"I was enabled today to see the effects of the barbarous second bombardment delivered against the historic buildings of the town. The effect of this ruin on an observer brought suddenly face to face for the first time in his life with utter desolation is more than one can hope to [describe]. The crime is one of which the world must know ...

"On the morning [of the bombardment] a thunderstorm of shells began to fall on the [town square]. One of the last of the German shells caught the tower [of the Hotel de Ville] midway and sent the upper hall crashing into the prepared bed of featureless debris from the comely facades and the vaulted rooms. A central beauty of northern France for some 500 years perished in a second.

"[As I left] the night was falling quickly. I was turning for a last look at the fire and the gloomy city, when across the darkness, as if melting it with electric flame, shot the white light of the French avenging guns. The shaft, the stab of light in the half-darkness, gave just the same strange sense of power as the noise of these magnificent guns. It seemed as much a part of the cosmic scheme as lightning and thunder."