I was in the city of Rheims for three days and two nights while it was being bombarded.

During that time fifty thousand people remained in the city and, so far as the shells permitted, continued about their business.

The other fifty thousand fled from the city and camped out along the road to Paris.

For five miles outside Rheims they lined both edges of that road like people waiting for a circus parade.

With them they brought rugs, blankets, and loaves of bread, and from daybreak until night fell and the shells ceased to fall they sat in the hay-fields and along the grass gutters of the road.