The crusading courage of whole-hearted youth, the contempt of death and suffering, the splendid and tireless energy which his pages describe, if they touch other English hearts as deeply as they have touched mine, will go a long way towards that spiritual bond between our nations which alone can make real and lasting things out of Leagues and Treaties.
[9] _America in France_, by Lt.-Col.

Frederick Palmer, S.C., U.S.A.
It was on our way from Rheims to Paris after our drive through the Champagne battle-field that we passed rapidly through the places and scenes which Colonel Palmer describes.
As we approached Rheims about midday, a thick white fog rolled suddenly and silently over the chalk uplands that saw General Gouraud's campaign of last September and October.

We ran through it, past a turning to Moronvilliers on the left--famous name!--and within a short distance of Nogent l'Abbesse, the fort which did most to wreck Rheims Cathedral, and so down in a dreary semi-darkness into Rheims itself.
Thirty-five years ago I was in Rheims for the first and only time, before this visit.

It was in September, not long before the vintage.
The town and the country-side were steeped in sunlight, and in the golden riches of Mother Earth.

The air indeed, as it shimmered in the heat above the old town, and the hill slopes where the famous vineyards lie, seemed to "drop fatness." Wealth, wine, the body and its pleasures, the cunning handicraft and inherited lore of hundreds of years and many generations seemed to take visible shape in the fine old town, in its vast wine-cellars, and in the old inn where we stayed with its Gargantuan bill of fare, and its _abonnes_ from the town, ruddy, full-fleshed citizens, whose achievements in the way of eating and drinking we watched with amazement.