



73 



flicts. If provided with a proper passport, he was allowed 

 to cross the French lines, although not unchallenged, 

 yet unmolested, and after a drive of a few hundred yards, 

 would find himself in a district occupied almost exclu- 

 sively by Germans. Hardly a villager belonging to the 

 small villages outside the city walls, had ventured to re- 

 main by his property. The triumphant Germans were 

 filled with content, and good nature, and cordially cour- 

 teous to the few Americans who came to inspect the 

 obstacles which had been overcome, and to learn the dan-* 

 gers German heroism had faced and survived. 



O 



It was owing to this condition of the troops, that a 

 common travelling pass bearing the official seal and en- 

 dorsement of the foreign department at Berlin, dated 

 four days previous, secured for its bearer admission to 

 forts Valerian and Rosny, and past German sentries to 

 the heights of Mt. Avron. 



With the exception of such relics of the late battles as 

 the German troops had removed, the field of conflict 

 seemed UHgleaned. Although it was well known that 

 terms of peace had been signed ; during a day's ramble 

 among the forts and over battle fields but-a few miles out- 

 side Paris, not a Frenchman was met. Fragments of shell 

 of which those exhibited were specimens, lay "thickly 

 strewn over the heights of Mt. Avron, and showed at a 

 glance, how untenable the Germans, by their concentrated 

 fire, had made this advanced position of the French. 



The effect of the German fire upon Fort Rosny, one 

 of the most severely bombarded of the works about 

 Paris, showed the impracticability of large barracks in 

 the interior of forts. For such buildings furnish an ex- 

 cellent mark for the enemy, and precarious shelter for 

 troops. The large stone buildings in Rosny had been, as 

 it were, eviscerated by exploding bombs, and converted 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN. m 10 



