To see it, our legendary and marvellous French basilica, to bid it farewell, before its fall and irremediable crumbling to dust, I had made my military auto make a detour of two hours on my return from completing a service mission.
The October morning was foggy and cold. The hillsides of Champagne were on that day deserted; with their vines with leaves of blackened brown, damp with rain, they seemed all clad in a sort of shining leather. We had also passed through a forest, keeping our eyes alert, our weapons ready, for the possibility of marauding Uhlans. And at last we had perceived the immense form of a church, far off in the mist, rising in all its great height above the plots of reddish squares, which must be the roofs of houses; evidently that was it.
The entrance to Rheims: defences of every kind, barriers of stone, trenches, spiked fences, sentinels with crossed bayonets. To pass, the uniform and accoutrements of a soldier are not enough. We must answer questions, give the passwords.

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MPAA: PG
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