The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-27
TO BATTLE FIELDS

now eking out an existence among
the ruins. He visited Red Cross car
| teens where hundreds of destitute per-
sons are fed night and day and the
hospital where the SICK ana INJURED
are cared for The champagne cell
lars beneath the CITY said to contain
some 7O,OO0,000 bottles of wine, were
not visited.
Like Graveyard in Moonlight.
A light blanket of snow covered
the ground as the president drove up
to the cathedral and Rheims, ravished
and naked in all its misery and desc
Iation, looking like a graveyard in
the moonlight. There were more
crows in the air, circling over the
ruined. town than were human be-
ings below in the Uttered streets
Cardinal Lucon, archbishop of
Rheims, who stood stea dfastly by his
charge for four years. during which
time scarcely a day passed without
German shell hurting death into the
city, met the president at the fence
of rough boards which now excludes
curiosity seekers and encloses the rub
bish int which this most historic edi-
flee has been reduced. The cardinal
conducted Mr.. Wilson to the nave o.
the cathedral, where in 1914, the Ger
| mans, during their short occupation of
the city, placed their wounded, and
then, being forced to evaeuate. burned
their men to death by incend:.-ry
shells that fired the roof, but did not
DANA ge the vault.
Four Years OF Destruction.
All over the Tagging, worn smooth
| thru the years by millions of feet
| bringing Frenchmen to an hours de-
votion, were piled heaps of rubbish.
remnants of statuary and frescoes and
| fragments of columns and sculptures
| which were accounted the most per-
En-. ~1NH<
art. AS the president and the cardinal
stood together looking upward, while
| the prelate briefly recounted the story
| of four years of constant destruction,
they looked straight thru to the cloud
| ed sky. The snow furry that was COW
ering the bare ruins of the city out
side also was laying blanket upon
| the inside of the cathedral.
| The chalky stone of Champagne of
which the cathedral was built is seal
ing off from the effects of German fire
and the falling snow flakes were
mixed with an almost constant drop
| ping of fragments. Passing moment
before the scene of the crucifix above
/ the north door, and before the paint
ing of the coronation of the Virgin,
over the central door, Mr. Wilson ST
| lently viewed the destruction wrought
| upon those masterpieces by the burn
ing of the scaffolding when the Ger
mans set fire to the roof of the edifice.
Ruins of Statues Seen.
Ruins of statues lie about the side
door and the great rose window. said
to be the most beautiful in the world.
where Field Marshal Won Moltke in
1910 sat and watched the sunset,
is shattered by shell fire until it looks
like camouflage set up by the roa dside.
| Mr.. Wilson followed the cardinal to
the ruins of the chapel where old
time kings watched thru the night at
the time of their amounting and to the
f.f tfa 49,.
] Flemish tapestries were ruined.
Thousands of Shells.
He was shown where thousands of
shells thrown from German batteries
on two sides burst among the but
tresses which support the main struc-
ture, and where forests of sculptures
which ornament the structure have
been Scared, nicked and torn by frag-
ments from the big shells. but very few
of which ever reached the vault.
/ Part of the vault, however, lies
heap of twisted and erumpled wreck
age upon the main altar. where it was
| thrown by explosions which wrecked
most of the stained glass thirteenth
century windows. Cardinal Ducon
itook Mr. Wilson outside and they
i. to a point from which they could view
the shell-riddled painting of the last
judgment above the south door, the
symbols from Noah's/ Ark about the
Anne and dozens of other works of art
of which virtually none esca ped.
Gave Wilson Glass.
As they left the cathedral, the car
dinal gave the president a stained glass
panel from one of the windows. taken
down in time to save 1t. The panel
was unsecured 1t is circular and
about three feet in diameter. 1t shows
a figure of the Savior done in many
colored glass of the early centuries
From the cathedral the president
drove TO view the ruins of the town
hall. spacious specimen of the
Rena lisa nee style OF architecture and
the Palais oRyale, an eighteenth cen
fury edifice. These two. with the ca
thedral, comprised the most celebrat-
ed historical -mesnorials of Rheims and
not one has escaped