[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. Then Sainte Claire said to me, ’The Boches are coming.  Take half of your potatoes and bring them down here.’  I had a beautiful pile of potatoes, Madame, just harvested.  But I took only half and put them in a sack and stuffed it with hay.  For thirteen months, Madame, I slept on those potatoes.  Then Sainte Claire said, ’Take half your wine, and put it down the well.’  I wanted to hide it all, but she said ‘No, take only half.’  And I sunk one hundred bottles, Madame, of my best wine in the well.  The Boches came.  Five of them came to my house.  Five grands gaillards with square heads.  Oh, they are ugly, Madame!  ‘Show us your wine,’ they ordered.  ’It is there, Messieurs, in the cellar,’ I answered meek as a lamb.  And they all began drinking till they were drunk.  Then one of them dragged me down here by the arm, and for thirteen months, Madame, I lived in this hole with Sainte Claire while they possessed my house.  They made me cook for them, the animals; but I should have starved, Madame, if I had not had my potatoes.  Then the French began their bombardment.  Ah, it was terrible, Madame, to be bombarded by one’s friends.  I did not leave this cave, and I prayed and prayed, ‘Sainte Claire, save me once more!’ and Sainte Claire replied, ‘The French are coming.  We shall not be hurt.’  One morning it was suddenly quiet:  the cannon had stopped.  I listened and heard nothing, and I came up into my house.  It was empty, Madame.  The Boches had gone.  One shell had fallen through the roof into my bedroom—­that was all.  But ah, Madame! Noyon, pauvre Noyon! She was like a corpse. Ah lala, lala!  Que’malheur! The next day our soldiers came.  Ah, how glad I was.  And I asked Sainte Claire, ’May I not go to the well and bring up a bottle of wine?’ And she said ‘No, not yet.’  So we waited, Madame, until the day of the Armistice.  Then Sainte Claire said, ’Now you may go and bring up all the wine.’  And, Madame, what do you think?  I went to the well and I hauled up the wine and out of the hundred bottles only two were broken.”  The old woman laughed with delight at the trick she had played on the invader.