A PRIEST'S SAD STORY.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 4 May 1917, Page 2

A PRIEST'S SAD STORY.

BUTALITY OF GERMANS.

BURNING OF A CHURCH

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28

'A story that has fired all America with intense indignation reached New York from an American correspondent with the British forces in France, and gave .striking evidence of the iron rule exercised by Germans over the French population in captured territory, and the utter indifference displayed by the French towards their captors. The American, writing on March 2(5,

says:—This is the story of the priest of Voyeunes, Monsieur Le Cure Canon, who stood to-day in the shadow of the still hot walls of his church, which had been set alight by the Germans the day they slipped away from this plain little village perched above the \ alley of the Somme. Flashes of passionate protest mingled with a spirit of proud resignation in his recital of the life at Voyennes during the two and a-half years of German control — a civil imprisonment which ended a week ago when, through field-glasses from the loft of his presbytery, the priest, who also was acting Mayor, saw four khaki-clad horsemen on the road, and knew that the Germans had gone and British relief was at hand.

"PARIS IS DEAD." The cure told how a few narrow scars of earth, known as German trenches, ribbons of barbed-wire behind them, and a bit of shell torn waste, called "No Man's Land/' had isolated a section of the French people from their country as effectually as if they had been suddenly transplanted in another hemisphere. He told how in Yoyennes women, children, and old men lived and toiled for the invaders in utter ignorance of what was going oil in the world about thGm, just

as other thousands still shut within the German lines arc living toiling and wondering to-day. They are told long ago that their beautiful Paris was to fall within a week and would be pillaged and burned. Later they were told that '' Paris is dead.'' The inhabitants of Voyennes submitted to enemy domination with heads erect and patient calmness that the Germans could not understand. "We will break your pride," Prussian officers declared, "and make them slaves. All France shall fall at our feet." THE DEFIANCE OF FRANCE. Palo, drawn and old, as was the cure, nevertheless he seemer imbued with sudden, defiant strength as he raised him--self to his full height and continued. "I told them that never again would France yield to such a foe. They taunted us and said they would crush Europe in a few months. We replied that Europe would fight five years and longer if : necessary. Sometimes they laughed •scornfully at this, but lately they could ..ot contain their fury that the warwas lasting so long." "And did the people suffer much " he was asked. "All. yes," he replied. "Our food did not last long. Then we had to work for the Germans and take what they gave us. Sometimes it was so bad that even the cats refused to eat it. Then the Americans began to feed us, and that saved thousands of lives. Our people are very grateful. But let us not dwell on the physical side to-day, but speak of the mental and moral anguish we endured, for it seemed like the span of a hundred years. It lias left us all bul imbecile. I scarce can ! keep my vagrant thoughts together." On the last Sunday of the German occupation, when early Mass was over, the German commandant at Voyennes : appeared at the church with soldiers bearing jpatrol cans. He bluntly told the priest that he was tired of the war and, as one means of bringing the end nearer, he was going to burn the church. The priest was compelled to look on impotently while the inflammable liquid was sprayed about and the torch applied in a dozen places. Of all the ancient interior, only the wooden crucifix against th e altar walk- by some strange chance, escaped the flames. Late at night the Germans rode away. Not another building in all Voyennes was touched.