Part 2 (1/2)

But, perhaps, what was of greatest interest was the remarkable adjustment of these surroundings, royal and imperial, to the simple and dignified needs of a republic.

France is a military nation and at war, but the evidences of militarism were entirely absent. Our own White House is not more empty of uniforms.

One got the impression that he was entering the house of a private gentleman--a gentleman of great wealth and taste.

We pa.s.sed at last through four rooms, in which were the secretaries of the President, and as we pa.s.sed, the majordomo spoke our names, and the different gentlemen half rose and bowed. It was all so quiet, so calm, so free from telephones and typewriters, that you felt that, by mistake, you had been ushered into the library of a student or a Cabinet minister.

Then in the fourth room was the President. Outside this room we were presented to M. Sainsere, the personal secretary of the President, and without further ceremony M. Benazet opened the door, and in the smallest room of all, introduced me to M. Poincare. His portraits have rendered his features familiar, but they do not give sufficiently the impression I received of kindness, firmness, and dignity.

He returned to his desk and spoke in a low voice of peculiar charm. As though the better to have the stranger understand, he spoke slowly, selecting his words.

”I have a great admiration,” he said, ”for the effectiveness with which Americans have shown their sympathy with France. They have sent doctors, nurses, and volunteers to drive the ambulances to carry the wounded. I have visited the hospitals at Neuilly and other places; they are admirable.

”The one at Juilly was formerly a college, but with ingenuity they have converted it into a hospital, most complete and most valuable. The American colony in Paris has shown a friends.h.i.+p we greatly appreciate.

Your amba.s.sador I have met several times. Our relations are most pleasant, most sympathetic.”

I asked if I might repeat what he had said. The President gave his a.s.sent, and, after a pause, as though, now that he knew he would be quoted, he wished to emphasize what he had said, continued:

”My wife, who distributes articles of comfort, sent to the wounded and to families in need, tells me that Americans are among the most generous contributors. Many articles come anonymously--money, clothing, and comforts for the soldiers, and layettes for their babies. We recognize and appreciate the manner in which, while preserving a strict neutrality, your country men and women have shown their sympathy.”

The President rose and on leaving I presented a letter from ex-President Roosevelt. It was explained that this was the second letter for him I had had from Colonel Roosevelt, but that when I was a prisoner with the Germans, I had judged it wise to swallow the first one, and that I had requested Colonel Roosevelt to write the second one on thin paper. The President smiled and pa.s.sed the letter critically between his thumb and forefinger.

”This one,” he said, ”is quite digestible.”

I carried away the impression of a kind and distinguished gentleman, who, in the midst of the greatest crisis in history, could find time to dictate a message of thanks to those he knew were neutrals only in name.

CHAPTER II

THE MUD TRENCHES OF ARTOIS

AMIENS, October, 1915.

In England it is ”business as usual”; in France it is ”war as usual.”

The English tradesman can a.s.sure his customers that with such an ”old-established” firm as his not even war can interfere; but France, with war actually on her soil, has gone further and has accepted war as part of her daily life. She has not merely swallowed, but digested it.

It is like the line in Pinero's play, where one woman says she cannot go to the opera because of her neuralgia. Her friend replies: ”You can have neuralgia in my box as well as anywhere else.” In that spirit France has accepted the war. The neuralgia may hurt, but she does not take to her bed and groan. Instead, she smiles cheerfully and goes about her duties--even sits in her box at the opera.

As we approached the front this was even more evident than in Paris, where signs of war are all but invisible. Outside of Amiens we met a regiment of Scots with the pipes playing and the cold rain splas.h.i.+ng their bare legs. To watch them we leaned from the car window. That we should be interested seemed to surprise them; no one else was interested. A year ago when they pa.s.sed it was ”Roses, roses, all the way”--or at least cigarettes, chocolate, and red wine. Now, in spite of the skirling bagpipes, no one turned his head; to the French they had become a part of the landscape.

A year ago the roads at every two hundred yards were barricaded. It was a continual hurdle-race. Now, except at distances of four or five miles, the barricades have disappeared. One side of the road is reserved for troops, the other for vehicles. The vehicles we met--for the most part two-wheeled hooded carts--no longer contained peasants flying from dismantled villages. Instead, they were on the way to market with garden-truck, pigs, and calves. On the drivers' seat the peasant whistled cheerily and cracked his whip. The long lines of London buses, that last year advertised soap, mustard, milk, and music-halls, and which now are a decorous gray; the ambulances; the great guns drawn by motor-trucks with caterpillar wheels, no longer surprise him.

The English ally has ceased to be a stranger, and in the towns and villages of Artois is a ”paying guest.” It is for him the shop-windows are dressed. The names of the towns are Flemish; the names of the streets are Flemish; the names over the shops are Flemish; but the goods for sale are marmalade, tinned kippers, _The Daily Mail_, and the _Pink 'Un_.

”Is it your people who are selling these things?” I asked an English officer.

The question amused him.

”Our people won't think of it until the war is over,” he said, ”but the French are different.