METZ ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 152, 22 March 1919, Page 8

METZ ON CHRISTMAS DAY

A MIDNIGHT MASS OP THANKSGIVING.

Christmas—and tlie French in Mclz. Three months before n J ho would juive dicaint it? (writes the special correspondent of the London "Times");

"Well, Mou General," said M. Clemenceau to General Maud'huy, the Governor, "are you happy in Metis?" "Monsieur," ho answered, "if I had to diange places with lo bon Dieu, I should ask you to give ine a moment lo make up my mind."

A moment later General Maud'huy was teaching tlie children to pronounce tho name of th-eir town, not "Metz," but "Mess," as do Ihe true Messins.

In tho evening midnight- -Mass was celebrated in t'lie cathedral. That has not happened in Molz on Christmas Eve since 1870. The Germans felt that their hold on tlie people was too shaky, and they were afraid to allow it.

"It is a big day for France," said a young American officer who 'was standing by me at the end of the nave lmlf an hour before service began. The beautiful church was already packed from ond to end and from aisle to aisle, mostly with soldiers, and stiil they came crowding in, tho sound of their feet on the pavement drowned by tho ceaseless tolling far above our heads of the great "mute," the bell which used to be rung in .tho old limes on days when , there were cnieutes, or riots, in the town. When its last echoes trembled into silence along the shadowy vaultings of the root' there wa>j a suddeu itumult of brass and rolling of drums as a military band crashed out a triumphal inarch. For it was a soldiers' Mass, and a Mass of thanksgiving for victory and (lie freeing of tho city, and tho only communicants were soldiers. High over t'lie altar, which was barely visible as a, thing of real substance in the heavy shadows behind the lights, two proud tricolour flags carried the outlines of the slender Gothic arch up into the darkness above, and on each column all the long way down the church, below twinkling clusters of lights, were Hags of the blue, white, and red of tho Hepublic. After llie thunder of the soldiers' march the organ took up the service of triumph and thanksgiving and prayer and penitence of Army and Church and people.

Among the congregation were a number of Deputies and members of the Paris Municipal Council, who presented to the municipality of Metz the Hag which in 1S7!) floated over tho' Hotel de Ville of llie town, and has been kept in I'aris ever since, waiting for the day of deliverance.