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Updated: May 15, 2025
In haste the wounded were sent to Épernay to save them from being made prisoners. But some could not go: Louis de St. Pol and his friend Captain Jean de Visgnes. De Visgnes might have been hidden in the St. Pol house but he would not leave the boy, who could not be moved so far. The Curé vowed to hide both, and he did hide them in a chapel of the Cathedral itself.
None save the family were asked to the marriage, because it was dangerous to go from house to house; yet all Rheims loved Liane, and meant to wish happiness for bride and bridegroom as the chapel-bells chimed for their union. But the bells began and never finished. At the instant when Liane de St. Pol and Jean de Visgnes became man and wife a bomb fell on the chapel roof.
It was on this night that the Curé made up his mind to volunteer, and soon he was at the Front. Nearly three years passed before he and De Visgnes met again, both en permission, travelling back to Rheims to pass their "perm." Jean was now engaged to Liane de St. Pol who, with her parents, had remained in the bombarded town, refusing to desert their poor protegées.
The two planned to marry, after the war; but Liane had been struck by a flying fragment of shell, and wounded in the head. De Visgnes could bear the separation no longer. He made the girl promise to marry him at once in the chapel of the old house, as she was still suffering, and forbidden to go out.
The Curé told afterward how wonderful the sight was with the jewelled windows lighting up for the last time, before the old glass burst with the shrill tinkle of a million crystal bells. He and Jean de Visgnes carried Louis de St. Pol out into the street, but the boy died before they reached his father's house, and De Visgnes had a dangerous relapse.
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