The great cathedral at Rheims is whole again--made so, like the library at Louvain, by the money of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Monday, the Archbishop or France sprinkled holy water on its altar and solemnly restored the splendid pile to the religious functions for which it has not been used since the first German shell came crashing into it in May, 1915. But that mighty wheel of jeweled loveliness, that glorious rose window which was the wonder and the envy and the despair of all the earth, is not there. Only its shards are there now. For not all the king's horses can undo the work of the German guns in that regard. And the art that set it there long ago in the Sixteenth century is gone the way of the art of Thebes and Memphis and Ninevah--there is no man left who knows or may guess its secret, and none knows how to call forth its beauty again.

Fourteen centuries have glided into the shadows since St. Remigius built his church on this spot and here crowned Clovis first of the kings of the Franks. Three times the churches have been burned, and three times new ones have been built again. And now once more the towering glory of the great church's "frozen music" is whole again. But--the rose window is not there.

It would be easy to indulge in snorts or giggles, according to the way your temperament runs in regard to the great "victory" of the Franco-British front in securing the consent of Signor Mussolini to equal withdrawals of "volunteers" from Spain. It would be easy to say that it was only such another victory as that won by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, in Italy long ago--such a victory as the Franco-British front has repeatedly won before--such a victory as involved the loss of every objective for which it strove. For it's the same old run-around, isn't it? Signor Mussolini is stalling for time in the new arrangement, which calls for a survey by a commission before any single "volunteer" is removed, is an arrangement which is admirably calculated to give him all the time in the world.

But wait a minute. Maybe two can play at this game of stalling. A writer in the current Virginia Quarterly Review says, in fact, that England is playing the greatest waiting game in history--that she deliberately is steeling herself to take it on the chin until she has completed her rearming, which will be along next year. Ah, but if in the meantime Signor Mussolini gets complete control of Spain--will not that cancel out all that England gains by rearming? The Signor probably won't. The weather will see to that. Winter is at hand in Spain and the taking of Gijon, of little strategic importance, will probably end the campaigning in the north until next Spring. As for Madrid in the center, it is practically impregnable and its weather is better. The same holds for Valencia. And Andalusia in the South is already Franco's.

No, the Signor probably will not take Spain in the time given him. And next Spring--the Franco-British front will be stronger. Looked at that way, the victory begins to take on the appearance of a kind of victory at that.