work in the fields and snatched up guns which the dead or wounded
soldiers let fall and entered the fight beside their uniformed neighbors.
I give you that picturesque and likely detail for what it is worth.

At the foot of the hill between Montyon and Villeroy lies the tomb in
which two hundred of the men who fell here are buried together.
Among them is Charles Péguy, the poet, who wore a lieutenant's
stripes, and was referred to by his companions on that day as "un
glorieux fou dans sa bravoure." This long tomb, with its crosses and
flags and flowers, was the scene on All Soul's Day of the
commemorative ceremony in honor of the victory, and marks not only
the beginning of the battle, but the beginning of its triumph.

From this point we drove back to the east, almost along the line of
battle, to the hillside hamlet of Barcy, the saddest scene of desolation
on this end of the great fight.

It was a humble little village, grouped around a dear old church, with a
graceful square tower supporting a spire. The little church faced a
small square, from which the principal street runs down the hill to the
open country across which the French "push" advanced. No house
on this street escaped. Some of them are absolutely destroyed. The
church is a mere shell. Its tower is pierced with huge holes. Its bell
lies, a wreck, on the floor beneath its tower. The roof has fallen in, a
heaped-up mass of débris in the nave beneath. Its windows are
gone, and there are gaping wounds in its side walls. Oddly enough,
the Chemin de la Croix is intact, and some of the peasants look on
that as a miracle, in spite of the fact that the High Altar is buried under
a mass of tiles and plaster.