Only the famous citadel, with its miles of underground passages and rooms, is just as it was before the battle, and as it will be, one may hope, through the long years to come; preserved, not for any active purpose of war, but as the shrine of immortal memories.

Itself, it played a great part in the struggle.

For here, in these dormitories and mess-rooms and passages so far underground that even the noise of the fierce struggle outside never reached them, it was possible for troops worn out by the superhuman ordeal of the battle, to find complete rest--_to sleep_--without fear.
We entered through a large mess-room full of soldiers, with, at its further end, a kitchen, with a busy array of cooks and orderlies.

Then someone opened a door, and we found ourselves in a small room, very famous in the history of the war.

During the siege, scores of visitors from Allied and neutral countries--statesmen, generals, crowned heads--took luncheon under its canopy of flags, buried deep underground, while the storm of shell raged outside.