Where the Sabots Clatter Again

"Yes, Madame, when one has need of them."

"Is it possible? And for nothing? Ah, that is good, that is generous. Tonight I shall tell Sainte Claire about you. Would you like to see my 'tiote[1] Sainte Claire?" We followed her back through a little yard and down into a cellar. "You see, Mesdames, when the villains bombarded Noyon, I stayed right here. I wasn't going to leave my home for those people. One night the convent opposite was struck, and the next morning in the street I found my Sainte Claire. She wasn't harmed at all, lying on her back in the mud. 'Now God will protect me,' I said, and I picked her up in my arms and carried her into my house. And Sainte Claire said to me, 'Place me down in the cave, and you will be safe.' So I brought her down."

[Footnote 1: Dialect for petite.]

She led us to a tiny underground apartment, probably a vegetable cellar, and there, on a bracket jutting from the mildewed wall, stoo