sacred duty has always been regarded as paramount.
Our France which bleeds with so many other
wounds, has suffered nothing more cruel than the
attack against her Parthenon, the Cathedral of
Rheims, "Our Lady of France." Letters which I
have received from sorely tried families, and from
soldiers who for two months have borne every hard-
ship, show me (and I am proud of it for them and
for my people) that there was no burden heavier
for them to bear. It is because we put spirit above
flesh. Very different is the case of the German
intellectuals, who, to my reproaches for the
sacrilegious acts of their devasting armies, have
all replied with one voice, "Perish every chef-
d'œuvre rather than one German soldier!"

A piece of architecture like Rheims is much more
than one life; it is a people--whose centuries vibrate
like symphony in this organ of stone. It is their
memories of joy, of glory, and of grief; their medi-
tations, ironies, dreams. It is the tree of the race,
whose roots plunge to the profoundest depths of its
soil, and whose branches stretch with a sublime
èlan towards the sky. It is still more: its beauty
which soars above the struggles of nations is the
harmonious response made by the human race to

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