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One evening I was sitting alone in the salle a manger of the Couronne d'Or, at Boulogne, when Colonel G , an old acquaintance, came in. After the first greeting, he took a chair, and was soon as busily occupied as I was with a cigar, which was occasionally removed from our lips, as we asked and replied to questions as to what had been our pursuits subsequently to our last rencontre.
I can only bear witness that the two French staff officers who walked with us along the Grand Couronné one of whom had been in the battle of September 8th were positive that the Kaiser was not in the neighbourhood at the time, and that there was no truth at all in the famous story which describes him as watching the battle from the edge of the Forest of Champenoux, and riding off ahead of his defeated troops, instead of making, as he had reckoned, a triumphant entry into Nancy.
Rested and in excellent condition, they turned rejoicing upon the enemy, and, in concert with the French 6th Army, decided the German withdrawal. Every one of the six Armies aligned across France, from Paris to the Grand Couronne, had its own glorious task in the defeat of the German plans.
"He is a hard case," men said; "and if he had a grudge against anyone, he would be quite capable of lying in ambush and shooting him as he would a squirrel." Meanwhile the rider had drawn rein at the inn of the Boeuf Couronne. He alighted from his horse, and, crossing the square, approached the church.
At the inn there were vacant rooms, and that hasty welcome accorded to the traveller at wayside houses where none stay longer than they can help. 'No, said the landlord, in answer to the General's query. 'We are not busy, though we expect a lady who will pass the hour of the siesta here and then proceed northward. 'Il est rare que la tete des rois soit faite a la mesure de leur couronne.
Si les Russes entroient par la Nouvele Marche ou quil nous arivat un Malheur en Lusace, il faudroit que tout Se transportat a Magdebourg, enfin Le Derni& refuge est a Stetein, mais il ne hut y all&r qu'a La Derniere exstremite La Guarnisson la famille Royalle et le Tressort sent Inseparables et vont toujours ensemble il faut y ajouter les Diamans de la Couronne, et L'argenterie des Grands Apartements qui en pareil cas ainsi que la Veselle d'or doit etre incontinant Monoyee.
It is understandable for this reason why it sometimes happens that pieces refused by all theatrical managers obtain a prodigious success when by a stroke of chance they are put on the stage. The recent success of Francois Coppee's play "Pour la Couronne" is well known, and yet, in spite of the name of its author, it was refused during ten years by the managers of the principal Parisian theatres.
Jean bowed and made to leave the room; but suddenly the Abbé Bordier beckoned him to stop and asked abruptly: "You understand the rules of verse?" "Latin verse?" queried Jean. "No, no! French verse. Now, would you rhyme trône with couronne? The rhyme is not, it must be allowed, quite satisfactory to the ear, yet the usage of the great writers authorizes it."
Alas! the morning was dull and misty when we left Nancy for Amance and the Grand Couronné; so that when we stood at last on the famous ridge immediately north of the town which saw, on September 8th, 1914, the wrecking of the final German attempt on Nancy, there was not much visible except the dim lines of forest and river in the plain below.
Had I departed that day for Beaugency, it is likely that you had never heard of me leastways, not from my own pen for in what so far I have told you, without that which is to follow, there is haply little that was worth the labour of setting down. In the morning, then, I set out; but having started late, we got no farther than Grenade, where we lay the night once more at the Hotel de la Couronne.
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