Part 4 (2/2)
On one occasion a young German officer, covered with mud from head to foot, was brought before one of the French Generals. He had been taken fighting cleanly, and the General was anxious to show him kindness. He asked him if he would not prefer to cleanse himself before examination.
The young German drew himself up and replied: ”Look at me, General; I am covered from head to foot with mud, and that mud is the soil of France.
You will never possess as much soil in Germany.” The General turned to him with that gentle courtesy which marks the higher commands in France, and answered: ”Monsieur, we may never possess as much soil in Germany; but there is something that you will never possess, and, until you conquer it, you cannot vanquish France, and that is the spirit of the French people.”
The French find it difficult to understand the arrogance which appears ingrained in the German character, and which existed before the war.
I read once that in the Guest-book of a French hotel a Teutonic visitor wrote:
”L'Allemagne est la premiere nation du monde.”
The next French visitor merely added:
”Yes, 'Allemagne' is the first country of the world--if we take them in alphabetical order.”
I left the war-zone with an increased respect, if this were possible, for the men of France. They have altered their uniforms, but the spirit is unchanged. They are no longer in the red and blue of the old days, but in shades of green, grey, and blue, colours blending to form one mighty ocean--wave on wave of patriotism--beating against and wearing down the rocks of military preparedness of forty years, and as no man has yet been able to say to the ocean ”Stop,” so no man shall cry ”Halt”
to the armies of France.
I have spoken much of the men of France, but the women have also earned our respect--those splendid peasant-women who even in times of peace worked and now carry a double burden on their shoulders; the middle-cla.s.s women, endeavouring to keep together the little business built up by the man with years of toil, stinting themselves to save five francs to send a parcel to the man at the front that he may not suspect that there is not still every comfort in the little homestead; the n.o.ble women of France, who in past years could not be seen before noon, since my lady was at her toilette, but who can be seen now, their hands scratched and bleeding, kneeling on the floors of the hospitals scrubbing, proud and happy to take their part in national service. The men owe much of their courage to the att.i.tude of the women who stand behind them, turning their tears to smiles to urge their men to even greater deeds of heroism.
In one of our hospitals was a young lad of seventeen, who had managed to enlist as an ”engage volontaire” by lying as to his age. His old mother came to visit him, and she told me he was the last of her three sons--the two elder ones had died the first week of the war at Pont-Mousson, and her little home had been burned to the ground. The boy had spent his time inventing new and terrible methods of dealing with the enemy, but with his mother he became a child again, and tenderly patted the old face. Seeing the lad in his mother's arms, and forgetting for one moment the spirit of the French nation, I asked her if she would not be glad if her boy was so wounded that she might take him home. She was only an old peasant-woman, but her eyes flashed, her cheeks flushed with anger, and turning to me she said: ”Mademoiselle, how dare you say such a thing to me? If all the mothers, wives, and sweethearts thought as you, what would happen to the country? Gustave has only one thing to do, get well quickly and fight for Mother France.”
Because these women of France have sent their men forth to die, eyes dry, with stiff lips and head erect, do not think that they do not mourn for them. When night casts her kindly mantle of darkness over all, when they are hidden from the eyes of the world, it is then that the proud heads droop and are bent upon their arms, as the women cry out in the bitterness of their souls for the men who have gone from them. Yet they realise that behind them stands the greatest mother of all, Mother France, who sees coming towards her, from all frontiers, line on line of ambulances with their burden of suffering humanity, yet watches along other routes her sons going forth in thousands, laughter in their eyes, songs on their lips, ready and willing to die for her. France draws around her her tattered and blood-stained robe, yet what matters the outer raiment? Behind it s.h.i.+nes forth her glorious, exultant soul, and she lifts up her head rejoicing and proclaims to the world that when she appealed, man, woman, and child--the whole of the French nation--answered to her Call.
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