It was realised that America knew very little of what the French were
doing in this great war. We knew, of course, that they were holding a
tremendous battle line and that they were fighting bravely. Rumours we
had heard of the great destruction done by the French seventy-five
millimetre gun, and the names of numerous towns had become familiar to
us in print, even when we could not pronounce them. The Paris
omnibuses had gone to the front. Paris fashions were late in coming to
us, and showed a military trend. For the first time the average
American knew approximately where and what Alsace-Lorraine is, and
that Paris has forts as well as shops and hotels.

But what else did we know of France and its part in the war? What does
America generally know of France, outside of Paris? Very little. Since
my return, almost the only question I have been asked about France is:
"Is Paris greatly changed?"

Yet America owes much to her great sister republic; much encouragement
in the arts, in literature, in research. For France has always
extended a kindly hand and a splendid welcome to gifted and artistic
Americans. But her encouragement neither begins nor ends there.

It was in France that American statesmen received the support that
enabled them to rear the new republic on strong and sturdy
foundations. It is curious to think of that France of Louis the
Sixteenth, with its every tradition opposed to the democracy for which
America was contending, sending the very flower of her chivalry to
assist the new republic. It is amazing to remember that when France
was in a deplorable condition financially it was yet found possible to
lend America six million dollars, and to exempt us from the payment of
interest for a year.

And the friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king,
for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the
French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at
Paris went into three days' mourning for "the great American."

As a matter of fact, France's help to America precipitated her own
great crisis. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set
her ablaze. If the king was right in America he was utterly wrong at
home. Lafayette went back from America convinced that "resistance is
the most sacred of duties."

The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of
government, and liberty of the individual--that very belief which
France is