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Rosieres, France, near Bar-le-Duc |
| Dear Bess: | February 23, 1919 |
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I have been real good today. Went to Bar-le-Duc and went to Mass. I have a Catholic lieutenant, Ducournau by name ("Ducano" he calls it), who is from Louisiana and who is responsible for my attending Mass. He's not very orthodox and neither am I, as you very well know, but we were curious to see inside one of the old churches and also expected to hear some good music. Our curiosity was satisfied and we were not disappointed in the music. There was a grand organ and a master at the keyboard. He played a most beautiful offertory from Bach and some woman with a grand soprano voice sang a part of the Mass. The church has some very fine paintings and some stained-glass windows behind the altar that are very beautiful. There are four of them and each one had a Boche bullet hole punched in it. Evidently made by shell fragments. Bar-le-Duc was under fire in the first battle of the Marne and was bombed once a week or oftener during the whole war. I don't suppose that those windows will be mended ever, because some old heathen will want to collect francs from American tourists while he unwinds some magnificent lie about how they came to be busted. They have beautiful costumes for the priests and choirboys. One old priest who took up the collection had on a lace skirt that most any American woman would trade her husband for. There was one individual whose duties and position I couldn't quite fathom. He had on a Napoleon Bonaparte hat with a white plume running from end to end of it. His uniform would make a Greek general jealous and he had on a rapier or sword, I couldn't tell which. In his right hand he carried a tall cane with a golden ball on top of it like you see in pictures of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. He was in the back of the church when we went in, standing like the guardian of the gates of heaven, but when the collection priest started to pass the hat he marched up the aisle and placed himself in front of the collector and marched ahead of him. He'd go about four steps and set his cane down with a bang and then wait while the priest made a good canvass of about two rows of seats and then he'd move the same distance again. Now I can't figure if he was a representative of the French Government to see that the state gets a fair share of the contribution or if he was some part of the Catholic Church machinery. I was afraid to ask for fear it might be an unnecessary inquiry. Anyway, as Mark would say, he impressed me very much and I looked at him as much as I did the whole row of priests and choristers and censor boys it took to put on High Mass. One little old kid was sure an expert at swinging the incense pot. If the main priest had ever backed up while that pot was working he'd have been brained sure. . . . Remember me to your mother and all the family, and keep writing to one who loves you, Always, Harry |
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