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BACK AT MAIN HEADQUARTERS 121
other church furniture were piled on the floor, all mutilated
beyond recognition.
The lower part of the massive temple walls had more or
less been spared, together with their oblong panels, in high-
relief, illustrating the passion of our Lord. I stood in front of
one which is quite undamaged, and under which I read the
words : Jesus tombe pour la deuxiemc fois. The face of the
Redeemer expresses infinite anguish as He totters under the
weight of the cross and the sins of man.
Oh, vanity of vanities ! Everything seems vain and futile.
On a stone tablet I read the following well-preserved in-
scription : Hanc ecclesiam Ludovici XIV jussu et pecunia
pYocurante Vauban erectam primär, henedixit lapidem 22 martii
1683 . . . etc. Now the organ notes are silenced and no words
of spiritual comfort fall from the pulpit. The wind sighs
through the bared arches and seems plaintively to echo the
frailty of human purpose.
Outside the church the scene is one of equal desolation.
There lies the skeleton of what was once a motor-car and
the remnants of a bicycle amid the wreckage of accoutrements
and uniforms, buckled soup-plates of tin, sword sheaths,
rifle stocks and barrels, children’s toys, colour boxes and Noah’s
Arks, water pipes, balcony rails and grilles, chairs and tables
all entangled in an inextricable confusion of stone, brick and
dust. Pompeii could not have been so utterly destroyed
as this town, and my old Lou-Ian in the heart of the desert,
where the angel of destruction has reaped his harvest for so
many centuries, looked less forlorn and desolate than the
fortified town of Longwy after a few days’ bombardment.
I walk along through the alleys and look round. The silence
is ghostlike, except for occasional creaking in walls and joints
and the sound of chips of stone falling to the ground. The
wind is moaning among the roofless houses, and the gutter
pipes, detached from their fastenings, hang nodding into
space. Here and there the name of the street is still
discernible at the corner, such as Rue des Ecoles, or Rue
Stanislas. Postcards, frayed and worn away by sun and
rain, are lying about amongst the rubbish. I take one up and
read the address : Monsieur Crombez, Subsistant au 164 de
Eigne, ^ Longwy-haut. The text is as follows : " Le Mans,
1 A battalion of the 164th regiment of infantry was garrisoned at Longwy in peace
time.
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