Chapter II: Part 2

It is useless to say what this spirit has brought about. Germany has carried on the war with vigor, has armed herself with brazen armor! She has transformed neighboring lands into deserts! She has slit throats, laid waste fields, shattered skulls, she has destroyed all that lay in her path! She has tried to impress the terror she holds salutary upon the souls of inoffensive old men and women and children!

This is the first of all the reasons why it is necessary now to fight, and to fight to the death; because these men will understand the abominable nature of "frightfulness" only when they see that "frightfulness" does not pay; only when they see the uselessness of unchaining horror and of beginning another war. Let an assassin go at liberty and he will commence his killing all over again; send him to the electric chair and he will regret his crime.

* * * * *

Just as France and Paris were not long in understanding what war meant in Germany's mind, France and Paris were not long in accounting for the danger they had passed through on account of the German spy system, on account of the formidable web of espionage the German agents had woven around all France.

People felt that this German spy system was there, speculated about it and talked about it for years and years, but it was only in the first days of the war that they really appreciated how diabolical it was and how far it had penetrated into the heart of France.

What happened at Amiens at the beginning of September, 1914, is especially characteristic of this.

Amiens was occupied twice by the enemy. To use the expression of a military historian, it seemed as if "the French and the Germans were playing hide-and-seek around the town." As soon as the blue caps of the French appeared over the horizon, the yellow pointed helmets of the Germans disappeared, rapidly. German occupation meant the same thing it did everywhere else--exactions, brutalities, rape. Immediately after he had entered the Prefecture, the German governor levied a war contribution of one million francs. He also demanded that the citizens furnish his troops with wine, cigars, and tobacco; drew up a list of hostages; and arrested all the men between the ages of seventeen and twenty years. Within twenty-four hours they were led away under guard.

Nothing of all this surprised the brave Picard city. Proudly she submitted to her fate. But one thing moved her, or rather angered her, and that was the surety and speed with which the German authorities went directly to all the places they should occupy. They did not hesitate an instant about the street to follow or the door at which to knock. The arrest of the fifteen hundred young hostages occurred with an unheard-of rapidity. It seemed as if an invisible but exceedingly clever hand guided each step, regulated each movement of the invaders. Who could it be who directed, advised and commanded the Germans from behind a veil?

Doubtless the mystery would never have been solved if, during the second occupation, the citizens had not been warned that the next day they would have to keep their shades down and close all shutters because His Imperial Highness, Prince Eitel Friedrich, the Kaiser's son, would then make a formal entry into the capital of Picardy. The shutters were closed; automatically the streets were emptied.

Into a deserted city, to the sound of trumpet and drum, preceded by a staff gleaming with gold braid and mounted on spirited steeds, the German army entered in state. All the shades were drawn in the city. However, behind some of them drawn faces peered forth in sorrow or in anger. In a house on the principal street was a lady whose husband was at the front. Her father, an aged general who had fought bravely in the war of 1870, was with her. Through the drawn shades of her home she was watching the hated scene. And her glorious old father, however indignant he felt, was watching by her side.

When the parade was passing by, he made a sudden gesture and said:

"Look at that man on the horse, there, now!"

The man in question seemed to have a horse that pranced a little more than the others. He rolled around in his saddle a little more than the others. And the two onlookers had no trouble in recognizing this aide-de-camp of Prince Eitel's as one of the former directors of a language school that had had a branch at Amiens!

There is a sequel to the story ... for on the afternoon of that unhappy day Madame X and ten other society ladies of Amiens at different times heard a ring at their doors and saw that same individual, in full regalia, booted and spurred, enter their drawing rooms. He came to call on them, to pay his respects, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should be there in that costume. They all had to restrain the feeling of disgust and anger this spy aroused in their breasts. It was for the sake of the safety of their homes, for the lives that were dear to them, that they did this. And he, entirely unconscious in his vileness, was suave and polite, played the man about town, recalled one thing or another, mentioned dances and parties....

So we once more find justification for the famous definition of German contained in Schopenhauer's famous phrase: "The German is remarkable for the absolute lack of that feeling which the Latins call 'verecundia'--sense of shame."

The essence of this feeling which is found among the most savage peoples is entirely lacking in the Teutonic race. And once more we find an abominable ambush placed for French culture, good faith and generosity.

This is not an isolated incident. When the whole truth is known, there will be even more surprised indignation felt than there is at present. Inquiries will have to be made. It will be necessary to know why the enemy, in certain places, has rushed in as if he came out of a trap door. It will be necessary to know why, in certain ravaged districts, some houses have been entirely destroyed and others carefully spared. It will be necessary to know why tennis courts have been put in certain places and why certain masses of rhododendrons have been planted in certain parks....

For we know that the tennis courts have helped the Germans carry out their schemes, and that the flower beds have had a place in the machinery of war they were developing, which they kept alive until they were at our gates. A tennis match seems a mere nothing--something very innocent in the way of pleasure, far from being war-like. And then, one fine day the discovery is made that the tennis court has a foundation of reinforced concrete twenty centimeters thick, fit to support a house six stories high and, consequently, a heavy gun!

A clump of rhododendrons is very lovely, something very gracious, charming, most poetic. And one day the discovery is made that the clump conceals a platform set in concrete on which an entire battery can be aligned.

All that will have to be investigated. All that will have to be stopped.... And it makes another reason why it is necessary to fight today, to fight to the death. For these Germans will understand the inanity of their Machiavellian scheming and of their spy system only when they shall see these methods fall to pieces, when they shall see their system fail absolutely.

In conclusion we may say that France fights for two reasons. The first reason is because on the third of August at a quarter before seven o'clock war was declared on her; she was forced to fight; her territory was invaded, her cities burned to the ground; her fields ravaged; her citizens massacred. The second reason is because she does not want to have to fight in the future; she does not wish this horror to be reproduced a second time; she wishes, in the immortal words of Washington, "that plague of mankind, war, banished off the earth."

To accomplish this the engine that makes war must be destroyed. The engine that makes war is "made in Germany." War is the national industry of the Germans, it has been developed and made perfect in Germany, it is dear to all German hearts. They are proud of it and have faith in its power. The machine must not only be stopped; it must be broken and destroyed, thrown out as scrap iron to prevent the pieces from being reassembled, readjusted and put in running order once again.

That is why France is fighting, why the whole world ought to fight to the end, to death or until victory crowns its efforts.

II

HOW FRANCE IS FIGHTING

Two words, courage and tenacity, will serve the future historian in his description of how France fought, when the time shall have come for telling the entire story of the world war.

No one has ever doubted French courage throughout all the centuries of her tormented history; but skeptical remarks have been made in times past of the tenacity of the French people.

Ten epigrams do not describe this war; nor do three. But one alone serves this purpose--know how to endure. No more thoughtful words have ever been spoken than those of the Japanese, Marshall Nogi: "Victory is won by the nation that can suffer a quarter of an hour longer than its opponent."

During the four years of war, France has proven that she knew how to suffer and was able to suffer a quarter of an hour longer than her enemies.

They knew how to suffer, those soldiers of General Maunoury's army in the Battle of the Marne. And they turned the tide of battle in favor of French arms. They marched, fought and died for five days and five nights, in the passing of which some battalions marched forty-two kilometers and did not sleep for more than two hours at a time. The mobility of the fighting units was such that the commissary department was absolutely unable to supply them with rations. For three days many of them had no bread, no meat, nothing at all! They subsisted on crusts they had with them, or on the food they were able, by the fortunes of battle, to pick up in the villages where they happened to be. In spite of all this, whenever the order was given to charge, they charged the enemy with a sort of inspired madness.

"The fight has been a hard one," Marshall Joffre wrote in an order of the day that will be famous throughout eternity. "The casualties, the number of men worn out by the exhaustion due to lack of sleep--and sometimes of food--passed all imagining.... Comrades, the commander in chief has asked you to do more than your duty, and you have responded to this request by accomplishing the impossible." That is the finest word of praise that has been given fighting men since the world began.

* * * * *

They knew how to suffer, those other soldiers of the Battle of the Marne who were a part of General Foch's army at Fère-Champenoise. Five times they attacked the Château de Mondement, and five times they were driven back. Their officers were consulting as to the best thing to do; and the men surrounded the officers, begging them with tears in their eyes to lead them to the assault for the sixth time. For the sixth time the attack was sounded, and at the sixth assault Château de Mondement fell.

That officer at Verdun knew how to suffer. He will remain a figure for the legends of the future for, running to transmit an order, he received a bullet in the eyes which shattered his optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, trying to grope his way through the night that had fallen upon him. He encountered something lying on the ground--a something that was a man just as badly wounded. The blind man besought him for help.

"How can I help you," said the wounded man, "a shell has broken both my legs."

"What difference does that make," shouted the blinded man, "I am going to carry you on my back. My legs will be yours, and your eyes will be mine."

And, one supporting the other, the blinded man and the lamed man carried on!

* * * * *

That officer knew how to suffer whom one of my brothers met on the battle field of Lorraine. An artillery officer, his arm was shattered, a few bits of flesh barely holding it fast to his shoulder. My brother, when he saw the man painfully dragging himself along, asked him whether or not he needed help.

"I don't need help," replied the wounded man, "but my battery down there does. It is retreating."

"If it is retreating, it can't be helped and it is a waste of time for me to get it ammunition...."

"No," begged the lieutenant, "get the munitions. We Colonials fight until the last man falls...."

He offered to guide my brother, mounted beside him on the artillery caisson, and stayed there all day. For after he had supplied his own battery, it was the battery next it, and then the one next to that, which he wanted to supply.... Finally, in the evening, at nightfall, they came to take him off in the ambulance. The major looked at his shattered arm, examined his frightful wound, and muttered:

"You are in a bad way. Couldn't you have come here sooner?"

The lieutenant replied humbly:

"Pardon me, I lost a lot of time on the way."

* * * * *

Those men I saw for months fighting and dying to the south of Verdun, at the Butte des Eparges, knew how to suffer.

The Butte des Eparges dominates the great plain of the Woevre, and from the very beginning it has been the theater of a frightful and long drawn out battle of the kind one seldom sees in this war. The Germans have been entrenched on the left side of the Butte, the French on the right. And day and night for four years there has been an incessant battle over its summit of grenades, bombs and shells; a terrible hand-to-hand fight in which neither one of the contestants yields an inch of ground. A brook of blood runs its interrupted course on each slope. On the south slope it is red with German blood; with French blood on the north.

The two slopes of the Butte have been so raked by firing that they have not a single tree, bush, or blades of grass on them; they stand out sinister and frightful in their nakedness, seeming to cry out to the men of the plain:

"See, all of you, the scourge of God has passed over this place."

They are dented, furrowed and blown into crevasses by the explosions of mines; they are sown over with the enormous funnels in which the fighters take shelter; they are covered with an incessant smoke from the projectiles that plow them up.

As for the summit, it is a no man's land, that belongs to the dead men whose bodies cover it. The summit stopped being a battle field to become a charnel house. The number of men who have fallen there will never be known. The most fantastic figures come from the lips of those who come down ... 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 ... it will never be known. But what is known is that the dead are always there. They form a parapet above which the living fight on. These dead rot in the sunshine and in the rain. In accordance with the wind's being from the east or the west, the frightful odor of all this rotten flesh strikes the Germans or the French. They lie there, an indistinguishable mass on the ground, and the men are unlucky who watch by night in the listening posts or the trenches. They think they are stumbling against a stone, and it is a skull their feet are touching; they think they are picking up the branch of a tree, and they have hold of the arm of a corpse.

However, in the shadow of this human charnel house, at the edge of this bloody sewer, some little French soldiers come and go, eat and sleep for months at a time. The dreadfulness of the sights, the stench in the air, the tragic presence of death has not gripped their souls, their courage or their nerves. They are no less confident and merry than the others and, in the evening, when the setting sun adds the purple of its shadows to the red of all the blood that has been shed on the Butte, they sing from the depths of their charnel house sweet love songs.... This is the most regally beautiful sight I have seen in this war; it is the most splendidly moving example I know of what personal sacrifice for one's country's sake can do.

One day, in a rest village in the neighborhood, I met a soldier from one of the battalions which was encamped in the charnel house. He was a boy twenty years old, who hurried along with a flower in his buttonhole, whistling a tune.... He was so joyful that I asked him:

"You seem as happy as you can be."

"I have leave, Sir," he answered, "and in a week I shall go to the country to see my mother. But, for the present, I have to go and take the trench at Eparges...."

As he mentioned the name of the accursed Butte, I could not repress a movement. He saw it and said:

"Sir, I am glad to go there."

And he told me his name and the number of his company. Then he hurried away.

It chanced that precisely one week later I met one of his officers. I asked him about the merry fellow.

"That man? He was killed the day before yesterday at Eparges."

And my comrade added in a low voice:

"He was shot down at my side, struck with a bullet square in the chest. The death agony set in at once. As I was trying to do something for him, passing my hand gently across his forehead, I said to him:

"Courage, my boy, courage."

He murmured the reply:

"Oh, I'm glad to die."

Glad ... the same phrase, the same words I had heard a week ago, which can be heard everywhere on the French front--and they are glad to go into all the trenches and into all the charnel houses, and it is with a happy heart that they rest in peace.

* * * * *

But France has not only fought with all her courage, with all her soul, with all her tenacity. She has fought with all her living strength, with her men, her women, even her children.

What can I say which has not already been said about the men? When I think of my own men, when I think of all the men floundering and fighting in this mud, I can find no other means of expression than the words that have already served the Commander in Chief of the French Army, General Pétain, on the evening of his great victory at the Chemin des Dames. In receiving the American newspapermen, he said to them:

"Do not speak of us, the generals and the officers. Speak only of the men. We have done nothing; the men have done everything. Our men are wonderful; we, their leaders, can only kneel at their feet."

* * * * *

The women have been no less wonderful. And I want to write a few words about them.

The women who are at the front have fought like the men. Can you imagine a more beautiful deed of arms than that of a young girl, twenty years old, named Marcelle Semer, whose heroic story a French Cabinet Minister, M. Klotz, told recently at one of the Matinées Nationales at the Sorbonne.

In August, 1914, there lived at Eclusier, near Frise, a young girl with gray eyes and blonde hair named Marcelle Semer. She was twenty years old at the time and kept accounts in addition to overseeing the work of a factory. At the time of the August invasion, after the Battle of Charleroi, the French tried to halt the Germans at the Somme. Not being in sufficient force, they retreated, crossing the river and the canal. The enemy immediately pursued. Marcelle Semer, who was following the French troops, had the presence of mind, after the last soldier had crossed the Somme Canal, to open the drawbridge in order to prevent the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl the key to the bridge into the canal in order that they might not take it from her when they came up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained for twenty-four hours by this young girl's presence of mind; and it was only on the following day that the enemy, having found some boats on the Somme, made a bridge of them and passed over the canal. But the French soldiers were already far away.

The Germans were masters of the neighborhood for some days. They seized the inhabitants as hostages and shut them up in a cave. Marcelle Semer secretly carried them food. She also carried sustenance to other inhabitants who had hidden in the woods or in cellars. She succored and concealed the soldiers whom wounds or fatigue had prevented from following the main body of troops. She contrived that sixteen of them, dressed as civilians, escaped. Then she was apprehended by the Germans, arrested and led into the presence of a court-martial. The judgment was summary, and after a quarter of an hour's questioning Marcelle Semer was condemned to death.

"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that you helped French soldiers to escape?"

"I certainly do," she replied. "I managed it so that sixteen of them escaped, and they are beyond your reach. Now you can do what you want to me. I am an orphan. I have only one mother--France. She does not disturb me when I'm dying."

This was one time when God intervened. Marcelle did not die. Brought to the place of execution, at the very moment when they were about to shoot, the French reëntered the village and, by a miracle, she escaped her executioners. Today she wears the Croix de Guerre and the medal of the Legion of Honor.

* * * * *

They were Frenchwomen and fighters, these women whose names and deeds are to be found in the columns of the "Journal Officiel." Read, for example, this citation concerning Madame Macherez, President of the Association des Dames Françaises de Soissons:

She willingly assumed the responsibility and the danger of
representing the city before the enemy, and defended or
managed the interests of the population in the absence of
the mayor and the majority of the members of the town
council. In spite of an intense bombardment which partially
ruined the city, she took the most effective means possible
to maintain calm in the city and to protect the lives of the
inhabitants.

In this department, a lay instructress, Mlle. Cheron, merited a citation which does not contain the least over-praise:

She evidenced the greatest energy in difficult
circumstances. Charged with the duties of Secretary to the
Mayor, and alone at the time of the arrival of the Germans,
she was not disconcerted by their threats, and kept her head
in the face of their demands with remarkable calm and
decision. When our troops returned, she assumed
responsibility for the service and feeding of the
cantonment. She personally took the steps necessary for the
identification and burial of the dead. Finally, she was able
to prevent panic at the time of the bombardment by the force
of her example and her encouragement of the populace.

Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and fighters of whom the "Journal Officiel" in the general order spoke as follows:

Mlle. Rosnet, Marie, sister of the order of St. Vincent de
Paul, Mother Superior of the Hospice at Clermont-en-Argonne,
remained alone in the village and showed during the German
occupation an energy and coolness beyond all praise. Having
received a promise from the enemy that they would respect
the town in exchange for the care the sisters gave their
wounded, she protested to the German commander against the
burning of the town with the observation that "the word of a
German officer is not worth that of a French officer." Thus
she obtained the help of a company of sappers who fought the
flames. She gave the most devoted care to the wounded,
German as well as French....

Mlle. Constance, Mother Superior of the Hospice at
Badonvillers, during the three successive German occupations
in 1914, assisted the sisters and remained bravely at her
post night and day, in spite of all danger, and was busy
everywhere with a devotion truly admirable....

Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior of the
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital at Compiègne,
from the war's beginning at the head of a staff whose
tireless devotion has deserved all praise, has given the
most intelligent and enlightened care to numerous wounded
men. During the time of the German occupation, her coolness
and energetic attitude assured the safety of the
establishment she directed. Her brave initiative allowed
several French soldiers to escape from captivity.

The modest postmistress and telegraph operator was a Frenchwoman and a fighter, who, in the little village of Houpelines, in the north of the country, deserved this citation in the orders of the day, of which thousands of soldiers would be proud:

Refusing to obey the order that was given her to leave her
post, she remained in spite of the danger. On the first of
October the Germans entered her office, smashed her
apparatus and threatened her with death. Mlle. Deletete, who
had put her valuables and accounts in safe-keeping, gave
evidence of the greatest calmness. From the seventeenth on
she endured the bombardment. Her office having been damaged
severely by the enemy's fire, she took refuge in the civil
hospice, where four persons were killed at her side. She
resumed her duties on the twenty-third, since which date she
has continued to perform them in the face of frequent
bombardments which have found many victims.

The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the front.

In the forges, the foundries, the factories and the munition plants they have not feared to don the blouse of the workingman, and on this blouse they wear as insignia a large grenade like that on the brassard of the mobilized men. Note these figures. On the first of February, 1916, the civil establishments of war, the munition plants, and the Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. The number has increased, and on the first of March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On the first of January, 1918, the women working in the factories manufacturing war material amounted to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, a half million.

Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries have devoted themselves to the wounded, the mutilated, the sick and the suffering, to the sacrifice of their health, their youth, and sometimes their life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent--they speak for themselves. Three great societies, constituting the French Red Cross, have carried on this work of charity and devotion--the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The Association des Dames Françaises. At the war's outbreak the Société de Secours aux Blessés had 375 hospitals with 17,939 beds; today it has 796 hospitals with 67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three thousand of whom are employed in military hospitals. On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the Union des Dames de France had 363 hospitals with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate or volunteer nurses. From August, 1914, to March, 1917, the Association des Dames Françaises had raised the number of its hospitals from 100 to 350, and from 5,000 to 18,000 the number of its beds; the number of its graduate nurses from 5,000 to 7,000.

On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Société de Secours aux Blessés alone. From the beginning of the war, this society has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs.

Aside from these there are other figures which show the material effort of the Frenchwomen which I can not pass over in silence. They show the civic devotion of which they are capable. The Société de Secours aux Blessés has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor, 94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des épidémies. The Association des Dames Françaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80 Medailles des épidémies. The Union des Femmes de France has won 39 Croix de Guerre. And last comes the glorious list of martyrs of the societies: 110 nurses have died in the devoted performance of their duties.

The heroism of these valiant women, many of whom remained in the occupied territories, will be the eternal pride of France. Madame Perouse, President of the Union des Femmes de France wrote to M. Louis Barthou telling him the number of women who had risked their liberty, their life, their honor even, to protect in the face of the ferocious enemy the sacred rights of the French wounded. It is fitting to add that, if they have taken care of the German wounded as well as the French wounded, they can always recall the reply of a devoted teacher of the Marne district, Mlle. Fouriaux, to a German major:

"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we are Frenchwomen."

Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget her duty as a Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner by the Germans for a year in the camp at Holzminden, in which she took the place of the mother of five children who had been put down on the list of hostages drawn up by the German barbarians.

And if you would know where these heroic women have poured out their courage, their coolness and their physical resistance, which they have put in the service of their country and of humanity, you have but to listen to the declaration of one of them, Mlle. Canton-Baccara, who has been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, for having shown bravery and exceptional devotion in the face of the greatest danger:

"The wounded soldier who suffers," said Mlle. Canton-Baccara, "the soldier who is complaining or the peasant who is weeping for the farm that has been pillaged, a woman's smile ought to console and her voice ought, under all circumstances, to be ready to recall to him that above these sufferings and troubles, above the paltry struggles of interest and ambition, there is, above all this, France, our France, which matters before all else."

Still other women, who were neither in the hospitals, at the front, nor in the factories, have been admirable fighters. They fought, according to Mlle. Canton-Baccara's words, with their heart and with their smile. They fought by the example of abnegation they gave, by the moral force with which they inspired the men in the trenches.

Madame de Castelnau is a glorious figure, she, the wife of the General who saved Nancy and stopped the rush of the barbarians on the Grand Couronné!... Madame de Castelnau had, before the war broke out, four sons. Three fell on the battle field. The fourth is actually still a prisoner in the hands of the Germans. On the lips of their father there is never the slightest word of complaint; on the lips of the mother there are these admirable words, which the children in the schools will repeat later on.... Madame de Castelnau was in a little village when her third son was killed. The curé of the village had the pitiful task of telling the already mourning mother of this new blow that had struck her. The curé found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the presence of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome with embarrassment:

"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another blow. But know well that all the mothers of France weep for you."

Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. She interrupted the priest and, looking him straight in the eye, replied:

"Yes, I know what you are going to tell me.... God's will be done. But the mothers of France would be wrong in weeping for me. Let them envy me."

Those are the words of a Frenchwoman of noble descent. But you can place on the same high level the words of an old woman, a humble soul, whom the gendarmes found one night crouched on a grave that was still fresh. It was up near Verdun. She told the gendarmes:

"I come from La Rochelle. Five of my sons have already fallen in the war. I have come here to see where the sixth is buried--the sixth--my last son."

Moved by the tragic grandeur of the sight, the gendarmes rendered her military honors and presented arms. The mother rose and uttered the words her dead and her heart inspired:

"Even so, Vive la France!"

All of them, mothers of noble birth and of peasant stock, rich and poor, wives, sisters, and fiancées are the first to exhort their sons, husbands and brothers to fight to the end. All have the same words of sacrifice and abnegation on their lips. All of them find words which best fortify, exalt and console their men.

Read this letter I picked up on the field of battle, a letter written by a humble peasant woman whose heart, after centuries of noble and wise discipline, was in the right place:

MY DEAR BOY:

We got your letter, which gave us great pleasure. We waited
anxiously for it. You wrote it two days ago. Since that time
things have changed. Did you get my letter? I hope so. I
must reassure you about your father the very first thing. He
was away only three days, time enough to guide a detachment
to Bourges. So there is only one vacant place at the
fireside, but how big that one is.

My dear boy, you speak to me of sacrifice; yes, it is one.
And I can tell you it is the greatest one that has ever been
asked of me. However, I keep calm. I tell myself sometimes
that I have deserved it. I am ready to pay, but I wish so
much that you might not pay.

My dear boy, you speak to me of duty and of honor. I have
never doubted that you would do what you ought to. Yes, my
son, a soldier's honor lies in being on the battle field
when the country is in danger. Go, then, my son, with the
blessing of your mother and your father, and with that most
mighty one of your country and of heaven.

You tell me to accept my lot courageously. Alas, sometimes
it fails me. However, I shall try to be resigned and I hope
to see you again in spite of everything. If that should not
happen, say to yourself, my dear boy, when you close your
eyes, that you have all the love and all the sweetest kisses
of your mother, who would like to fly to you.

The sisters are worthy of their mothers. Here is a letter written by two young girls who live in Lorraine, near Nancy. Plutarch never wrote anything more beautiful:

MOYEN, 4 SEPTEMBER, 1914.

MY DEAR EDOUARD:

I have heard that Charles and Lucien died on the
twenty-eighth of August. Eugène is badly wounded. As for
Louis and Jean, they are dead also.

Rose has gone away.

Mother weeps, but she says that you are brave and wishes
that you may avenge them.

I hope that your officers will not refuse you that. Jean won
the Legion of Honor; follow in his footsteps.

They have taken everything from us. Of the eleven who went
to war, eight are dead. My dear Edouard, do your duty; we
ask only that.

God gave you life; he has the right to take it away from
you. Mother says that.

We embrace you fondly, although we would like to see you.
The Prussians are here. Jandon is dead; they have pillaged
everything. I have just returned from Gerbevillers, which is
destroyed. What wretches they are!

Sacrifice your life, my dear brother. We hope to see you
again, for something like a presentiment tells us to hope.

We embrace you fondly. Farewell, and may we see you again,
if God grants.

(Signed) YOUR SISTERS.

P.S. It is for us and for France. Think of your brothers and
of your grandfather in 1870.

And this next letter is sublime. It was addressed to M. Maurice Barrès by a lady from the city of Lyons, which is perhaps the most mystic city in all France. In the newspapers mention had been made of the men disabled by war, and of all the unfortunates who were mutilated, whose limbs had been amputated, who were helpless or blinded. The question was raised of knowing what ought to be done to help them. Then the lady wrote as follows to M. Barrès:

SIR: One of these recent days, when our troubles have been
so hard to bear, I went to regain my courage into one of the
beloved sanctuaries of Notre Dame.... A lady dressed in
black came in beside me and, as all mothers are sisters in
these trying days, I asked after her men at the front. She
told me sadly that she was a poor widow, and that the war
had taken away her two sons, her sole means of support. One
of them had had an arm amputated--the right arm--and the
hands of the other were cut off at the wrists. She came from
seeing them to pray to the Mother of Sorrows for her
children and herself.

I was deeply moved by her sorrow and by her not complaining.
I sought means to console her. This is the means I have
found, sir, and I tell it to you now....

Let us ask the Virgin, I said to her, to create young women
in France so brave, so strong, and so devoted that they will
gladly and proudly consent to marry the poor, injured men
and to be not only their hearts but the limbs which will aid
them to make their daily bread; leaving to the men the
privilege of loving them, of respecting their presences and
of guiding their lives.

The poor woman understood me. We separated. My own youngest
daughter was in my thoughts; and do you not think that the
men who have a wider audience could stir the hearts of the
young women, twenty years of age in France, if they asked
them to perform this act of devotion, and to be the
companions of the mutilated, maimed men of France?...

Then, too, the women who had only their dignity and their high spirit to defend themselves against the grossness and the insults of the Prussians, have been the incarnation of the spirit of France.

An old woman who dwelt in a village on the Aisne was spattered with mud by the Kaiser as he passed by on horseback. He made a gesture excusing himself. She fixed her eyes on him and said simply:

"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be washed off."

A great lady in one of the châteaux in the invaded regions, had to receive one of the Kaiser's sons. The day of his departure he sent for her to thank her for the hospitality she had shown him. The old lady, looking at him, contented herself with replying:

"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you here."

And she reëntered her house with all dignity.

* * * * *

Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this, France has been able to fight on, and will be able to fight to the end. Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this, the soldiers, in the mud of the trenches, revere them as Madonnas.

The historian Tacitus tells somewhere how, on a hot spring day, a slave, panting and worn out, entered one of the gates of the Eternal City. He crossed the Forum without stopping and, in his course, mounted the Hill of Mars. Finally he came to one of the greatest houses of the patrician section of the city. His cries and shouts filled the house:

"Alas, alas!" he cried.

A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress of the house, the famous Cornelia Graccha.

"What news do you bring?" she asked.

"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle down there in Umbria, two of your sons have been killed."

"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have the Barbarians been conquered?"

"They have, Cornelia."

"Then what matters the death of my sons if my country is victorious!"

Those wonderful words have been handed down from generation to generation as a symbol of what ancient Rome was. Those words thousands of French women have uttered for the last four years, and they still utter them today. Other voices answer them. They rise from the trenches, and they say:

"Be without fear, women of France. For you we will fight to
our last gasp, we will shed our last drop of blood. Know
that if for months we have held our heads below the level of
the muddy trench and offered our breasts to death, it is
that you may be freed from the wild beasts that have burst
forth from the German forests. For your sakes our homes are
not in ruins and our towns are not vassals to the enemy. It
is all for you, so that when we shall return you need not
throw your arms around conquered necks. Our country, women
of France, is made up of our homes, our churches, and our
fields, and of your beloved faces. Throughout the tragic
periods of its history, our country has always been
incarnated in your faces, whether they called themselves St.
Geneviève or Jeanne d'Arc. And in our building, to personify
the cities that are dear to us, we have always taken your
bodies, your foreheads, and the folds of your gowns--see, in
Paris, that statue in the Place de la Concorde, in the
shadow of the Tuileries, which for days has worn a crêpe
veil.... Well, today is the same as yesterday. In our
trenches our country appears to us in those visions wherein
are mingled your faces. We shall believe that our country
has been well served only when, on your beloved faces, we
shall have caused a smile to appear because the palms we
have placed at your feet are the palms of victory."

Future historians will state that France has fought not only with all her courage, her tenacity and her soul, with all her men, women and children: they will also state that these men, women and children, in spite of the terrible times, their suffering and their mourning, have remained firmly united, forming a firm rock from which not a single stone has been splintered.

In that tormented, feverish France where the ardor of the Revolution still boils, there were, before the war, different parties, cliques, groups and churches. The war has leveled, united and bound them all together.

In some admirable pages, consecrated to the "Effort of French Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou has painted the picture of the sacred union there is among all the French women:

I have seen [he writes] our women at the front and behind
the lines, in the hospitals, the railway stations, the
automobile service, the canteens, the factories, in relief
work and in charity work. I have met nurses, unmoved under a
bombardment. I have tested the spirit of fellowship which
unites them, including as it does the names of the most
aristocratic French families and the most modest citizens.
There is no false pride among those in high places nor envy
among those lower in the social scale. They wear the same
garb, the same cap, with the same cross on their foreheads.
For the soldiers there is the same uniform, and when you say
uniform you mean equality in devotion, in the risk of life,
and in loyalty to duty. Between the classes of society there
is no contention, there is only emulation. I do not know
whether or not, in times of peace, they had all and
everywhere escaped the local passions which have poisoned
national life, but the war has given them sacred union for a
countersign, and they, as disciplined soldiers, have
respected this countersign.

The French nurse's smile will have served the nation's
defense well, but I emphasize this when I think how well it
will have served the nation's unity in the aftermath that
shall follow war. What rancors it will have appeased! What
jealousies it will have blotted out! What petty prejudices
it will have conquered! These society women and women of the
middle class who have leaned over the beds of sick or
wounded peasants, and these young girls who have tended
their hurts, bound up their wounds, and calmed their
sufferings have, with their delicate hands, so expert in the
worst treatments, laid the foundations of a France that is
united and fraternal, where envy and hate have no place. All
eyes have opened to broader vistas of revealed clearness, to
which they have hitherto remained closed through prejudice,
or obstinacy. They will have learned that bravery, devotion
to the right, loyal and tried disinterestedness, heartfelt
and wise knowledge can dwell in the simple soul of the
peasant and the workingman. The peasants and the workingmen
who have come out from their care will have learned that
luxury does not exclude goodness, that beauty is not always
a sterile gift, that youth is not altogether callow, that a
woman can be pretty and generous, delicate and courageous,
rich and sympathetic, and that the mothers whose children
are dead excel in lavishing the care of their hands and the
tenderness of their hearts on the wounded children who are
suffering far from their mothers.

The sacred sense of union that reigns among the men is no less firm. It is only necessary to read the letters written on the eve of their deaths--in that hour when a man, alone, face to face with himself, lets his soul speak--by the fighters who gave their heart's blood for the sacred cause.

They all say the same things.

Here is a letter a Jew wrote, named Robert Hertz, a second lieutenant of the 330th infantry regiment, who fell on the 13th of April, 1915, at Marcheville:

MY DEAR: I remember the dreams I had when I was a little
child. With all my soul I wished to be a Frenchman, to be
worthy to be one, and to prove that I was one.... Now the
old, childish dream comes back to me, stronger than it ever
was. I am grateful to the officers who have accepted me for
their subordinate, to the men I have been proud to lead.
They are the children of a chosen people. I am full of
gratitude towards our country which has received me and
heaped favors upon me. Nothing would be too much to give in
payment for that, and for the fact that my little son may
always hold his head high and never know, in the reborn
France, that torment which has poisoned many hours of our
childhood and of our youth. "Am I a Frenchman?" "Would I
deserve to be one?" No, little boy, you shall not say that.
You shall have a native land and your step may sound on the
earth, nourishing you with the assurance, "My father was
there and he gave all he had for France." If recompense is
necessary, this is the sweetest one there is for me.

This is the letter of a Protestant, second lieutenant Maurice Dieterlin, who was killed on the sixth of October, 1915, and who, on the eve of the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words they were to read from him, to his family:

I saw the most beautiful day of all my life. I regret
nothing and I am as happy as a king. I am glad to pay my
debt that my country may be free. Tell my friends that I go
on to victory with a smile on my lips, happier than the
stoics and the martyrs of all time. For a moment we are
beyond the France that is eternal. France ought to live.
France will live. Get ready your loveliest gowns, keep your
best smiles to welcome the conquerors in the great war.
Perhaps we shall not be there, but there will be others in
our places. Do not weep, do not wear mourning, for we shall
have died with a sweet smile on our lips and a lovely
superhumanity in our hearts. Vive la France! Vive la France!

What wonderful enthusiasm! But still more beautiful is this prayer, that of a little Protestant soldier from the Montbéliard country, who died in the Gare d'Amberieu hospital:

"Lord, may Thy will and not mine be done. I have consecrated
myself to Thee since my youth, and I hope that the example I
have offered may serve to glorify Thee.

"Lord, Thou knowest that I have not desired war, but that I
have fought to do Thy will; I offer my life for peace.

"Lord, I pray Thee for the welfare of my people. Thou
knowest how greatly I love them all, my father, my mother,
my brothers and my sisters.

"Lord, return manyfold to these nurses the good they have
done me; I am but a poor man but Thou art the dispenser of
riches. I pray to Thee for them all."

This prayer, in which the little soldier had put his last living thoughts, was received by a Catholic sister who had cared for him, and sent by her to his sorrowing family--a touching proof of sacred union.

All of them, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, speak of God and pray to Him.... Read this letter from Captain Cornet-Acquier, that captain to whom his wife wrote, "I would urge you on with my voice if I saw you charging the enemy." He tells this little incident:

"A Catholic captain was saying the other day that he said
his prayers before each battle. The commanding officer
remarked that that was not the proper moment and that he
would do better to make his military arrangements.

"'Sir,' he replied, 'that does not prevent me from making my
military arrangements and from fighting. I feel better for
it.'

"Then I said:

"'Captain, I do the same thing you do. And I find I get
along pretty well.'"

This is the letter a young Catholic wrote the evening before a battle to his fiancée:

MY DEAR JEANNE:

Tomorrow at ten o'clock, to the sounds of "Sidi Brahim" and
the "Marseillaise" we charge the German lines. The attack
will probably be deadly. On the eve of this great day, which
may be my last, I want to recall to you your promise....
Comfort my mother. For a week she will have no news. Tell
her that when a man is in an attack he can not write to
those he loves. He must be content with thinking of them.
And if time passes and she hears nothing from me, let her
live in hope. Help her. And if you learn at last that I have
fallen on the field of honor, let the words come from your
heart that will console her, my dear Jeanne.

This morning I attended mass and communion with faith. It
was held some yards away from the trenches. If I am to die,
I shall die a Christian and a Frenchman.

I believe in God, in France and in Victory. I believe in
beauty and youth and life. May God guard me to the end. But,
Lord, if my blood is useful for victory, may Thy will be
done.

Finally, here is a priest, Father Gilbert de Gironde, second lieutenant in the 81st infantry, who was killed on the seventh of December, 1914, at Ypres, writing his last letter.... For of the twenty-five thousand priests who went off at the beginning of the mobilization, three hundred were called military chaplains, the rest were officers, stretcher-bearers, or common soldiers--and note the 4,000 citations in the army orders which the "Journal Officiel" has published, which report the acts of courage and of bravery done by these priests on the battle field: