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They had just been reconnoitering the rooms befouled with the night's saturnalia, and were ha-haing boisterously over Captain von Hartrott's inscription, "Bitte, nicht plundern." To them it seemed the acme of wit truly Teutonic. The convoy now invaded the park with its automobiles and trucks bearing a red cross. A war hospital was going to be established in the castle.
Von Hartrott wished to protect his uncle and began tracing on the wall near the door: "Bitte, nicht plundern. Es sind freundliche Leute." In response to the old man's repeated questions, he then translated the inscription. "It means, 'Please do not sack this house. Its occupants are kind people . . . friendly people." Ah, no! . . . Desnoyers repelled this protection vehemently.
This was no accidental conflagration, mind you, for scattered here and there were houses which stood undamaged and in every such case there was scrawled with chalk upon their doors "Gute Leute. Nicht zu plundern." The Germans went about the work of house-burning as systematically as they did everything else. They had various devices for starting conflagrations, all of them effective.
He did not wish to be kind. He was silent because he could not be anything else. . . . But a friend of the invaders of his country! . . . No, NO, NO! His nephew rubbed out part of the lettering, leaving the first words, "Bitte, nicht plundern." Then he repeated the scrawled request at the entrance of the park.
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