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The investment began; while the sick opened the first parallels of prayer, the sound pitched the tents; the camp extended for leagues on all sides; tapers were kept burning on the carts, and at night La Beauce was a champaign of stars.
But the poetry of the Pleiad is true not only to the physiognomy of its age, but also to its country ce pays du Vendomois the names and scenery of which so often recur in it; the great Loire, with its long spaces of white sand; the little river Loir; the heathy, upland country, with its scattered pools of water and waste road-sides, and retired manors, with their crazy old feudal defences half fallen into decay; La Beauce, the granary of France, where the vast rolling fields of corn seem to anticipate the great western sea itself.
Thus all the Loire and the water-way was in the power of France, wherefore the English marched off through the country called La Beauce, which then lay desert and overgrown with wild wood, by reason of the war.
The vineyards of Burgundy, the interminable cornfields of the Beauce, had failed to yield their increase; the looms of Lyons were silent; and the merchant ships were rotting in the harbour of Marseilles. Yet the monarchy presented to its numerous enemies a front more haughty and more menacing than ever.
"In Beauce, on the Orleans and Chartres side, some brigands and prowlers, with hostile intent, dressed as pig-dealers or cow-drivers, came to the little castle of Murs, close to Corbeil, and finding outside the gate the master of the place, who was a knight, asked him to get them back their pigs, which his menials, they said, had the night before taken from them, which was false.
Really, from my own experience, I pity the young priest who is sent as a beginner to evangelize la Beauce. "He arrives full of illusions, dreaming of Apostolic triumphs, burning to devote himself and he drops into silence and the void.
'The maiden was a fair piece, he tittered. 'Therefore you must spoil the ring of the coin, she answered. He sighed: 'Then eat you with me. "Soli cantare periti Arcades." But it is cold here alone of nights. They ate goat and green leeks sweetened with honey, and wood thrushes pickled in wine, and salt fish from the mouth of the Beauce.
Beyond the Loire, to the south-east of Beauce and Orleans, lies the sheep-breeding region called Sologne, which the Germans would have had to cross had they prosecuted their intended march on Bourges. Here cavalry and artillery are of little use, the country abounding in streams, ponds, and marshes.
The environs of the little town of Sceaux enjoy a reputation due to the scenery, which is considered enchanting. Perhaps it is quite ordinary, and owes its fame only to the stupidity of the Paris townsfolk, who, emerging from the stony abyss in which they are buried, would find something to admire in the flats of La Beauce.
We always remember with emotion the end of a letter written, two or three years ago, by one of these young and valiant missionaries, the son of poor parents in Beauce. He was writing to his mother from the heart of Japan, and thus concluded his letter: "Adieu, my dear mother! they say there is much danger where I am now sent to.
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