evening ... by way of viaticum. Sometimes when the order to advance comes unexpectedly we have to give absolution en bloc to a whole company ... on condition of subsequent confession later when the recipient returns ... if he does return!"
It is the same with the enemy's wounded. The Abbé, not without a gleam of humour, shows himself acting as interpreter between a French Lutheran minister, who did not know German, and German wounded of his denomination. "The most scrupulous theologian might perhaps find in my exhortations certain grammatical faults, but not, I think, any capital error of dogma."
Assuredly it is long years since, in the fair plains of France, Mass was celebrated in such settings of beauty and terror. This is how a Montmartrois attended it in a village church—
"I was returning with the rest of a fatigue party from digging potatoes for the company.... With the clay still on my hands I managed to work my way into a place beside my lieutenant, a commandant, a sergeant, and some comrades. The elevation had been reached.... And then in the choir the fresh, clear voices of young girls intoned the canticle: 'Mary, Queen of France, protect us!' My nerves could not bear the tension, and then ... well, I hid my face in my képi.
"They sang very prettily, the little country maidens, and the three canticles to Joan of Arc
