La ville éventrée; or, how bombing turned the city inside out

It looked as though Lomme had been the victim of a terrible earthquake. An indescribable chaos:
piles of rubble, in which lay more than 400 corpses, thousands of bombs having flattened 3,000
homes. Mournful streets, entirely devastated, the stump-ends of ruins breathless in the
moonlight. From the tangle of beams and metal, in a heap of bricks, slate, tiles and plaster,
peeked the pitiful remains of furniture, of pillows and mattresses disembowelled, all that
constituted the intimacy of home. The extrication of corpses, of the injured, limbs crushed or
ripped off, flesh bloodied, sadly coughing their last gasps, provoked the most heartrending
scenes of human sorrow.