The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1919-01-09
HELD PRISONER
FOR -FOUR YEARS
French Judge Returns to Battered
Remains of Cambria
Home.
HID PRICELESS CITY RECORD
Refused to Leave Post When Hun
Hordes Poured Through His Coun-
try-TelIs of CrueIties infiict-
ed by Invaders.

Paris.-There reached Paris recent
ly fine-lOoking old French gentleman,
Sad-eyed, hollow-cheeked. For four
years he had been held prisoner by
the Germans in the city of Cambrai.
He had seen the Hun kaiser three
times passing through the streets of
his city which previously had been
swept by the French women. Night
| after night he had been forced to go
and sit in the railroad stations of the
city while the British bombed them.
He had seen his friends, people once
wealthy and of high birth, sent out to
dig trenches, to bury the dead and to
cultivate and weed the fields. For two
years he had only soup and cocoa for
his dinner and a Semi-monthly allow
ance of three-quarters of a pound of
meat and black bread.
Henri Bergier reached Paris just as
the news came from the front that
British and American troops had freed
his home. AS soon as he is strong
enough to travel again he will return
! there to find, if possible the priceless
records of the city which he hid i'm
! 1914 when the Huns swept across Bel
gium and invaded northern France.
Stuck to His Post.
AS judge of tribunal or court
| Of Cambrai, Bergier refused to leave
his post when the German hordes
| poured through his country In August,
| 1914. BY a trick of chance he had
| just sent his wife and three daughters
| To Boulogne-surMer, on the coast of
France for a holiday and was plan
ming to join them early In September.
The meeting was deferred just four
years. He was captured, but was
spared the bitterness of seeing his
| family subjected to the humiliations
! which came to the other women of
| Cambria. His wife and daughters at
once volunteered for hospital service
and worked so heroically for three
| years that they were decorated by the
| French government with the medal
'des epidemies ct du devouement"
! The story which Bergier brought
back was one of want and suffering.
| The Germans held him as hostage so
he was not maltreated. Whenever the
city was bombed, however, he was
| sent with three other judges, also held
| as hostages. to sit in the railway sta
| tons so that they would be killed if
the traffic centers were destroyed.
The people of the city who did not
hold official positions were treated
more summarily. The women were
| all made to do menial work of some
| kind, such as sweeping the streets
of the city or cultivating and weed
ing the fields. The young boys and
men We're sent out to dig trenches and
| to bury the dead. No one was al
lowed to leave his lodgings after seven
! o'clock at night, and no lights were
allowed at any time.
Turned Out Of Homes.
Family after family was turned out
of homes to make place for the wives
! Of the German officers who came to
stay in Cambria with their husbands
and for German actresses and sing
ers who were brought from Germany
to stage performances of grand opera
and to make merry in the casinos.
The prisons were kept filled with
offenders" One woman was thrown
into Jail because she had hidden a
copper vessel, a family heirloom, in
! defiance of the German order requisi-
tioning everything of metal from the
people. Another woman was arrested
because she read copy Of French
paper which had been dropped into the
city by allied airplanes.
Early in September Bergier was told
that an exchange had been effected
and he was to return to France. He
would be permitted to take with him
what belongings he could carry. He
found an old baby carriage with two
wheels off and patched it up with
wheels from a dismantled gun. His
clothing, though threadbare. still held
together, but he had no shoes at all.
He took the leather portfolio which
his youngest daughter had used to
carry to school and made a sort of
footgear out of 1t, using for soles the
betting from a machine in an aban-
doned factory.
Part of his journey to Belgium he
made on foot, pushing his belongings
along in the old baby carriage. Part
he made by train.
From Belgium M. Bergier went to
Switzerland, finally arriving in Paris