TRIAL OF THE HUN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16506, 6 August 1919, Page 9

TRIAL OF THE HUN.

DEVASTATION AT NOYON. A CURE EOR PACIFISTS. (Morning J’ost's Correspondent) PARIS, Juno 5. Pacifists might to be to take the cure at Noyon. Those snlicring from the plague el catchwords winch miest the Peace Conference might hud in the old Gallic city another Lourdes, which might rid them oi all their troubles. Only it is hard tn get certain people to visit such places as Noyon, almost as hard as it "was to prevail upon Naaman, War Lord of Syria, to go and bathe in the waters of .lordan, Jt is unfortunate because a practically certain cure could he guaranteed. Arras, Ypres. Verdun, are associated with great battles; amidst these ruins the German could shrug his shoulders and'say, “It is a pity, hut it is ware’ Compiognc iv.w once the French Genera! Headquarters, and there is, therefore, some justification for the havoc wrought by the nightly showers of German bombs! even for that long, ruined street in Son]is there might lie found some faint excuse in a soldiery new to war and maddened by fear. But Xovon is a beautiful eity shamelessly and systematically ih: -droved ; no justification, military or otherwise, can be Found for this ruthless aci of a beaten foe; it would he impossible for even Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, after a brief hour spent amidst its blackened portals, over again to love the Hun as a brother.

Noyon had a cathedral, one of the glories of France. Little wonder that Robert Louis Stevenson once expressed a desire to be Bishop of Noyon. 'Hie cathedral can be restored —at a price, hut Monseignenr Lagne.au (Stevenson really could not have become Bishop ol Noyon for the Bishopric disappeared with the Concordat and is now merged in that of Beauvais) told me it is going in bo done. It is really the doyen ot French Gothic cathedrals. Hie perfect monument of Hint transition period between Romanesque and Gothic. Even now it is lovely in its ruins; its beauty rises, protesting amidst all this desolation. For the Hun did his work well. After he retired last year lie fired over six hundred heavy Atolls alone' on the city, and the cathedral got its share. Even before he left he had begun his work. Monseignenr Lrignean himself told me that some of his parishioners look refuge in the cathedral during the excitement caused by the enemy’s departure. and that they saw the Huns deliberately set fire to the organ and then to the roof, A temporary covering of corrugated' iron—a hideous glistening thing—affords some protection to the “hare, ruined choirs.” All around is crumbling masonry and broken statuary. Attempts were made to hold services in the nave, hut no congregation, however determined, eonld worship in such circumstances. Monseignenr Lagueau, however, has succeeded in improvising the beautiful Salle Capitnlaire. and there th.e faithful of Noyon daily assemble. VANDALISM WITHOUT EXCUSE.

The city itself is completely ruined. The delightful Hotel de Ville is now a mass of battered ruins and shattered j masonry; its fine Renaissance facade however, still stands, Tho place where Charlemagne was born, where Ilngucs Capet was crowned in 957, has suffered the full blast of the linn’s rage. And, ns Mniiseiguenr Lagueau insisted, there was not the slightest justification for this vandalism. General Humbert’s army did not reach Noyon until the town had been marked. Indeed, as the General told Monseigneur, it would have been dangerous for troops to have entered the town as some engineers reported that the Germans had placed six large retarded mines in the streets. The Germans destroyed Noyon because they had been beaten in the field; it is one of the worst outrages of the war. The people of Noyon, however, love their ruins. Out of a population of about seven thousand, two thousand have returned. Some of them get permission to return for a day’s visit; but they cannot tear themselves away from those shattered bouses and .silent streets and so they camp in this wilderness of stone. Some earn a living by working under the orders of tho municipality at swooping up the ruins, others are engaged in the countryside filling up shellboles and tre.nolies. AH are content and amazingly healthy—when one considers that there is no water in the town and that the sanitary conditions are appalling. “We have three doctors and two chemists in Noyon,” said Monseignenr with a. twinkle in his eye, “bat our people will not die.” They live, of course, under every possible inconvenience, though the food' supply is remarkably good. Hie great trouble is furniture. Monseignenr, after much difficulty, succeeded in getting a number of chairs for his services in the Salle Capitnlaire. They disappear every now and then, and he sometimes finds them in the bare apartments of some of the laithful. “God,” lie says to the abashed purlniners, “docs not object to vour borrowing His chairs for a little, but 1 believe Ho really wants them for to-mor-row's Mass;” and the chairs are there Hie next morning.

All tho villages around Novon are ruined, but not deserted. Life' returns to these poor shelters with the persistence and hope of_ spring. The little village churches—Norman pillars and Renaissance ornamentation—have particularly suffered. Fruit-tree stumps, battered churches, that is the talc of the Noyon countryside. More than one euro told me with tears in his eyes of the wanton destruction of his church, and of the efforts being made to secure some little corner where tho villagers can worship, protected from wind and rain. It is hard to find such corners. Woods grow on Hie interior pillars, and tho .‘•■wallow and sparrow of the Psalmist can build their nests on those broken altars.