For the French officers
who, on sightseeing bent, were motoring into Rheims from the battle
line he was acting as a sort of guide. Pointing with his umbrella, he
would say: "On the left is the new Palace of Justice, the facade
entirely destroyed; on the right you see the palace of the archbishop,
completely wrecked. The shells that just passed over us have
apparently fallen in the garden of the Hotel Lion d'Or." He was as cool
as the conductor on a "Seeing Rheims" observation-car.
He was matched in coolness by our consul, William Bardel. The
American consulate is at No. 14 Rue Kellermann. That morning a
shell had hit the chestnut-tree in the garden of his neighbor, at No.
12, and had knocked all the chestnuts into the garden of the
consulate. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," said Mr. Bardel.
In the bombarded city there was no rule as to how any one would act.
One house would be closed and barred, and the inmates would be
either in their own cellar or in the caves of the nearest champagne
company. To those latter they would bring books or playing-cards
and, among millions of dust-covered bottles, by candle-light, would
wait for the guns to cease.
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