ritain, France,
Italy--akin to that which the American climate and atmosphere produces
on the visitor from this side of the Atlantic. It breathed new life
into everything, and especially into the heart of France, the chief
sufferer by three years of atrocious war. As weary and devastated
France watched the American stream of eager and high-hearted youth,
flowing from Bordeaux eastwards, column after column, regiment after
regiment, of men admirable in physique, fearless in danger, and full
of a laughing and boundless confidence in America's power to help, and
resolve to win--at last it seemed that the long horror of the war must
be indeed coming to an end. "Three thousand miles!" said the French
villager or townsman to himself, as he turned out to see them
pass--"they have come three thousand miles to beat the Boche. And
America is the richest country in the world--and there are a hundred
millions of them." Hope rose into flood, and with it fresh courage to
endure.

Nor was the effect less marked on the British nation, which had not
known invasion, and on the British Army, for all its faith in itself.
The rapid growth of American strength in France from March onward in
response to the call of the Allies, provided indeed a moral support to
the two older armies, which was of incalculable value and "influenced
the fighting qualities of both; while the knowledge of these mounting
reserves enabled the Allied Commanders to take risks which otherwise
could hardly have been faced." I am quoting a British military
authority of high rank.

It was at Metz that--outside Paris--I first came in contact with this
"America in France," which History will mark on her coming page with
all the emphasis that belongs to new chapters in the ever-broadening
tale of man. It was in the shape of some "Knights of Columbus,"
pausing at Metz for a night on their way to Coblenz. We only exchanged
a few words on the steps of the hotel, but I had time to feel the
interest and the strangeness of this American Catholicism in Europe,
following in the track of war, and looking with its New World eyes at
those old, old towns, those ancient churches in which American
Catholics were at home, yet not at home. At Strasbourg I saw no
Americans that I can remember. But our arrival at Nancy at midnight,
very weary after a long day in the car, during which we had missed our
way badly at least once, is linked in my recollection with the
apparition of two young Am