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Updated: May 11, 2025
After coal mines and squalid narrow streets, the woods of Lorette, the little village of Bouvigny, and the open country were delightful, for the scenery to the south was all very pleasing. Games of all descriptions were our programme for the first two days, while our chief amusement was to watch the enemy's attempts to hit the observation balloon above us.
I still see the grim desolation of the Ypres salient; the heaps of ugly wreck that men call Lens and Lieviny and Souchez; and that long line of Notre Dame de Lorette, with the Bois de Bouvigny to the west of it where I stood among Canadian batteries just six weeks before the battle of Arras in 1917.
By this time we had reached a village called Bouvigny. We were so tired that our legs were as stiff as stakes, and for a long while we had needed a great deal of courage to take a single step. We were certain that the Prussians were no longer near, and as I had money we went into an inn and asked for a bed. I took out a six-franc piece in order to let them see that we could pay.
Westwards across the valley whence our troops stormed the hill, rises the Bouvigny Wood, and the long, blood-stained ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette, where I stood just before the battle, in 1917. To the north we are looking through the horizon shadows to La Bassée, Bailleul, and the Salient.
Topping a little rise, the moon came out bright, and away ahead the silver ribbon of the Souchez gleamed for an instant; the bare poles that once had been Bouvigny Wood were behind us, and to the right, to the left, a pulverized ruin where houses had stood.
In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of the emperor's abdication.
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