PRIEST'S SAD STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1917, Page 5

PRIEST'S SAD STORY.

•BRUTALITY 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 Franco, and gave striking evidence of the iron rule exercised by Germany over the French population in captured territory, and l the utter indifference, displayed by the French toward their captors. The American, writing on March 20. says:—This is the story of the priest of Voyennes, Monsieur Le Cure Oaron, who stood to-day in the shadow of the still liot 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 valley of ■ the Somme. Flashes of passionate protest mingled with a spirit op proud resignation i/i his recital of the life, at Voyennes during the two and a-half years of Genrmna control i-a civil imprisonment which ended a week ago when," through fleld-glasse3 from the loft of his presbytery, the priest, who also was acting Mayor, saw four khaki-clad horsement on the. road; and knew that the Germans had gone and- British relief was at hand,

"PARISJS 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 a3 effectually as if they had been suddenly transplanted to another hemisphere. He told how.in Voyennes women, children, and old men lived and toiled for the invaders in utter ignorance of what was going on in the world about them, just as other thousands still shut within, the German lines are living, toiling and wondering to-day. They were told long ago that their beautiful Paris .was to fall within a week and would be pillaged and burned. Later they were told "Paris is dead." The inhabitants of Voyennes submitted to enemy domination "vith heads erect and patient calmness that the Germans could not understand. "We will break your pride," Prussian officers declared, "and make you slaves. All France shall fall at our feet"

THE DEFIANCE OF FRANCE. Pale, drawn and old, as -was the cure, nevertheless he seemed imbued -with sudden, defiant strength as he raised himself to his full height and continued. "I toW them that never again would France yield to such a foe. They taunted us and sal* they would crush Eurqpe in a few months. We replied that France would fight five years and more if necessary. Sometimes they laughed scornfully at this, but lately they could not contain their fury that the war was lasting so long." "And did the people suffer much t" he 'was asked. "Ah, yes," he replied. "Our food did'not last long. Then we had to work for the Germuns 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 arc 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 has left .us all but imbecile. I scarce can keep my vagrant thoughts together." On the last Sunday of the German occupation, when early Mass over, the German commandant at Voyennes appeared at the church wi r h soldiers bearing petrol cans, He bluntly told the priest that he was tired of the war and, as one means of 'bringing the end nearer, he was <'oing 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 the altar wall, by some strange chiiiwe, escaped the flames. Late at night the Germans rode away. Not another building in all Voyennes was 'touched.