatches sent by balloon to create a diver-
sion in the German rear, failed to receive word in time to make
the necessary attack. By most violent fighting the enemy was able
to contain Trochu and Ducret in the bridgehead westward of Cham-
pigny and, after clinging for a while to the inferior positions which
they had taken, the French retired on December 2 to the west bank
of the Marne. Later and less powerful sorties elsewhere proving
equally abortive, towards the end of January, 1871, Paris surrendered.
After the outbreak of war in 1914, the ground now occupied by
the stadium was converted into a training area and its surface was
covered with trenches and wire entanglements which had to be
cleared away when the work of laying out an athletic field was
begun in February, 1919.
The suburban places lying within the great loop of the
Marne at St. Maur-les-Fosses are entirely of modern origin,
but it is different with those on the left bank of the river. It
has been mentioned above that there was severe fighting
about Champigny in 1870. A monument behind the village
marks a crypt wherein are interred the remains of both the
French and the German soldiers who fell in the battle, the
graves of the Germans being marked with the letter A, for
"Allemands." South of Chennevieres is the sixteenth-cen-
tury Chateau of Ormesson, built in a lake and connected with
the shore by two bridges.
In fact, all the pleasant hill country to the southeast of
the bend is dotted with chateaux, many of which have remin-
iscences of famous personages or events of history, for it was
natural that the country residences of powerful families
The Playmate of Paris 317
should have been built through the centuries in close proximity
to the capital. About Sucy-Bonneuil are the chateau of
Sucy, which belonged, in the sixteenth century, to Marshal
Saxe, the distinguished general of Louis xv; Chaud-Moncel,
once the property of the royalist Dames de Sainte-Amaran-
the, who were passed beneath the guillotine because they
were rumored to have plotted against the life of Robespierre;
and the Chateau of Montaleau, where Marie de Rabutin-
Chantal, later the Marchioness de Sevigne, lived as a child.
The trenchant letter writer of the times of " the Grand Mon-
arch," who, in her voluminous epistles to her daughter and
her friends, has left to us probably the most intimate and
vivid pictures of the life and the notable personages of that
colorful epoch which have ever been penned, retained all
through life fond recollections of Montaleau. Once, in later
years, she wrote to her daughter : " I inform you that the
other day I was at Sucy. I was delighted to see the house
in which I passed my most happy childhood. I had no rheu-
matism in those days ! "
One who has been voyaging for days or weeks through
the reaches of the Marne Valley while it has unfolded before
him its ever-changing vistas of rustic loveliness varied here
and there by the presence of cities never so vast as to obtrude
themselves brusquely upon the breadth of the countrysides all
about them, is not apt to find his mind keyed for the sensa-
tions which grip him when, after ascending the curving road
from Champigny, he comes to the old parish church of Chen-
nevieres and, crossing the brick-paved courtyard opposite to
it, steps out upon the short terrace dizzily elevated above the
treetops bordering the Marne. For there suddenly upon his
eyes, grown accustomed to the wide peace of nature, there
dawns across the myriad roofs of St. Maur, the vision of the
3i8 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
City — that wonder city which is the focal center of all that
is exquisite in artistic and physical and mental emotion; the
most exalting, the most sinister, the gayest and most deeply
mystical, fascinating and soul-enthralling hive of humanity
that the broad earth boasts in all its continents.
Through the pearly haze of the afternoon sunshine, there
gleam the towers of Notre Dame, eternal prayer in chiseled
stone of the passionate heart of Paris, lifting in majestic
calm above the crowded streets where flow and ebb the arte-
rial currents of her throbbing life; yonder the dimly seen
entablature of the Arc de Triomphe vaunts the chivalric pride
of a martial nation even as the columned, golden dome of
the Hotel des Invalides sumptuously entombs the glories of
its past. At one extremity of the splendid panorama, like
the pillar of cloud set by Jehovah before the face of Israel,
rushes skyward the shaft of the Eiffel Tower, about whose
pinnacle play the invisible lightnings that syllable men's
thoughts across the seven seas, at the other, upon the heaving
breast of sensuous Montmartre, the white and virgin wonder
of Sacre Coeur's alabaster dome and minarets carry toward
heaven the insatiable longings and aspirations and repent-
ances and frenzies and hopes of this Babylon, this Rome, this
Jerusalem, that drinks and drinks perpetually of the waters
of life and is still perpetually athirst. Upon the terrace of
Chennevieres, gazing into the blue west, well might the gods
of high Olympus stand and wonder and tremble, for there
the close-knit fibers of the composite soul of all humanity
would lie, stripped and palpitating, before their eyes.
Bonneuil, Creteil, and Maison-Alfort, stretched along
main roads leading to Charenton, look down from hill crests
upon the Marne and across it to the glades of the Bois de
Vincennes, the back of the grand-stand at Vincennes race
First glimpse of the Seine bridges and distant Paris
[Page 317]
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The Marne on the outskirts of Paris
{Page 320]
The Playmate of Paris 319
course, and the grassy walls of the Gravelle Redoubt. In this
old-fashioned masonry defense work, with its high ramparts
and superannuated barbette guns of the seventies, the writer
found, in the summer of 1919, a group of the huge search-
light projectors and a numerous battery of the antiaircraft
guns which were used during the war to throw up a part of
the search-light illumination and the barrage against night-
bombing German Gothas, which encircled Paris in a wall of
fire and piercing light on such occasions, and heard from the
lips of the poilus of the guard still stationed there, some stir-
ring tales of those nights of terror.
Behind the redoubt, on a space of open ground beyond
which loom the buildings of the race course, was a more
curious reminiscence of the war. Here, in long rows with
narrow aisles between them, lay rotting on the ground the
bodies, minus engines and chassis, of hundreds of motor
vehicles of every description. Here, waving in the wind, was
the tattered velour of an elegant limousine ; there, the remains
of a taxicab; yonder, the big top of a truck, the lettering of
some Paris mercantile establishment visible through the fad-
ing coat of blue-gray paint which had been splashed over it,
as it had been over all the others. These were the remains
of the civilian motor cars commandeered by the army in the
early days of the war, before service camions could be built
in sufficient numbers to meet the sudden and enormous de-
mand of the armies in the field. Though perhaps none of
these decaying relics of happier days actually participated in
the movement, one seemed justified in thinking, as he looked
at them, of the long train of Paris taxicabs moving in shad-
owy file along the hills northwest of Meaux on the night of
September 7, 19 14, bringing up the troops to extend Maun-
oury's left and attempt the turning of von Kliick's flank. In
320 The Marne, Historic and Picturesque
the quiet shades of the Bois they rest from the labors which
were theirs until they were worn and wracked to uselessness
— expended — as rest the bones of most of the heroes who
drove them, on the battle fields of the Western Front.
And now, past the busy warehouses and humble water-
front homes of Alfort on the south bank and Charenton on
the north, past stretches of shady avenue and riverside
promenades where a few pedestrians loiter, leaning over the
walls and idly watching the barges floating by, past the enor-
mous Charenton Hospital and Lunatic Asylum which has
grown into the "bedlam of France" from the tiny hospital
of twelve beds founded here in 1642 by Sebastian Leblanc,
the Marne goes hurrying to embrace with its eager waters
the sister waters of the Seine. Freighted with the barges
and tugs of a busy commerce, but still sparkling, still gentle,
still creeping modestly by stone-revetted quays and smoking
factory chimneys, and beneath the booms of overhanging
electric cranes, its current sweeps out to mingle with that of
the greater stream, as if rejoicing in the union. So, together
they go dancing away through the walls of Paris to pass the
splendid bridges, the palaces, and domes of the He de la Cite
and the Quais and the cool depths of the Bois de Boulogne,
and thence to swing down the long remaining stretch to Le
Havre and the waiting sea. Our journey with the Marne is
finished.
A few steps off the Boulevard St. Germain, in the older
section of that half of Paris which lies south of the Seine,
there stands beside the narrow and somewhat dingy Rue de
Crenelle a beautiful monumental structure in the form of a
crescent, nearly 100 feet in length and 38 feet high. It is
called the Fountain of Crenelle and it was erected in 1738
from designs by Edme Bouchardon, native of Chaumont and
The Playmate of Paris 321
sculptor to the Popes and to Louis xv. Over the portico
which shelters the fountain, so elevated above the street that
few passers-by even notice it, rises a noble group of statuary,
probably the finest ever wrought by the chisel of the master.
Enthroned on a pedestal in the center of the group is
the robed figure of the city of Paris. On either hand she is
, guarded by reclining figures, each couched among long sedge
grasses wherein aquatic fowl are half revealed, and each
holding an urn gushing with waters. The figure on the right
is that of a virile, bearded man, a Triton — the Seine. On the
left is the graceful, rounded form of a beautiful woman, a
naiad — the Marne. So supple and flowing are the outlines
of the figure of the goddess that the observer cannot resist
the feeling that beneath the cold marble is someway, as it
also seems in the Venus de Milo, the softness and vitality of
the flesh. It is easy to conjecture that Bouchardon, striving
to wrest from the stone his symbolic ideal of the river which
he had known and loved since he had wandered by its shores,
a boy, was inspired by the warmth of a very personal affec-
tion to a mastery of interpretation more perfect than he was
able to attain in any other of his many subjects.
Thus it is with the Marne. To those who know her inti-
mately, she is a person; a captivating naiad, endowed with
the character and many complex moods of a lovable woman
— fretful at times, sometimes perverse, and again furious
with the anger of outraged virtue, as she was along the bat-
tle fronts of invasion, but often, oh, much more often, shy,
quiet, gently merry; loving with true and constant affection
to those who love her. Such was the Marne of the past
and such is she today; heroine, patriot, seer, and divinity;
eternally old, eternally young, and wearing all her laurels
with the modesty of an unspoiled child.
INDEX
INDEX
Academic Frangais, 34
American Expeditionary Force, 12,
43, 57, 70, 92, 96, 98, 99, 100, Id,
304, 3"
Aigrmont, 29
Aisne, 3. 151. I77, 219, 220, 221, 294
Alessia, 19, 20
Alps, The, 3, 4. 5, i?
A 1cQ(*p Jo
Alvord, General Benjamin, 96
Amiens, 219
Andematunum, 9, 17
Anderson, Colonel T. M., 237
Andrews, Brigadier General A. D.,
95
Angoulevant, 29, 30
Antwerp, 42
Arbellot, General, 40
Ardouin-Dumazet, M., 135, 136, i74
Argonne Forest, 92, 96, 172, i74,
175, 207, 219, 222
A 1*1 PS 22
Attila (Etzel), 24, 25, 14S, i54, 176,
178, 179, 191, 192, 193. 195, 190,
197, 198, 199. 200, 269
Aube, 177
Audley, Sir Peter, 181, 183
Augustus, 20
Aurelius, Marcus, 20
Austria, Francis i of, 65, 82, 145,
^59 _ .
Austria, Francis 11 of, 39
Austria, Marie Antoinette, Arch-
duchess of, 186, 187, 288
Avricourt, 19
Ay, 203, 204, 205
6
Babel, Tower of, 17
Baker, Mr., American Secretary of
War, 60, 89
Balesmes, 12, 13, 15
Ball, Sergt. Clarence E., 304
Barcy, 167
Bar-le-Duc, 19, 24, Si, 152, 164
Bar-sur-Aube, 38
Bartholdi, Frederic, 45
Basle, 19, 36
Bastille Day, 103
Bassigny, 28, 33, 73, "^ 303
Beaufort, 181, 183
Beaupre, Lord Anceau de, 183
Belfort, Pass of, 4, 5, 36, 37, m,
310
Belleau, Bois de, 248
Belleau, Wood Cemetery, 249
Bellovici, 17
Belgium, King Albert and Queen
Elizabeth of, 60, 100
Berchet, Toussaint, 34
Berthelot, General, 217, 223
Besangon, 9, 19
Bibracte, (Autun), 17, I9, 24
Binson, 224, 226
Bissell, First Lieut. John T., 251
Blaise River, 3, 19, 155
Blanc, Mont, 30
Blesmes, 235, 243, 245
Bliicher, Marshal, 36, 37, 82, 148,
151 .
Boehn, General von, 217, 220, 226
Bologne, 119, 123, 124, 125
Bonheur, Isidore, 136
Bonheur, Rosa, 136
Bordeaux, 165
Bos suet, Benigne, 286, 287, 288, 294.
306
Bouchardon, Edme, 106, 107, 320,
3^1
Bouchardon, Jean-Baptiste, 58, 85,
^7. 107
Bourbonne-les-Bams, 19, 38
Braille, Louis, 298
Brasles, 220, 245
Brest, 310
Bretenay, m, 119
325
326
Index
Brie, 275. 280, 281, 289, 303, 306
Brothers Hospitallers, 13
Brown, Colonel, 231
Brussels. 162
Bry-sur-Marne, 306, 307, 3o8, 309
Billow, General von, 151, 165, 166,
169, 171, 236
Bullard, Major General Robert Lee,
291
Butts, Colonel E. L., 237
C
Caesar, Julius, 4. 9, I7. 18, 19, 20,
23, 178
Cambrai, 162
Cameron, General George H., 274
Canal, Marne-Saone, 15, nS, nS
Capet, Hugh, 63, 123
Carter, Mr. E. C, 311
Cary, General Langle de, 161, 164,
i6s, 169, 172, 222
Carrier-Belleuse, 136
Castlereagh, Lord, 103
Celarius, 23
Celts, Longo, King of the, 17
Cemetery, American Military, 113
Cerealis, 9, 10
Chalons, 3, 24, 3,6, Z7y 7i, I4S, 148,
152, 157, 158, 163, 169, 175, 178,
180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188,
189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 198,
200, 201, 217
Chamarandes, 57, 60, 104
Chambry, 167, 278, 295
Champagne, 26, 63, 65, 123, 148, 157,
192, 203, 215, 241, 254, 269, 303
Champagne Pouilleuse, 174, i75.
176, 177, 178, 193
Champigny, 48, 49, 310
Changis, 163, 170, 267, 270
Charenton, 211, 308, 318, 320
Charlemagne, 26, 28, 51
Charleroi, 162
Charly, 236, 254, 255
Charles i, 14
Charles iv, 49
Cha les v, zi, 145, 159, 247
Charles vii, 31
Charles ix, 52, 63
Charteves, 234, 237, 240, 241
Chartres, Duke of, 128
Chatel-Chehery, Heights of, 96
Chatelet, Montagne du, 140
Chateau-Thierry, 3, 8, 91, 158, 163,
170, 178, 219, 221, 222, 223, 226,
229, 23s, 237, 241, 242, 243, 244,
245, 246, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252,
254, 275, 291
Chatillon, 204, 213, 214, 215, 216,
217, 218, 221, 225
Chaumont, 21, 30, 32,, 37, 38, 39, 40,
42, 50, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64,
6s, 66, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79,
80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92,
93, 94, 103, 108, 112, 113, 114, 115,
116, 117, 123, 124, 146, 154, 155,
256, 305, 310, 320
Chaumont, Treaty of, 82, 102, 103,
104
Chelles, 301, 302, 303, 304
Chevillon, 137, 138, 273
Chierry, 235, 243, 245
Chlore, Constance, 22
Choignes, 60, 77, 81
Chrocus, 21, 22
Claude, 155
Clefmont, 29
Clemenceau, Premier, 60, 311
Clotilde, 25
Clovis, 25
Coiffey-le-Haut, 29
Compiegne, 162, 219
Conde, 115, 117, 118, 119, 228, 231,
240, 297
Congis, 269, 277, 278
Constantine, 24
Conner, General Fox, 97, 98
Conner, Colonel W. D., 95
Corgebin, Forest of, 86
Corlee, 12, 15
Corneille, 215
Corot, 46, 155
Correggio, 46
Cotes Noires, 149, 150, 152, 153
Coulommiers, 166, 168
Coupvray, 297, 298
Courtemont, 229, 230, 232
Cousances-aux-Forges, 141
Craonne, 151
Craonnelle, 220
Crecy, 167, 296
Crezancy, 236, 237, 241
Cruikshank, General William M.,
2^
Index
327
Daguerre, Louis Jacques, 306, 307
D'Alambert, 35
Dames, Chemin des, 219, 220
Damremont (Barracks), 59, 91, 92,
93, 95, 99, loi, III, 116
Damremont, General Charles Marie
Denis, 92
Dammarien, Jean de, 32
Danube, River, i, 4, 192, 196
d'Arc, Jeanne, 12, 2>2, 105, 127, 281,
286, 309
d'Aucour, Barbier, 34
Davis, General Robert C, 96
Degoutte, General, 223
Delausne, Nicolas, 34
Denfert-Rochereau, Colonel, 42
d'Esperey, General Franchet, 164,
165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171
d'Estrees, Gabrielle, 270, 271
Dhuis, Aqueduct, 241, 257, 299
Dickman, General, 22,7, 238, 240
Diderot, Denis, 35
Didier, St., 21, 34, 144, 145
Dijon, 4, 7, 13, 19, 41
Diocletian, 20
Ditto, Major, 237
Dizier, St., 3, 71, "S, 123, 124, 125,
133, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147,
148, 149, 150, 152, 154, 156, 305
Donjeaux, 125, 126
Donnelly, Dorothy, 90
Dormans, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229
Doubs, 4
Dubuisson, Jean, 34
Duchesne, General, 220
Duffy, Father, 184
Dunkirk, 89
Dupont, M. Henri, 252
Dupont, Mile., 252
DiJrer, Albrecht, 86
Ecriennes, 157
Ehrenbreitstein, Fortress of, 233
Eleusippi, 14
Eltinge, General Leroy, 94
Epernay, 3, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207,
208, 209, 211, 212, 214, 216, 217,
, 227
Epieds, 249
Eponina, 10, 11
Esbly, 294, 295, 296, 297
Essomes, 235, 246, 252, 253
Etex, Jules, 86
Euphrates, r
Europe, History of, from 1789 to
1815, Alison, 152
Eurville, 141
Failly, General de, 70
Faverolles, 19
Fere, Forest of, 249
Ferte-sous-Jouarre, La, 163, 255,
258, 259, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265,
266, 267, 268, 274
Fiacre, St., 280
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the
World, Sir Edvirard S. Creasy,
192, 193, 194
Fiske, General Harold B., 98
Fismes, 225
Foch, Marshal, 59, 60, 164, 165, 169,
170, 171, 172, 208, 220, 222, 223
Fontaine, Jean de la (Fables), 241,
242, 243, 245, 250, 268
Fontaines-sur-Marne, 139, 140
Foucou. 34
Fourches Hill, 41, 42
France, Cathedrals and Cloisters
of Northern, Elise Whitlock
Rose, 189
Franche-Comte, 26
Franklin, Benjamin, 53
Fraterne, Bishop of Langres, 24
French, Field Marshal, 164, 167, 265
Fresnes, Nicolas Ebaudy de, 34
Frignicourt, 156, 158
Froissart, 181
Fiirstenberg, Count of, 32, 64
Gallieni, General, 165, 166, 168
Games, Inter-allied, 99, 311
Gaulthier, Bishop, 26
Gaulle, Edouard, 35
Geilon, Bishop, 25
General Headquarters, American,
50, 57, 59, 70, 71, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92,
94, 96, 99, 100, loi, 102, 103, 310
Geofrid, St., 14
328
Ind
ex
Geosmes, St., 13, 14
Germany, Crown Prince of, 165,
166, 169, 172, 220
Gettysburg, Battle of, 60, 224
Ginisty, Monseigneur, 24
Giotto, 184
Giselles, 9
Gloriette, Chateau, 90
Goele Plateau, 277, 278, 279, 283
Goltz, General von, 41
Gondebaud, King of Burgundy, 25
Gournay, 304, 308
Gourzon, 141
Grand-Ecury, 202, 203
Grancy, Sir Odes de, 182, 183
Grandes Combes, Bois des, 125
Gregory, Major, 231
Griffin, Lieut. H. Q., 231
Grossetti, General, 170, 171
Guermillon, Lord John de, 183
Guises, Dukes of, i2, 63, 128, 131,
228
H
Haig, Marshal, 60, 100
Hanlin Field, 58
Harbord, Major General James G.,
94
Hardenburg, Prince, 103
Hasdrubel, I
Hansen, General von, 165, 166, 169,
170, 171, 191, 222
Hautefeuille, Chateau, 63
Hautefeuille, Tour, 72,, no, in, n2
Hauteville, 156
Hautevillers, 204, 211
Hautesvesnes, 273
Havre, Le, 89, 310, 320
Helphenstein, Second Lieut. War-
ren, 304
Henry 11, 63, 65, 270
Henry in, 31
Henry iv, 65, 142, 270
Hesse, First Lieut. Kurt, 238, 239
Hilaire-le-Grand, St., 184
Hill 204; 248, 252
Hindenberg, Marshal von, 222, 224
Holbein, 184
Horn, General, 246
Hospital IS, Roosevelt Base, 60
Hospital 7, Camp, 50
Houghton, Captain, 251
Hudson, 3
Hugo, Victor, 188, 189, 205, 206,
261, 284, 285, 288, 291
Hulst, General, 38
Humbert, General, 171, 208
Humes, 29, 50
Huns, The. 24, 145, 154, 169, 191,
193, 194, 195, 197, 198. 200, 269
I
Ile-de-France, 292
Independence Day, 79
Infantry, Colonial, 217
Information, Summary of, 97
Intelligence, Summary of, 97
Italy, 3, 4, 5, 9, I7, 18, 24
Jacquemart, 136
Jacquerie, The, 281, 282
Jancourt, Sir Philip de, 183
Janis, Elsie, 100
Jaulgonne, 216, 220, 223, 224, 229,
233, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241
Jean-Baptiste, Church of St., 66, 72,
82, 85, 104, 108
Jean -les- Deux -Jumeaux, St., 269,
270, 293
Jensen, Nicolas, 34
Joffre, General, 163, 164, 166, 167
John, Order of St., 13
Joinville, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131,
m, 134, 135
Joinville, Marguerite de, 128
Joinville, Prince of, 128
Joinville, Sire Jean de, 126, 129,
130, 268
Jonchery, in
Jorquenay, SO
Jouarre, 264
Jovinus, Flavins Valerius, 128
Julian, 24
Julienne, Mme de, 310
Jura Mountains, The, Z7
Jura, The, 4
K
Kliick, General von, 165, 166, 167,
168, 170, 265, 275, 277, 278, 319.
Kock, Major, 41
Index
329
Lafayette, 53
Lagny, 296, 299, 300
Laignes, 10
Langres, 2, 4, 5, 7. 9. 10. 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31. 32, 33, 34, 35.
36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 56, 57, 60, 66, 81,
91, 98, 119, 144, 211, 256, 305, 310
Langres, Estulphe Count of, 25
Laon, 151, 178
Lanterne Encyclopedique, Delecey
de Changey, 52
Larzicourt, 155
Laurent-Bournot, Claude, 34
Lavalliere, Mile de, 287
Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 215
Lefebvre, M., 310
Leipzig, 36
Leister House, 6a.
rfitoile, Foret de, 125
Levy-Alphandery, Commandant, 79
Leygues, M. Georges, 311
Lhermitte, 241
Liberty, Statue of, 45
Liege, 42, 162
I'Infanterie, Histoire de, General
Susane, 27
Lingones, 9, I7, 18, 19, 20, 21
Lizy-sur-Ourcq, 274, 275, 276, 277
Logan, Colonel James A., 95
Loire, IS4, 192, I93, I95, I97, 3i6
Lorraine, 26, 34, 49, 7°, I45
Lott, Corporal J. J., 231
Louis, The Fat, 128
Louis, The Magnificent, 2
Louis VII, 26
Louis IX, (St. Louis), 63, 314
Louis XI, 190
Louis XII, 32, 65
Louis XIII, 33
Louis XIV, 36
Louis XV, 85, 314, 317
Louis XVI, 186, 288
Louvre, Palace of the, 53
Ludendorff, 222
Luminals, 46
Luzy, 56, 57
M
MacMahon, Marshal, 70, 71, 184
Maligny, Sire Jean de, 30
Malone, Colonel Paul B., 98
Malta, Order of, 13, 86, 141
Mangin, Abbe, 17
Mangin, General, 223
Marathon, 169
Marbeau, Monseigneur, 284
Marchand, General, 221
Marcilly, 167, 224, 230, 278
Marnay, 19, 39
Marnaval, 141, 142, 143
Marne, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15,
16, 23, 29, 30, 36, 2,7, 39, 41, 48, 50,
51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 67, 77,
81, 91, 103, 113, 115, 119, 122, 123,
124, 129, 132, 133, 13s, 137, 138,
141, 143, 144, 14s, 146, 147, 148,
149, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157,
158, 159, 161, 163, 164, 167, 170,
172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180,
181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 188, 190,
193, 198, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205,
206, 209, 211, 214, 215, 216, 217,
218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225,
229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 238,
239, 241, 242, 243, 244, 24s, 246,
247, 251, 253, 256, 258, 259, 260,
261, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268,
269, 270, 272, 273, 276, 277, 278,
280, 282, 283, 284, 289, 291, 292,
293, 294, 296, 297, 299, 303, 304,
305, 308, 310, 313, 314, 315, 316,
317, 320, 321
Marne, Battle of the, 208, 212, 217,
218, 219, 222, 224, 286
Marne (Department of the Haute),
2, 3, 8, 15, 40, 49, 50, 51, 72, 90
120, 124, 125, 139, 141, 142, 153
Marne; A Hilltop on the, Mrs
Mildred Aldrich, 293, 298, 302
Marne; Michelin's Guide to the
Battlefields of the, 1914, 279
Marne; Sous I Egide de la, Edmond
Pilon, 207, 268
Marnotte, Fort de la, 7, 8, 13, 41
Marnotte, Farm de la, 12
Marshall, Colonel George C, Jr., 89
Martel, Charles, 243, 244, 247
Mary-sur-Marne, 272, 273, 274, 276
330
Index
Mason, Second Lieut. Charles, 304
Matignicourt, 156, 157
Maunoury, General, 165, 166, 167,
168, I/O. 319
Mayenne, Duke of, 270, 271
McAlexander, Colonel, U. S., 237,
238
McAllister, Lieut. Arthur T., 27^
McAndrew, General James \V., 89,
94
McClellan, General George B., 128
Meade, General, 60
Meaux, 3, 158, 164, 255, 261, 264,
267, 268, 274, 277, 27^^ 281, 282,
283, 284, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291,
292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 306, 319
Meleusippi, 13
Mendenhall, Captain, 251
Mery-sur-Marne, 257, 258
Metaurus, I
Metz, 19, 33, 151, 162
Metternich, Prince, 103
Meuse, 15, 29
Mezy, 163, 234, 22,7, 240
Micheler, General, 220
Mignon, M., 137
Mississippi, I, 3, 14
Missouri, 3, 120
Mission, Italian, 99
Mission, Belgian, 99
Mission, British, 99
Mission, French, 99
Mitry, General de, 222, 226
Moltke, General von, 288
Mons, 162, 166 _
Montceaux, Chateau de, 270
Montespan, Mme de, 287
Monts Faucilles, 4
Montmirail, 221, 22,Z, 240, 241, 245,
252, 261
Montsaugon, 29
Montsaugonais, 29
Moreau, Mathurin, 136
Morin, Petit, 3, i;o, 257, 261, 265,
266
Morin, Grand, 3, 166, 167, 168, 292,
293, 294, 297, 2>8
"Morrison; Don, Lawrence, Kans,"
12
Mortier, Marshal, 2>7y 38, 81
Moseley, Brigadier General George
Van Horn, 95
Moulins, Canal des, 132
Mouzon (Valley of), 19
N
Naix-aux-Forges, 19
Namur, 42, 162
Nancy, 36
Napoleon, 4, 5, 36, 37, 38, 103, 104.
128, 148, 150, 151, 153, 156, 174,
178, 183, 245, 247, 269, 288, 314
Navarre, Tower of, 32
Nebel, i
Nesles, 245
Nesselrode, Count, 103
Neufchateau, 67, 123
Neufmontiers, 167
Xeuilly, 23, 308
Neustria, Thierry iv of, 244
Xey, ^Marshal, 246
Nogent, 55, 163, 254, 309, 310
Noisiel, 301, 302
Nolan, General Dennis E., 96
Novelonpont, Jean de, 127
Orange, Prince of, 146
Orconte, 148, 149, 153, 156
Ornain, 164
Ornel River, 144
Orxois, 8, 272
Ourcq, 3, 166, 167, 168, 249, 263,
267, 269, 274, 27s, 276, 277, 278
Palmer, Colonel John McAuley, 97
Paris, 3, 5, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 53. 58,
82, 8s, 91, 123, 151, 153, 156, 157,
158, 159, 160, 162, 164, 165, 166,
168, 169, 170, 178, 186, 192, 197,
215, 219, 221, 222, 226, 233, 235.
241, 243, 255, 256, 257, 258, 264.
277, 280, 282, 285, 286, 290, 291,
292, 294, 295, 296, 299, 304, 305,
306, 307, 308, 309, 314, 315, 319,
320
Paris, Count of, 128, I^
Paschal, Major, 237
Passy, 224, 230
Pavilion, Foret du, 125
Pennell, Joseph, 154, I55
Perelli, General, 99
Perignon, Dom, 208, 209
Inde:
331
Pershing, General John J., 43, ST,
59. 60. 79. 80, 89, 90. 9-2. 94, 100,
263, 311. 312
Pershing Stadium, 99, 311, 312, 313,
314, 31S
Perthes, 15-2. I33. 154, I55, 1/9
Petain, General, 59, 60, 220, 222
" Petit Paul." 7<5
Petitot, Pierre, 34
Pleurs, 171
Poincare, President, 60, icx)
Poincare, Madame, 60
Poitiers, 31
Poland, King Stanislaus i of, 52
Polignac, Cardinal de, 85
Polhviller. Baron, Zo
Pontoise, 220
Potomac, Army of the, 60
Poulangj-, Bertrand de, 127
Pradier. 136
Provins, 59
Prussia, Frederick William in of,
39. 82
Pyrenees, Peace of the, 65
R
Racine, 215
Ragneau, General. 79. 99
Reims, 19. ^4. 103, 172. I75. I79,
180. 203. 204, 205, 207, 208, 211,
217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 227,
274
Renaissance. The. 46, 147, 189, 214,
271. 288
Restoration. The, 35
Revigny, Pass of, 164, 169
Revolution. American, 35, 224
Revolution, French, 35, 65, 103, 106,
144. 147. 178, 186, 188
Revue, G. H. Q.. 74. 89
Rhine, i, 3, 4, 5, 9. 18, 19. 21, 22, 36,
51. 14S, 151, 17S, iSS, 197. 215,
247. 261
Rhone. 3, 4, 17. I9
Riacourt, 119, 120
Richelieu. Cardinal, 34
Riviera, The. 88. 256
Riz. Forest of, 226, 230
Roger, M. Georges, 267
Rognon River. 126
Rohan, Cardinal de, 85
Rolampont 50. 51. 52, 53, 54
Rome, I, 4, 5, 9. 10, II, 14, 18, 85,
156. 194. 196, 198, 199
Roncevalles, 26
Rouge, La Ferme le Croix, 249
Rowe, Major, 238
Rubens, 46
Russia, Alexander of, 39, 82
Sabinus, Julius, 9, 10, 11, 12, 21
Sabinus, Grotto of, 9, 12, 235, 308
Sadie-Carnot, President M., 156,
157. 184
Saone, 4, 15, 36, 1 54
Sarrail. General, 164, 166, 169, 172
Saulx River, 3, 159, 164
Saussier, General, 157
Saxony, Prince Maurice of, 215
Schuylkill River, 60
Schwarzenberg, Prince of, Z^- 27-
38, 39, Si. S2, 148, 151
Sedan, 166, 184
Seine, 3, Z7. I54, I77, 211, 292, 304,
, 305, 2iS, 320, 321
beine-et-Marne (Department of),
3. 257, 295, 303
Seme-et-Oise, 3, 303, 304
Sens, 19
Sept-Bois, 273
Sezanne, 159, 164, 169
Sigmar, Count, 153, 154
Smith, First Lieut. Frank H.
("Hardboiled"), 304
Soissons, 172, 219, 220, 223, 291
Somme Valley, 220
Speusippi, 13
Strassburg. 70
Summerall, Major General Charles
P., 55
Surmelm, 234, 235, 22,7, 238. 241
St. Bernard, 34
St. Gond, Marches of, 164, 169, 170,
171, 172
St. Mihiel Salient, 59
T
Taneviown Road. 60
Tarquin, The Elder. 17
Tassels, The, 34. 46
Taylor. Major, 251
Teniers. 46
Thibaut, iv. 63
332
Index
Thurn, Count of, 2)7
Tinant, Colonel, 99
Toul, 19, ii
Tours, 99, 169, 244
Toynbee, Arnold J., 235, 246, 269,
275
Trefousse Glove Factory, 66, 90
Treves, 10, 19
Trilport, 277, 292
Trowbridge, John T., 268
Troyes, 24, 2>7, 38, 178, I93, 3 10
Twelve Peers of France, 28
V
Val-des-Ecoliers, 57, 58, 59, 60, 86,
118
Val d'Osne, 135, 136, 137
Valerian, 128
Valentinian, 24
Valois, 31
Valley Forge, 60
Vandieres-sous-Chatillon, 225
Vanloo, 46
Varennes, 233, 236
Vauban, Marshal, 36
Vaux, 248
Vercingetorix, 19, 20
Verdun, 24, 22, iS7, 162, 163, 164,
166, 169, 172, 222
Verneuil, 225, 226
Vervins, Peace of, 33
Vesle Sector, 59, 177, 220, 224, 225,
291
Vespasian, 9, 10, 11
Villers-Cotterets, Forest of, 220,
221, 222
Villiers-sur-Marne, 124, 125, 126,
307
Vincelles, 225, 226
Vingeanne River, 15, 20, 29
Vitry-le-Frangois, 3, 147, IS4, 156,
157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163,
164, 175, 178, 201
Voltaire, 215
Vosges Mountains, 4, 5, 27, 70
W
Wagstaff, General C. M., 99
Wales, Prince of, 60, 89, 100
War, Franco- Prussian, 39, 42
War, Hundred Years', 31, 63, 178,
181, 282
War, Thirty Years', 34, 64, 65
War, The World, 5. 42, 70, 114, I33.
138, 158, 172, 179. 224, 311
Washington, George, 53, 60
Waterloo, 39
Watteau, Antoine, 310
Wilson, President, 60, 80, 100
Wilson, Mrs., 60, 80
Wintzingerode, General von, 151,
152
Wirbel, General, 79
Wiirtemberg, Duke Albrecht of,
161, 165, 166, 169, 172, 222
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