Whose heart does not beat the faster when the names Soisson and Mme.

Presently they arrive at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, through which thousands of German troops are now passing, bound not for Paris, but for Soissons and the Aisne, and in the blackest of tempers.

The following day, after having suffered every kind of insult and privation, the wretched remnant of the civilian prisoners reached Soissons, and were dispatched to Germany, bound for the concentration camp at Erfurt.

They seem to have settled at Soissons, where now a great church stands in their honour.

At the end of the third year, the French line ran from northwest of Soissons, through Rheims, to Auberive.

Continuing their drive toward Paris, the Germans occupied Soissons on May 29, Fère-en-Tardenois May 30, and next day reached Chateau Thierry and other points on the Marne, where they were halted by the French.

On Thursday morning, July 18, 1918, a heavy attack was launched in force at the Germans under General von Boehm all along the line from Chateau Thierry on the Marne to the Aisne river northwest of Soissons.

By the 20th of July Soissons was threatened by the Allies.

For ten days the Allies continued their victorious progress on both sides of the Soissons-Reims salient, the Germans continuing to retire under strong pressure.

Soissons was retaken on August 2, and the valley of the Crise was crossed by the Allies, who dominated the plains in the German rear with their big guns.

Paris is not in danger, Soissons and Chateau Thierry have been reconquered, and more than villages have been delivered.

It also establishes the fact that the Marines who helped stop the German drive on Paris at Belleau wood early in June were honored by being brought from this wood to Vierzy and Tigny, near Soissons, for participation with a crack French division in the great counter-attack which started the disintegration of the German front in the west.

The 26th attacked again on the 21st, and the enemy withdrew past the Château-Thierry-Soissons road.

In France, the cities of Lille, Turcoing, Roubaix, Douai, Lens, Cambrai, St. Quentin, Peronne, Laon, Soissons, Noyon, La Bassee, Bapaume, St. Mihiel, Chateau Thierry, Grand Pre, Soissons, Vouziers, LaFere, LeCateau, Juniville, Craonne, and Machault were reoccupied.

They continued, however, to pit wild or savage animals against one another, and to train dogs to fight with lions, tigers, bears, and bulls; otherwise it would be difficult to explain the restoration by King Chilpéric (A.D. 577) of the circuses and arenas at Paris and Soissons.

The wealth of the Frank kings, which was always very great, was a continual object of envy, and on one occasion Chilpéric I., King of Soissons, having the Leudes in league with him, laid his hands on the wealth amassed by his father, Clotaire I., which was kept in the Palace of Braine.

The arm-chair of Marie herself had fortunately been placed above a beam which held firm, and to which the President Jeannin resolutely clung, thus breaking his fall; but MM. de Soissons, d'Epernon, de Bassompierre, de Villeroy, and several others were less fortunate, and all were more or less gravely injured.

Among others the Duc de Vendôme, who had so recently solicited his pardon, and declared his intention of adhering to the royal cause, was conspicuous in the ranks of the enemy; together with the young Duc de Candale, the son of D'Epernon, who had embraced the reformed faith, the Duc de Piney-Luxembourg, and the Dowager Countess of Soissons, who withdrew from the Court at Tours, and joined her son at Loudun.

The two first Princes of the Blood, M. de Condé and the Comte de Soissons, had at this period a serious quarrel as to who should present the finger-napkin to the King at the dinner-table; Condé claiming that privilege as first Prince of the Blood, and Soissons maintaining that it was his right as Grand Master of the Royal Household.

The two first Princes of the Blood, M. de Condé and the Comte de Soissons, had at this period a serious quarrel as to who should present the finger-napkin to the King at the dinner-table; Condé claiming that privilege as first Prince of the Blood, and Soissons maintaining that it was his right as Grand Master of the Royal Household.

But although the two angry Princes were compelled to yield the object of contention, he could not reduce them to silence; and this absurd dissension immediately split the Court into two factions; the Duc de Guise and the friends of the favourite declaring themselves for Condé; while Mayenne, Longueville, and several others espoused the cause of the Comte de Soissons.

The Comte de Soissons, who had been exiled from the Court for resenting the arrogance of the Cardinal, had found an asylum with the Duc de Bouillon at Sedan, where it had, after considerable difficulty, been conceded that he should be permitted to remain unmolested for the space of four years, after which time he was to remove to some other residence selected by the King, or in point of fact, by Richelieu himself.

Anxious to strengthen their faction at home, Soissons, confiding in the frequent professions of attachment which had been lavished upon him by Gaston d'Orléans, wrote to that Prince to explain their motives and purposes, and to induce him to join in the conspiracy.

The battle, fatal as it was in the aggregate, nevertheless afforded one signal triumph to Richelieu in the death of the Comte de Soissons, who was killed by the pistol-ball of a gendarme, to whom, as a recompense for the murder of his kinsman, Louis XIII accorded both a government and a pension.

So busy were we helping those who had slept at the chateau to depart, that I had no time to put my first intentions into execution, and when finally I had a moment, I looked out of the window and saw that my friends from Soissons had vanished.