Coming away from the cathedral through a side-street going into the rue
des Trois Cailloux, I used to pass the Palais de Justice--a big, grim
building, with a long flight of steps leading up to its doorways, and
above the portico the figure of Justice, blind, holding her scales.
There was no justice there during the war, but rooms full of French
soldiers with smashed faces, blind, many of them, like that woman in
stone. They used to sit, on fine days, on the flight of steps, a tragic
exhibition of war for passers-by to see. Many of them revealed no faces,
but were white masks of cotton-wool, bandaged round their heads. Others
showed only the upper parts of their faces, and the places where their
jaws had been were tied up with white rags. There were men without
noses, and men with half their scalps torn away. French children used
to stare through the railings at them, gravely, with childish curiosity,
without pity. English soldiers gave them a passing glance, and went on
to places where they might be made like this, without faces, or jaws,
or noses, or eyes. By their uniforms I saw that there were Chasseurs
Alpins, and Chasseurs d'Afrique, and young infantrymen of the line, and
gunners. They sat, without restlessness, watching the passers-by if
they had eyes to see, or, if blind, feeling the breeze about them, and
listening to the sound of passing feet.