We sat
round the fire--plenty of room for us all, in a close circle--and
Captain Devot began to talk about his last battle on the Chemin des
Dames. Suddenly he realized that the story was more than his wife could
bear--for it was in that battle he lost his eyes! How he realized what
she was enduring, I don't know, for she didn't speak, or even sigh, and
Brian sat between them; so he couldn't have known she was trembling. It
must have been some electric current of sympathy between the husband
and wife, I suppose--a magnetic flash to which a blind man would be more
sensitive than others. Anyhow, he suddenly stopped speaking of the
fight, and told us instead about a dream he had the night before the
battle--a dream where he saw the ladies for whom "The Ladies' Way" was
made, go riding by, along the "Chemin des Dames."
"In silks and satins the ladies went
Where the breezes sighed and the poplars bent,
Taking the air of a Sunday morn
Midst the red of poppies and gold of corn--
Flowery ladies in gold brocades,
With negro pages and serving maids,
In scarlet coach or in gilt sedan,
With brooch and buckle and flounce and fan,
Patch and powder and trailing scent,
Under the trees the ladies went,
Lovely ladies that gleamed and glowed,
As they took the air of the Ladies' Road."
That verse came from _Punch_, not from Captain Devot. I happen to
remember it because it struck my fancy when I read it, and added to the
romance of the road made for Louis XV's daughters--daughters of France,
where now so many sons of France have died for France! But the ladies of
Captain Devot's dream were like that, travelling with a gorgeous
cavalcade, and as they rode, they were listening to a song about the old
Abbey of Vauclair on the plateau of the Craonne.
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