Liége On The Line Of March - free ebook by Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

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Liége On The Line Of March

Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

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FOREWORD

FOREWORD

Liége on the Line of March, or An American Girl's Experience When the Germans Came Through Belgium, is a unique story. No other American probably was in the exact position of Miss Bigelow who was at the Château d'Angleur, Liége, Belgium, with the family of Monsieur X. at the outbreak of the war and experienced with them and the people of their country those tragic events which, up to the present, have hardly even been sketched for the world. What the public already knows of armies, guns, trenche

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July 30th, Thursday.

July 30th, Thursday.

To-day has been warm, very warm and sultry, a day of surprises, beginning with the sudden disappearance of Monsieur X.'s trusted head clerk—a German boy who has been in the office for fifteen years and who knew every phase of the situation. What reason on earth could he have had for vanishing like that with all his personal belongings, not leaving one trace behind to show that such a person had ever been? Odd, but certainly done with studied thoroughness. This afternoon we sat at the end of the

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July 31st, Friday.

July 31st, Friday.

Yesterday was only a preliminary to the seething in the tea-pot which exists as to-day's events show—everybody is bewildered at the tremendous things that have started and the equally tremendous things that have stopped. What does it all mean? There is the greatest excitement aroused by the foreign news in the evening papers, announcing in glaring headlines a diplomatic rupture between Germany and Russia. So it's true! Probably your seismic stock market has already foretold coming disturbance, b

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August 1st, Saturday.

August 1st, Saturday.

Today the papers announce the stunning news that Germany has declared war against Russia. The report must be sufficiently authentic, for, as if by magic, the Belgian army is already gathering itself together with an almost superhuman rapidity, proof of which we have had in the masses of troops that have been passing the château all day. Yesterday, trouble was a newspaper rumor; today, deadly earnestness. And what excitement all about! The air is positively charged and the whole community is agog

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August 2nd, Sunday.

August 2nd, Sunday.

The world has suddenly become nothing but people, and the transition from the peaceful, care-free existence of four days ago is so great that I cannot write intelligently, today, because so much is happening. Following on His Majesty King Albert's magnificent discourse [ Vive le roi! ], the spirit of a great and glorious decision has set the empire in motion. The vast machine moves—though some of the bolts creak and protest a little in their rusty coats and the earth trembles to the rhythm of tr

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August 3rd, Monday.

August 3rd, Monday.

Preparations for war are going on rapidly; scores of automobiles are racing past like mad things, carrying Governmental messages no doubt and the Government itself, by its eternal prerogative, is commandeering for its use everybody's private property—horses, cows, automobiles, pigs, merchandise, provisions, etc. And how one gives for one's country! The men, their goods; the women, their sons. The spirit of the people is magnificent. Huge loads of hay in long processions like caravans are coming

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August 4th, Tuesday.

August 4th, Tuesday.

The situation, already grave, has taken a definite turn. Germany is going to attack France through Belgium. Completely ignoring the neutrality of the latter, she demands to "just pass through peaceably," but being refused permission, so much the worse for those who are in the road. Personally speaking, I should say we are decidedly in the road—Aix-la-Chapelle—Liége—Namur. Don't you think the crow would agree with me? We saw a charming spectacle this morning if anything connected with war can be

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August 5th, Wednesday.

August 5th, Wednesday.

I wonder what you are thinking of events, at home? You will marvel that I can write at such length when the very skies seem to be pressing down upon us. But it is the greatest relaxation possible and a kind of safety valve. It makes me think of some lines of Shakespeare where different conditions "oft make the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak." So I write on. The news we get may not be altogether authentic, as we receive nothing now except by word of mouth. By report it seems that England,

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August 6th, Thursday.

August 6th, Thursday.

Rain came with the light. That gentle pattering on the sod, after the tumult of the night, was the sweetest sound I ever heard. It was just as if Nature had put out Her mother's hand over the earth to soothe its troubled breast. Was she pleading for that mercy which drops as Her own gentle tears from Heaven? During the morning the road in front of the château was filled with Belgian troops, bedraggled with mud, trying to regain order. And there they halted for hours and hours in the rain—an abso

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August 7th, Friday.

August 7th, Friday.

More or less booming from the forts all day. As communications of every kind have been cut off, we cannot know what is happening. But where is the assistance so direfully needed, promised by both France and England to poor little Belgium with the great German army moving on Liége? Everybody has faith, however, in the Allies, and in the streets it is pathetic to hear people assuring each other, " O, oui, les Français viennent ce soir " (Oh, yes, the French are coming to-night). There are many Ger

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August 8th, Saturday.

August 8th, Saturday.

This morning we walked through the garden to service in the little village church. For a short moment a welcome calm stole over us in the quiet of those walls, but how sinister to hear the eternal boom of cannon between the words of the Mass. All the bridges of the city are mined and guarded. The five days given Liége by the Prussians to surrender are up tonight. What will tomorrow bring forth? The Belgians have blown up the tunnel at Trois Ponts, near the German frontier, as well as the railroa

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August 9th, Sunday.

August 9th, Sunday.

Some of the Prussians have succeeded in penetrating into the city, tho' the forts have not surrendered, and are already establishing martial rule. Aeroplanes, with the wings turned back, Taubes , have been flying about all the morning. In the afternoon we went up over the hill to the plain of Sartilmont, the battlefield of Wednesday night. All along the road were heaps of uniforms, some quite new, probably taken from the dead. Those horrid limp things made me shiver with their lifelessness, and

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Monday, August 10th.

Monday, August 10th.

Monsieur S. came home to-day laden down with bags of gold like Ali Baba. How he is going to do away with it so that the ferret eyes of the enemy will not spy it out, is a problem to me. And I do not want it explained for I am sure I should look right into the forbidden corner at the wrong moment and give the secret away. Although there are thousands of German soldiers who have come into the city and who control it, they are like rats in a trap. On account of the twelve surrounding forts they can

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August 11th, Tuesday.

August 11th, Tuesday.

Invincible Liége! People are still firm in their faith, encouraged by the peace of the morning. The day was quiet until 6.00 P. M. , when furious shooting into the valley began. We saw the great shells bursting in the air and between the clouds of smoke we could distinguish an old monastery on the other side of the valley which was being shot to pieces by the enemy's field-cannon. The structure changed shape half a dozen times before our eyes and the setting sun concentrated, as if purposely, al

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August 13th, Thursday.

August 13th, Thursday.

It is true that one gets inured to danger (particularly if one has not so far been hit) and after a week of the bombardment, we have a distinct feeling of annoyance at being disturbed at an unearthly hour every morning by the screeching and bursting of shells. About four A. M. we were awakened by another terrifying whizzing and exploding of bombs as if we were in the very midst of a battlefield. This lasted about three hours and all we could do was wait. I often wonder if it's as hard for the me

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August 14th, Friday.

August 14th, Friday.

One has hoped against hope, but the worst has happened and the people are despondent. Liége is certainly in the hands of the Prussians. They have been pouring into the city all day and most of the forts have either been destroyed by the German field artillery or been blown up by their defenders rather than surrender. We nursed the soldiers all day—if last night was horrible I could not find the words to describe what the daylight revealed, or the awful odor of burned flesh when the wounds were r

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August 15th, Saturday.

August 15th, Saturday.

We took care of the wounded all day: it is the most heartrending spectacle to see those poor, black heads lying there on their pillows. They were so shapeless and immovable, I had almost begun to look upon them as without life like charred logs, when, after finishing a dressing this morning, I was startled by a hearty, " Merci, chère Soeur. " Oh, the joy of it! That brightened the whole scene and flooded me with hope. Then they have not lost their intelligences, they aren't mere pieces of wood a

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August 16th, Sunday.

August 16th, Sunday.

A warm, beautiful morning. As Madame de H. and I walked through the garden and the wood to the little convent ambulance, it was difficult not to contrast smiling Nature with the frightful scenes of which, in a few minutes, we would be a part. The awful stench of burned flesh met us half a block away and congealed my courage as I walked, for it permeates everything. We can even taste it, it clings in our hair when we go home and we are obliged to hang our nursing clothes out of the window all nig

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August 17th, Monday.

August 17th, Monday.

About half-past three in the morning I was wakened from a sound sleep by a commotion in the court under my window. Impatient horses were pawing the ground and a voice exactly like a snarling dog was hurling out orders—I peeped out cautiously and saw that the snarling dog was the amiable captain who copied the menu last night. The officers left at four A. M. Fort Lançin fell today and Général Léman, commander-in-chief of the army here, was taken prisoner. Thousands of soldiers have passed as usua

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August 18th, Tuesday.

August 18th, Tuesday.

This morning one of them came back for some personal things, principally his watch, which, in the true, novel style, could not be found anywhere. So the Herr leutnant ordered a thorough search and said, with a grand air, to the housekeeper that if it could not be found he would be obliged to take one of the servant's as a forfeit. Fancy! I can see the butler's poor, old, bowed legs, now, flying up the stair-case, with a bayonet stuck in his back to expedite matters. I do not know if this threat

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August 19th, Wednesday.

August 19th, Wednesday.

Such an odd picking little noise, like a mouse, disturbed us at breakfast this A. M. Madame X. opened the door and was astonished to see a German soldier unscrewing the telephone from the wall. Her obvious surprise moved the man to explain, which was unqualifiedly this—"Madame, permit me, but we need your telephone for field service." I suppose he may as well have it anyway for nothing so modern and useful as telephones has existed for us since August 3rd. A group of very surly officers have "ta

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August 22nd, Saturday.

August 22nd, Saturday.

Bread is being rationed out now in the village and we are allowed only two small pieces at a meal. It seems to me that I never wanted one more slice so much in my life. The soldiers have cleared out the baker's supply and he cannot get any more flour. Monsieur S. has bought a bicycle and goes into town every morning to find out about things. Sometimes it seems as if we could hardly wait until he gets back to lunch for the news. And oh! such terrible things are happening. Some funny incidents too

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August 24th, Monday.

August 24th, Monday.

Namur is taken by the Germans. Practically nothing remains of the city. A German major who was brought, wounded, to Liége, said the battle was too frightful to narrate. He entered the city with one thousand men and left it with sixty-five. Just outside the forts, where he had been stationed with two hundred horses, three bombs fell upon them at the same moment and only seven of the poor beasts remained. His admiration for the pointing and firing of the Belgian and French cannon was unlimited. Ju

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August 26th, Wednesday.

August 26th, Wednesday.

Two new officers (not Prussians) of the Landstürm arrived this morning—men of fifty to fifty-five years of age. One is a hardware merchant en civil and has a brown beard and the asthma; the other is a lawyer, with big, blinking eyes—and they both looked as if they hated war. The "Englishman" is still here—his department is looking after supplies at the dépôt. He has borrowed all the English books in the house and sits reading all day up in the signal box at the station, so the family have named

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August 27th, Thursday.

August 27th, Thursday.

Madame de H. and I again went to Liége early this morning about her passports. The hotels and cafés were just seething humanity, beds improvised in every corner, and I saw officers paying their hotel bills with cheques and notes. The poor proprietor blinked and swallowed hard for a moment and said nothing. The city was literally packed with troops going in all directions. Uhlans , chasseurs , artillery and the infantry, singing and executing that foolish-looking goose-step—it probably has its ad

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August 28th, Friday.

August 28th, Friday.

This morning there was excitement at the Convent; someone was reading a three weeks' old journal to the soldiers and for a moment everybody forgot his particular aches and black heads lifted themselves from their pillows and gaunt forms swayed to and fro on shaky elbows. The lust of battle lit up wooden countenances, fire sprang from eyes yet heavily veiled by crusted lids and a fervent " bien fait " or " vivent les Belges ," trembled from heretofore silent corners. Madame André, who comes to se

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August 29th, Saturday.

August 29th, Saturday.

The ambulance was as busy as a beehive this A. M. Except for one or two, the patients are all feeling better. André, the third on the left, whose sonorous " Merci, chère Soeur " nearly frightened me to pieces one day, seems to be the wit and authority on all subjects—a real leader, I should say, and drôle ! Augustin, four beds from him, is our difficult child, the only one of the twenty-nine who is spoiled and fights his dressings, but we must be patient with him for he has been very sick and th

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August 30th, Sunday.

August 30th, Sunday.

At two o'clock in the morning the whole family was aroused by a thundering rap from the butt of a gun on the big front entrance. The poor old butler, who has been in service thirty-five years, was aghast to open the door and find the Burgomaster, in white kid gloves, standing between two Prussian soldiers, with fixed bayonets. They demanded Monsieur J. (for the second time) as hostage. What could have happened among the people, we could only guess. Had they been rash enough to protest against st

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August 31st, Monday.

August 31st, Monday.

Monsieur J. was released as hostage at seven o'clock P. M. and returned to the fold. This evening, as all was still, we played a little game of Bridge, as in the old days when life was a pleasant dream. Suddenly a dozen rifle shots, in quick succession, rang out in the air and the cards fell from our nerveless fingers as a stray ball rattled against the iron shutters of our windows. Instinctively we crouched into sheltered corners and waited; another volley and another followed, until finally Mo

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September 2nd, Wednesday.

September 2nd, Wednesday.

Very early this morning we were awakened by the most remarkable sound—a co-operative noise I should call it, or anything you like, being a combination of steamboat, train of cars and sawmill. Looking out of the window we saw a magnificent Zeppelin sailing along in all its majestic wonder. Miracles happen overnight in the ambulance now, for Health is hastening back in seven-league-boots and every one of our brave blessés is turning out to be handsome. Each day a real face emerges from its black c

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September 3rd, Thursday.

September 3rd, Thursday.

" Monsieur Seegnal Box " went this morning and everybody was sorry to see him go, for he was a congenial spirit, and, like us, found nothing attractive about war. He seemed a protection, too, from the beast that is ever snarling at the door. A young cousin of the family related to us to-day how much at home the soldiers have felt in his château in the country; so much so, in fact, that they have already sent off to Germany all his old family portraits and the best rugs. Here is a bit of psycholo

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September 4th, Friday.

September 4th, Friday.

Monsieur J. came home today with bad news, though every day has its bad news. His cousin Robert had been killed near Gand. The old butler's eyes were sweet to see when Madame X. turned at table and said to him, "François, Monsieur Robert is dead." This man of one syllable, according to his custom, answered simply, quick tears visible, " Oui, Madame " with that gentle upward intonation which says so much. The longest sentence he probably ever constructed was uttered thirty-five years ago when his

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September 5th, Saturday. (At the ambulance.)

September 5th, Saturday. (At the ambulance.)

" Constant, le pauvre Constant! What is in your tortured soul, these three long days and nights, that chains it to earth and tosses your poor body from one troubled thought to another?" I did not think to have my question answered. At eleven o'clock this morning a child of twelve years, beautiful as an angel with heavenly blue eyes and a shock of golden hair, dashed breathlessly into the courtyard of the Convent, almost too exhausted to ask if Soldat Constant Martin, by any chance, were there. T

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September 6th, Sunday.

September 6th, Sunday.

Oh, the peace of Sunday in a little village! And Augustin is better, though he still fights his dressings. It takes the combined effort of the ward to present duty in such an attractive guise that he will not realize he is minding, but it is really the sympathetic Roger who can insinuate comforting comparisons from his own recent acquaintance with pain and the ever-ready Pierre, who with a "courage, camarade," and one free hand to help me, actually put the thing through. On my way home to lunch

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September 8th, Tuesday.

September 8th, Tuesday.

There is a possibility of our going to Brussels. Oh, the joy of it! That may find me the means, through the American Ambassador, of getting back to my beloved France. The youngest gardener, the little one, Charles, who is only eighteen years old, has left for "the front." Not with his regiment, for he hasn't one (this year was to have been his class), but as a private individual who could not stay at home when his country needed him. His old mother, with a little catch in her throat, sent him of

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September 9th, Wednesday.

September 9th, Wednesday.

The word is said. We are packing our bags to leave for Brussels tomorrow. When I went to the Convent this morning, I found all the soldiers in bed and looking so wretched. Merciful Heaven! What blight could have fallen on our children over night? But it was a farce. They had heard that the officers of the regiment, here, were coming to inspect the wounded with the idea of sending those who are well enough on to Germany as, of course, they are prisoners. So the moment the Germans entered the cour

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September 10th, Thursday.

September 10th, Thursday.

This morning was spent in finishing packing, which usually is the biggest part of it, I find. There appears to be violent fighting at Malines, Louvain and Tirlemont. Nevertheless we are setting out from the château, at two o'clock, bag and baggage. Everybody felt sorry to leave the servants ( Liégeois ) who have been staunch and comforting friends through all the misery of these terrifying times. Will an eager Fate close them in? Let us hope they will absorb the effervescent optimism of the fat

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September 12th, Saturday.

September 12th, Saturday.

We are in the depths of despair today for we hear that they are fighting at Meaux—Meaux, which nearly is Paris. If I were a French woman I could not feel more poignantly about it. But we always think that it is not true, as we have no real means of knowing—all is hearsay. A messenger brought news from Monsieur N., "Uncle Maurice," in the Ardennes. It appears that in August when the German troops went through Belgium on foot, the regiment of Count Otto von M. passed his villa. Count Otto is "Uncl

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Monday, September 14th.

Monday, September 14th.

Somebody came into possession of a newspaper, the "Figaro" from Paris, dated September 6th. We were delighted to have it loaned us for an hour, greasy and dirty as it was, for in these days a newspaper is the most precious article on earth. It is brought in on a silver tray—then somebody feverishly reads aloud for the benefit of the others, while the servants run out to invite the neighbors to come in and listen. Just as the reader is in the middle of a grand eulogy on glorious victories, etc.,

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September 16th, Wednesday.

September 16th, Wednesday.

Natural laws are demonstrating themselves very plainly these days, for when we were sitting on the terrace just before lunch to-day, a curious thing happened—a sound wave, from a cannon shot literally hit our ear drums. I felt as if somebody had struck mine with a padded club. There was no noise, you understand, but we all looked up, aware of the impact at the same moment, so that it could not have been imagination. It must be that the terrible experiences of the past weeks have developed us to

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September 18th, Friday.

September 18th, Friday.

A memorable day! We went in the auto to Spa. As we drove out of the court yard we were obliged to let some horsemen pass, who were out for their morning exercise. I think it is somebody's body guard, for we see them often at a distance. There are about thirty of them and at close range they are rather beautiful, that is, their uniforms of spotless white broadcloth with gold trimmings. En route we passed by Fort d'Embourg, which still has some of its cupolas, and Fort Chaudefontaine, which our bu

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September 22nd, Tuesday.

September 22nd, Tuesday.

The doctor has gone to Neufchateau in the Ardennes to bring back the French and Belgian wounded. I wish I could have gone with him, for we seem so useless here now that our soldiers are well, and the days are long, since the wild excitement of a giant army on the wing has cooled down. "On the wing" is not an idle expression when we remember those forced marches and how they lashed the poor artillery horses which galloped and strained in the traces without making much impression on the wheels. It

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September 24th, Thursday.

September 24th, Thursday.

We heard five booms of cannon in an hour this morning and bad and inhuman as it sounds, we were quite pleased—any little sign from an outside world that one lives, one breathes, to drag us out of this inertia, this eternal silence!...

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September 28th, Monday.

September 28th, Monday.

There was quite a demonstration in Liége yesterday when they brought back from Neufchateau some Belgian and French wounded. The people all shouted, " Vive la France. " Today we have a new military governor, who has given the order to shoot, without hesitation, any person attempting such an indiscretion again. The scene of operations is gradually swinging back into Belgium and the stories of atrocities are increasing. The sacking and burning of Louvain, with its art treasures and its world-famous

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September 30th, Wednesday.

September 30th, Wednesday.

We went again to Spa in the auto. Passing again through the pitiful village of Louvigné, we saw, in a meadow, the graves, covered with wayside flowers, of the farmers who were shot. The soldiers picked out forty of the villagers, stood them up in a line, then shouted, "Save yourselves." Thirteen were shot in the back and the rest escaped. What words to find for this barbarism? But is it barbarism and not rather the refined cruelty of civilization? Is it not better then to remain a primitive, wit

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October 1st, Thursday.

October 1st, Thursday.

The siege of Antwerp has begun. Here is a dialogue between the Kaiser and his belle armée . K. "I need Antwerp." A. "Your Majesty shall have Antwerp, but we need five hundred thousand men." K. "You shall have them." Does this explain the fantastic array of soldiers, sailors, the old, the young, grandfathers and infants, the simple rank and file and the elegant regiments of H. M. that are continually trailing on to the battlefield?...

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September 29th, Tuesday.

September 29th, Tuesday.

The servants are dismantling the house today, putting all the art treasures in safety—tapestries, silver, portraits, paintings, rugs, fine china, furniture, dresses, furs, books, linen—in fact everything of value. All this is to be taken off for safekeeping and sealed up,—maybe, in the crystal caves of the river nymph, Aréthusa. Madame X. does not like to imagine the Haus Fraus parading in her sables. A man in the city saw some circulars ready for distribution that were printed by the German War

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October 3rd, Saturday.

October 3rd, Saturday.

During the last forty-eight hours, hundreds of cattle cars have been going back to Germany and we were very curious as to their contents. Unhappily, we have been enlightened. Some of the villagers at the station, this morning, looked into one car and saw that it was full of dead human bodies, tied together in threes and packed tightly side by side in rows. Is that not too horrible for words? It is better not to be too inquisitive these days, for there is horror enough on the surface of things. T

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October 5th, Monday.

October 5th, Monday.

To-day, two months after that horrible battle of Sartilmont, we found a Belgian soldier's cap lying in the middle of the path in the woods. It seemed like a human thing and stirred me to the profoundest depths. I never thought that clothes could take on life and a personality all alone, but they do. Has its owner been in hiding all these weeks or is he lying yet unburied among the friendly trees? In these places where Death has walked so boldly one feels his accompanying presence at every step..

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October 8th, Thursday.

October 8th, Thursday.

Monsieur B., a man of seventy years (Madame X.'s brother-in-law), was taken as hostage yesterday at Spa. Fortunately for him, he was allowed to sleep in the hotel, but can you imagine what the anxiety of those twenty-four hours was? Every voice in the street, every foot-step in the corridor—! From the top of the mountain all day a continual booming was heard, distantly transmitted through the air. It was so incessant and with such vivacity, one could easily imagine two armies all mixed up into o

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October 9th, Friday.

October 9th, Friday.

Baron T., another friend of the family, came to lunch. He told us of his cousin, who was one of the unfortunate victims of the sack of Louvain. This aged man (seventy years) with a thousand others, was obliged to walk for twenty-four hours with nothing to eat or drink and arms stretched up straight over their heads. The poor man, fainting with fatigue, asked permission of the soldiers to put his hands behind his neck, but this grace was denied, and after some hours more all the company was pushe

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October 10th, Saturday.

October 10th, Saturday.

I have been advertised! like a stray dog, and what a feeling of importance it gives one. A peculiar looking document with the Embassy seals of Paris and Brussels on it, arrived from the American Consul in Liége enquiring if such a person as "Me" still exists. Well, rather, I should say. Fancy one's coming all the way on foot from Brussels to find out that! Masses of soldiers and cannon passing today and news from Brussels is bad. The worst must have happened! "Antwerp, the untakable." How is it

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October 11th, Sunday.

October 11th, Sunday.

We have heard the raging of a distant battle for days and we tremble for the result. It seems that Antwerp is really taken, that is, "they say" so, but it is such a mystery to everybody. A Dutch army nurse—but in the German Red Cross service—is here for a few days' furlough, and related to Madame X. some horrible details of the battlefield in France, whence she has recently come. It is just one scene of mud and blood—pieces of limbs strewn everywhere and the dead standing straight against masses

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October 13th, Tuesday.

October 13th, Tuesday.

The old concierge of the hunting box at Viel Salm (near Malmédy, Germany), who has been dying of tuberculosis for twenty years, arrived here tonight, having walked the whole distance of seventy five kilometres. This shows the faithfulness of the old servant who thought he must come to report the sacking of the villa by the German troops which occurred in the early days of August. The poor man could not have hobbled another step, for he was at the end of his strength and his feet were just two gr

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October 14th, Wednesday.

October 14th, Wednesday.

It is unbelievable the trainloads of soldiers that are passing about every ten minutes, and the fighting—judging from the wounded—must be beyond words. The army nurse told of men who have fought five days in the trenches without relief. They were tumbling over with fatigue, rifle in hand, and the officers were obliged to go from one to the other, shaking them into consciousness. Map Showing Viel Salm and the German Frontier...

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October 16th, Friday.

October 16th, Friday.

We went to Viel Salm in the automobile. The destruction at the villa, which I saw with my own eyes, has not been exaggerated. There was practically nothing left but the structure itself and that was far from intact, for nearly all the great plate glass windows were broken by some dévot of vandalism who had taken the trouble and an ax to split up the jambs of the doors so that they never could shut again. Inside was far worse; every picture, glass and mirror was smashed, each leather chair had a

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October 17th, Saturday.

October 17th, Saturday.

Antwerp is taken! There is no doubt about it now, and it is a sad blow for Belgium. Antwerp! the pride and strength of the whole empire! But there is not a person (bar the enemy) who does not expect to get it back and all the rest of the usurped territory. Madame de H. sent letters by a "foot-messenger" from Brussels. She left here only to plunge into a wild vortex of experiences there. Two days ago she saw a battle in the air between two aeroplanes and yesterday the locomotives on the trains ha

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October 19th, Monday.

October 19th, Monday.

I went to see the American Consul, to explain that I do exist and to ask his advice about getting back to France. He did not seem to second my enthusiasm, which surprised me, and said, "In the first place what would you go in, and in the second, why should you want to go, with Paris surrounded by 2,000,000 soldiers?" Isn't it human nature to want to get out of prison? He has received no mail from America since August 19th and a letter which came from his confrère, the American Consul at Aix-la-C

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October 22nd, Thursday.

October 22nd, Thursday.

I was perfectly enraged this morning when I crossed the bridge and saw the soldiers changing the street signs into the German language. Now it is " nach Brussels " and " nach Lüttich ." I suppose you will say, "But why be so disturbed about things? It is not your war." But it is my war. I cannot keep out of it—it's everybody's war! The new soldiers who have been in the stable at the château received sudden orders to advance. The rest of the company, scattered about in the vicinity, assembled her

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November 5th, Thursday.

November 5th, Thursday.

Monsieur and Madame S. came back from Brussels today and oh, it was good to get a little, first-hand, outside news! It appears that Brussels still has a semblance of her normal activity, as the heel of oppression, in the presence of different foreign representatives, has not cut in so deeply there. Madame S. said, one evening when they were walking in the street she noticed a man following them and when they reached a particularly dark corner he came quickly up and whispered, "Would you like to

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November 6th, Friday.

November 6th, Friday.

Just the moment I finished breakfast this morning, I dashed into town, that is, as fast as an old tramcar could take me, to the American Consul. In my impatience, I fancy I must have rung his bell several times, though it was really a long while before the servant opened the door and showed me in to the library. Then Mr. Z. (a German-sounding name), the Consul, appeared, unshaven and with the evidence of his morning meal upon his face—it was yellow. But nothing mattered to me and I plunged into

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November 7th, Saturday.

November 7th, Saturday.

Saturday dawned cold, gray and shivery. Madame de M. , Monsieur le consul hollandais , and I left the château at eight A. M. I was heartbroken to part from the dear people with whom I had experienced so much and I fancied their eyes looked longingly at the departing automobile. They, too, would have liked to come out into the sunshine of Freedom—how much! From Liége to the frontier sentries stopped us often, but the consul's much-used passport, framed and glassed in like Napoleon's Abdication or

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November 8th, Sunday.

November 8th, Sunday.

A long day on the Channel and I was seasick—miserably, hopelessly, endlessly seasick, but when somebody shouted I managed to lift my head in time to see a floating mine—just a tiny, black buoy bobbing about, but I did not mind. I asked the stewardess if she were not afraid, making the journey every day, and her answer awed me by its conciseness and its confidence. "Oh, no," she said. "Our Admiralty has arranged a path for us between the mines." That was a sublime faith, but I should choose a mor

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November 9th, Monday.

November 9th, Monday.

Folkestone! The busiest town on earth, I should say, and soldiers everywhere. There were ruddy-looking troops, singing also, and apparently quite content to be "going over," for an Englishman is always game; and there were pale ones, just out of hospital, in every kind of uniform, and bands of refugees and exiles who had not a franc among them. Comtesse de M. went with me to the English Embassy to see if they would give me a passport to France with her, for in my haste in leaving Liége, it had n

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November 10th, Tuesday.

November 10th, Tuesday.

Left Calais at nine A. M. The sun was pouring its cheerful rays over the glorious land. It ought to be free—this smiling France! Wherever the eye rested were soldiers drilling, building, maneuvering and digging. Every few hundred yards the railroad was intersected by lines of trenches. These latter appeared to be about seven feet deep—cut true as a die into the ground and were braced with a lining of woven reeds, like basket work. The front wall of these trenches was crenated about every two fee

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November 12th, Thursday.

November 12th, Thursday.

Paris! after a four days' tiring journey which in happier times takes only five hours. But it doesn't matter—it is home again. Anywhere is home which is out from under that yoke of infamous tyranny. I rage in proportion as the minutes separate me from this odious thing that closes its iron fingers around the necks of my friends. No! It is not to be borne. Let every man, woman and child on the earth rise up until we have right. Do I not know? Have I not experienced the mailed fist? And yet, how l

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