The sunlight of the clear September afternoon shone across the roofs of
the City of Rheims, and fell in a yellow flood upon the towers of the
most beautiful cathedral in the world, turning them into two shining
golden pillars against the deep blue of the eastern sky.
The streets below were already in shadow, but the sunshine still poured
through the great rose window above the western portal, lighting the
dim interior of the church with long shafts of brilliant reds, blues,
and greens, and falling at last in a shower of broken color upon the
steps of the high altar. Somewhere in the mysterious shadows an unseen
musician touched the keys of the great organ, and the voice of the
Cathedral throbbed through its echoing aisles in tremulous waves of
sound. Above the deep tones of the bass notes a delicate melody
floated, like a lark singing above the surf.
Though the great church seemed empty but for sound and color, there
lingered among its shadows a few persons who loved it well. There were
priests and a few worshipers. There was also Father Varennes, the
Verger, and far away in one of the small chapels opening from the apse
in the eastern end good Mother Meraut was down upon her knees, not
praying as you might suppose, but scrubbing the stone floor. Mother
Meraut was a wise woman; she knew when to pray and when to scrub, and
upon occasion did both with equal energy to the glory of God and the
service of his Church. Today it was her task to make the little chapel
clean and sweet, for was not the Abbe coming to examine the
Confirmation Class in its catechism, and were not her own two children,
Pierre and Pierette, in the class? In time to the heart-beats of the
organ, Mother Meraut swept her brush back and forth, and it was already
near the hour for the class to assemble when at last she set aside her
scrubbing-pail, wiped her hands upon her apron, and began to dust the
chairs which had been standing outside the arched entrance, and to
place them in orderly rows within the chapel.
She had nearly completed her task, when there was a tap-tapping upon
the stone floor, and down the long aisle, leaning upon his crutch, came
Father Varennes. He stopped near the chapel and watched her as she
whisked the last chair into place and then paused with her hands upon
her hips to make a final inspection of her work.
"Bonjour, Antoinette," said the Verger.
Mother Meraut turned her round, cheerful face toward him. "Ah, it is
you, Henri," she cried, "come, no doubt, to see if the chapel is clean
enough for the Abbe! Well, behold."
The Verger peered through the arched opening, and sniffed the wet,
soapy smell which pervaded the air. "One might even eat from your clean
floor, Antoinette," he said, smiling, "and taste nothing worse with his
food than a bit of soap. Truly the chapel is as clean as a shriven
soul."
"It's a bold bit of dirt that would try to stand out against me,"
declared Mother Meraut, with a flourish of her dust-cloth, "for when I
go after it I think to myself, 'Ah, if I but had one of those
detestable Germans by the nose, how I would grind it!' and the very
thought brings such power to my elbow that I check myself lest I wear
through the stones of the floor."
The Verger laughed, then shook his head. "Truly, Antoinette," he said,
"I believe you could seize your husband's gun if he were to fall, and
fill his place in the Army as well as you fill his place here in the
Cathedral, doing a man's work with a woman's strength, and smiling as
if it were but play! Our France can never despair while there are women
like you."
"My Jacques shall carry his own gun," said Mother Meraut, stoutly, "and
bring it home with him when the war is over, if God wills, and may it
be soon! Meanwhile I will help to keep our holy Cathedral clean as he
used to do. It is not easy work, but one must do what one can, and
surely it is better to do it with smiles than with tears!"
The Verger nodded. "That is true," he said, "yet it is hard to smile in
the face of sorrow."
"But we must smile--though our hearts break--for France, and for our
children, lest they forget joy!" cried Mother Meraut. She smiled as she
spoke, though her lip trembled "I will you the truth, Henri, sometimes
when I think of what the Germans have already done in Belgium, and may
yet do in France, I feel my heart breaking in my bosom. And then I say
to myself, 'Courage, Antoinette! It is our business to live bravely for
the France that is to be when this madness is over. Our armies are
still between us and the Boche. It is not time to be afraid.'"
"And I tell you, they shall not pass," cried Father Varennes, striking
his crutch angrily upon the stone floor. "The brave soldiers of France
will not permit it! Oh, if I could but carry a gun instead of this!" He
rattled his crutch despairingly as he spoke.
Mother Meraut sighed. "Though I am a woman, I too wish I might fight
the invaders," she said, "but since I may not carry a gun, I will put
all the more energy into my broom and sweep the dirt from the Cathedral
as I would sweep the Germans back to the Rhine if I could."
"It is, indeed, the only way for women, children, and such as I,"
grieved the Verger.
"Tut, tut," answered Mother Meraut cheerfully, "it isn't given us to
choose our service. If God had wanted us to fight he would have given
us power to do it."
The Verger shook his head. "I wish I were sure of that," he said, "for
there's going to be need for all the fighting blood in France if half
one hears is true. They say now that the Germans are already far over
the French border and that our Army is retreating before them. The
roads are more than ever crowded with refugees, and the word they bring
is that the Germans have already reached the valley of the Aisne."
"But that is at our very doors!" cried Mother Meraut. "It is absurd,
that rumor. Chicken hearts! They listen to nothing but their fears. As
for me, I will not believe it until I must. I will trust in the Army as
I do in my God and the holy Saints."
"Amen," responded the Verger devoutly.
At this moment the great western portal swung on its hinges, a patch of
light showed itself against the gloom of the interior of the Cathedral,
and the sound of footsteps and of fresh young voices mingled with the
tones of the organ.
"It's the children, bless their innocent hearts," said Mother Meraut.
"I hear the voices of my Pierre and Pierrette."
"And I of my Jean," said the Verger, starting hastily down the aisle.
"The little magpies forget they must be quiet in the House of God!" He
shook his finger at them and laid it warningly upon his lips. The noise
instantly subsided, and it was a silent and demure little company that
tiptoed up the aisle, bent the knee before the altar, and then filed
past Mother Meraut into the chapel which she had made so clean.
Pierre and Pierrette led the procession, and Mother Meraut beamed with
pride as they blew her a kiss in passing. They were children that any
mother might be proud of. Pierrette had black, curling hair and blue
eyes with long black lashes, and Pierre was a straight, tall, and
manly-looking boy. The Twins were nine years old.
Mother Meraut knew many of the children in the Confirmation Class, for
they were all schoolmates and companions of Pierre and Pierrette. There
was Paul, the sore of the inn-keeper, with Marie, his sister. There was
Victor, whose father rang the Cathedral chimes. There were David and
Genevieve, and Madeleine and Virginie and Etienne, and last of all
there was jean, the Verger's son--little Jean, the youngest in the
class. Mother Meraut nodded to them all as they passed.
Promptly on the first stroke of the hour the Abbe appeared in the north
transept of the Cathedral and made his way with quick, decided steps
toward the chapel. He was a young man with thick dark hair almost
concealed beneath his black three-cornered cap, and as he walked, his
long black soutane swung about him in vigorous folds. When he appeared
in the door of the chapel the class rose politely to greet him.
"Bonjour, my children," said the Abbe, and then, turning his back upon
them, bowed before the crucifix upon the chapel altar.
Mother Meraut and the Verger slipped quietly away to their work in
other portions of the church, and the examination began. First the Abby
asked the children to recite the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten
Commandments in unison, and when they had done this without a mistake,
he said "Bravo! Now I wonder if you can each do as well alone? Let me
see, I will call upon--" He paused and looked about as if he were
searching for the child who was most likely to do it well.
Three girls--Genevieve, Virginie, and Pierrette--raised their hands and
waved them frantically in the air, but, curiously enough, the Abbe did
not seem to see them. Instead his glance fell upon Pierre, who was
gazing thoughtfully at the vaulted ceiling and hoping with all his
heart that the Abbe would not call upon him. "Pierre!" he said, and any
one looking at him very closely might have seen a twinkle in his eye as
Pierre withdrew his gaze from the ceiling and struggled reluctantly to
his feet. "You may recite the Ten Commandments."
Pierre began quite glibly, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me,"
and went on, with only two mistakes and one long wait, until he had
reached the fifth. "Thou shalt not kill," he recited, and then to save
his life he could not think what came next. He gazed imploringly at the
ceiling again, and at the high stained-glass window, but they told him
nothing. He kicked backward gently, hoping that Pierrette, who sat
next, would prompt him, but she too failed to respond. "I'll ask a
question," thought Pierre desperately, "and while the Abbe is answering
maybe it will come to me." Aloud he said: "If you please, your
reverence, I don't understand about that commandment. It says, 'Thou
shalt not kill,' and yet our soldiers have gone to war on purpose to
kill Germans, and the priests blessed them as they marched away!"
This was indeed a question! The class gasped with astonishment at
Pierre's boldness in asking it. The Abbe paused a moment before
answering. Then he said, "If you, Pierre, were to shoot a man in the
street in order to take his purse, would that be wrong?"
"Yes," answered the whole class.
"Very well," said the Abbe, "so it would. But if you should see a
murderer attack your mother or your sister, and you should kill him
before he could carry out his wicked purpose, would that be just the
same thing?"
"No," wavered the class, a little doubtfully.
"If instead of defending your mother or sister you were simply to stand
aside and let the murderer kill them both, you would really be helping
the murderer, would you not? It is like that today in France. An enemy
is upon us who seeks to kill us so that he may rob us of our beautiful
home land. God sees our hearts. He knows that the soldiers of France go
forth not to kill Germans but to save France! not wantonly to take
life, but because it is the only way to save lives for which they
themselves are ready to die. Ah, my children, it is one thing to kill
as a murderer kills; it is quite another to be willing to die that
others may live! Our Blessed Lord--"
The Abbe lifted his hand to make the sign of the Cross--but it was
stayed in mid-air. The sentence he had begun was never finished, for at
that moment the great bell in the Cathedral tower began to ring. It was
not the clock striking the hour; it was not the chimes calling the
people to prayer. Instead, it was the terrible sound of the alarm bell
ringing out a warning to the people of Rheims that the Germans were at
their doors.
Wide-eyed with terror, the children sprang from their seats, but the
Abbe, with hand uplifted, blocked the entrance and commanded them to
stay where they were.
"Let no one leave the Cathedral," he cried.
At this instant Mother Meraut appeared upon the threshold searching for
her children, and behind her, coming as fast as his lameness would
permit, came the Verger. The Abbe turned to them. "I leave these
children all in your care," he said. "Stay with them until I return."
And without another word he disappeared in the shadows.
Mother Meraut sat down on one of the chairs she had dusted so
carefully, and gathered the frightened children about her as a hen
gathers her chickens under her wing. "There, now," she said cheerfully,
as she wiped their tears upon the corner of her apron, "let's save our
tears until we really know what we have to cry for. There never yet was
misery that couldn't be made worse by crying, anyway. The boys will be
brave, of course, whatever happens. And the girls--surely they will
remember that it was a girl who once saved France, and meet misfortune
bravely, like our blessed Saint Jeanne d'Arc."
The Cathedral organ had ceased to fill the great edifice with sweet and
inspiring sounds. Instead, there now was only the muffled tread of
marching feet, the rumble of heavy wheels, and the low, ominous beating
of drums to break the stillness.
Mother Meraut and the children waited obediently in the chapel,
scarcely breathing in their suspense, while Father Varennes went
tap-tapping up and down the aisles eagerly watching for the Abbe to
reappear. At last he came. Mother Meraut, the Verger, and the children
all crowded about him, waiting breathlessly for him to speak.
The Abbe was pale, but his voice was firm. "I have been to the north
tower," he said, "and there I could see for miles in every direction.
Far away to the east and north are massed the hordes of the German
Army; they are coming toward Rheims as a thunder-cloud comes rolling
over the sky. Between us and them is our Army, but alas, their faces
are turned this way. They are retreating before the German hosts!
Already French troops are marching through Rheims; already the streets
are filled with people who are fleeing from their homes for fear of the
Boche. Unless God sends a miracle, our City is indeed doomed, for a
time at least, to wear the German yoke."
He paused, and the children burst into wild weeping. Mother Meraut
hushed them with comforting words. "Do not cry, my darlings," she said.
"God is not dead, and we shall yet live to see justice done and our
dear land restored to us. The soldiers now in the streets are all our
own brave defenders. We shall be able to go in safety, even though in
sorrow, to our homes."
"Come," said the Abbe, "there is no time to lose. Our Army will,
without doubt, make a stand on the plains west of the City, and it will
not be long before the Germans pass through. You must go to your homes
as fast as possible. Henri, you remain here with your Jean, that you
may meet any of the parents who come for their children. Tell them I
have gone with them myself and will deliver each child safely at his
own door."
"I can take cart of my own," said Mother Meraut. "You need have no fear
for us."
"Very well," said the Abbe, and, calling the rest of the children about
him, he marched them down the aisle and out into the street.
Mother Meraut followed with Pierre and Pierrette. At the door they
paused and stood for a moment under the great sculptured arches to
survey the scene before them. The great square before the Cathedral was
filled with people, some weeping, others standing about as if dazed by
sorrow. Between the silent crowds which lined the sidewalks passed the
soldiers, grim and with set faces, keeping time to the throbbing of the
drums as they marched. Above the scene, in the center of the square,
towered the beautiful statue of Jeanne d'Arc, mounted upon her charger
and lifting her sword toward the sky.
"Ah," murmured Mother Meraut to herself, "our blessed Maid still keeps
guard above the City!" She lifted her clasped hands toward the statue.
"Blessed Saint Jeanne," she prayed, "hear us in Paradise, and come once
more to save our beautiful France!"
Then, waving a farewell to the Verger and Jean, who had followed them
to the door, she took her children by the hand and plunged with them
into the sad and silent crowd.