Tonight I shall tell Sainte Claire about you. Would you like to see my
'_tiote[1] Sainte Claire_?" We followed her back through a little yard
and down into a cellar. "You see, Mesdames, when the villains bombarded
Noyon, I stayed right here. I wasn't going to leave my home for those
people. One night the convent opposite was struck, and the next morning
in the street I found my Sainte Claire. She wasn't harmed at all, lying
on her back in the mud. 'Now God will protect me,' I said, and I picked
her up in my arms and carried her into my house. And Sainte Claire said
to me, 'Place me down in the cave, and you will be safe.' So I brought
her down."
[Footnote 1: Dialect for _petite_.]
She led us to a tiny underground apartment, probably a vegetable cellar,
and there, on a bracket jutting from the mildewed wall, stood the
painted plaster image of the saint.
"_Voila ma Sainte Claire!_" exclaimed the old peasant woman, crossing
herself. "She and I have lived down here during the bombardment and the
entire occupation. She has protected me. Look, Madame--" and she showed
us a corner of the ceiling that had been newly repaired. "The _obus_
passed through here, and never touched us. I kept on praying to the
Sainte, and she said, 'Do not move and you will be safe.' All night I
was on my knees before her, and toward morning the house was hit--only
one meter away the wall fell down, and we were not harmed, Madame,
neither the Sainte nor I.
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