Page 40 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

MRS LE BLOND’S WAR

Having begun her tour of the battlefields at Ypres, indelibly
associated with the British war effort, Lizzie ended it at Verdun,
site of the longest and one of the bloodiest battles of the war,
and a symbol of French valour and resistance. Visiting its famous
citadel with its seven kilometres of galleries, its powder
magazines and weapon stores, its telegraph and telephone
exchanges, its bakery, mill, kitchens and storerooms, Lizzie
found it ‘an amazing place … the most tremendous example of
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a dug-out which the mind can conceive … a veritable city’ .
What Lizzie witnessed during that post-war tour of the
battlefields profoundly moved her, and dictated much of the
future course of her life. Back in London, she applied her
formidable energies to the British arm of the international Rheims
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Cathedral Restoration Fund , and in August 1924 was one of
the members of a delegation which travelled to the city, where
they handed over a donation of 443,000 francs to the
archbishop, Cardinal Lucon, and presented a Book of Life, in
which were inscribed the names of the dead in whose name
donations had been made. 17 The cardinal, who had won
worldwide admiration for his courage in remaining in the city
throughout almost the entire war, was by then over eighty, but
Lizzie was charmed by his energy and enthusiasm as he
conducted her over his ravaged cathedral,

‘showing me recent discoveries of an ancient structure
beneath the nave, leaping over yawning gaps, his cassock
held aloft, handing me down slippery steps into clayey

15 Ibid, p. 206.
16 On Lizzie’s role in the Rheims Cathedral Restoration Fund, see The Times, 14
July and 20 Nov 1920; 16 and 23 April, 14 July and 3 Dec 1921; 27 Oct 1923; 16
March and 3 July 1924.
17 The Times, 8 August 1924.
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