The sky was empty of enemy 'planes; but our guide hurried us through the town, where the new road shone white in contrast with our cars; and having hidden the autos under a group of trees outside, led us on foot toward the convent. The approach was exquisite: a long, long avenue of architectural elms, arbour-like in shade, once the favourite evening promenade of Chauny. That tunnel of emerald and gold would have been an interlude of peace between two tragedies--tragedy of the town, tragedy of the convent--if the ground hadn't been strewn with torn papers, like leaves scattered by the wind: official records flung out of strong boxes by ruthless German hands, poor remnants no longer of value, and saved from destruction only by the kindly trees, friends of happy memories. "The Boches didn't take time to spoil this avenue," said our officer. "They liked it while they lived in the convent; and they left in a hurry."
Just beyond the avenue lies the convent garden; and though it is autumn, when we stepped into that garden we stepped into an oasis of old-fashioned, fragrant flowers, guarded by delicate trees, gentle as the vanished Sisters and their flock of young girl pupils; sweet, small trees, bending low as if to shield the garden's breast from harm.
I wish when Chauny is rebuilt this convent might be left as a _monument historique_, for, ringed by its perfumed pleasance, it is a glimpse of "fairylands forlorn."
One half believes there must have been some fairy charm at work which kept the fire-breathing German dragon from laying this garden waste when he was forced out of his stolen lair in the convent! Little remains of the house, and in the rubbish heap of fallen walls and beams and plaster, narrow iron bedsteads, where nuns slept or young girls dreamed, perch timidly among stones and blackened bricks. But in the garden all is flowery peace: and the chapel, though ruined, is a strange vision of beauty framed in horror.
Not that the Germans were merciful there. They burned and blew up all that would burn or blow up. The roof fell, and heaped the floor with wreckage; but out of that wreckage, as out of a troubled sea, rise two figures: St. Joseph, and an almost life-size, painted statue of the Virgin. There the two stand firmly on their pedestals, their faces raised to God's roof of blue, which never fails. Because their eyes are lifted, they do not see the flotsam and jetsam of shattered stained glass, burnt woodwork, smashed benches, broken picture-frames and torn, rain-blurred portraits of lesser saints. They seem to think only of heaven.