There's a wide plain that knows desolately what German bombardment
means: there are gentle hills rising out of it, south and west (will
grapes ever be sweet on those sad hillsides again?) and there's the
little river Vesle that runs into the Aisne. There's the Canal of the
Aisne and the Marne, too--oh, many wide waters and little streams, to
breathe out mist, for Rheims is on the pleasant Ile-de-France. There was
so much mist this autumn day that it hid from our eyes for a long time
the tall form of the Cathedral which should dominate the plain for many
miles; a thick, white mist like the sheet with which a sculptor veils
his masterpiece until it's ready to face the world. As we drove on, and
still saw no looming bulk, frozen fear pinched my heart, like horrid,
ice-cold fingers. What if there'd been some new bombardment we hadn't
had time to hear of, and the Cathedral were _gone_?
But I didn't speak my fear. I tried to cover it up by chattering about
Rheims. Goodness knows there's a lot to chatter about! All that
wonderful history, since Clovis was baptized by Saint Remi; and
Charlemagne crowned, and Charles the VII, with Jeanne d'Arc looking on
in bright armour, and various Capets, and enough other kings to name
Notre-Dame of Rheims the "Cathedral of Coronations." I remembered
something about the Gate of Mars, too--the oldest thing of all--which
the Remi people put up in praise of Augustus Caesar when Agrippa brought
his great new roads close to their capital.
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