al courage as the necessary opposite to brutal
force and mere materialism. He connected that high ambition, that
craving for _la gloire_, with all pure and elevated things, with the
art and literature, with the intelligence and beauty of the French
creative mind. He recommended, in that gray hour of European dulness,
a fresh ornament to life, a scarlet feather, a _panache_, as our
French friends say. And the gay note that he blew from his battered
clarion was still sounding last year in the heroic resistance of the
forts of Verdun.

THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE

The spirit displayed by the young French officers in this war deserves
to be compared in many essential respects with that which is blazoned
in the glorious "Chanson de Roland." It is interesting to remember
that during the long years in which the direct influence of that
greatest of medieval epics was obscured, it was chiefly known through
the paraphrase of it executed in German by the monk Konrad in the
twelfth century. Many years ago, Gaston Paris pointed out the curious
fact that Konrad completely modified the character of the "Chanson de
Roland" by omitting all expressions of warlike devotion to "la douce
France," and by concentrating the emotion of the poem on its religious
sentiment. But the real theme of the "Chanson de Roland," as we know
now, was the passionate attachment of the heroes to the soil of
France; "ils etaient pousses par l'amour de la patrie, de l'empereur
francais leur seigneur, de leur famille, et surtout de la gloire."

It is a remarkable instance of German "penetration" that in the
paraphrase of the "Chanson de Roland" which Germany so long foisted
upon Europe, these elements were successfully effaced. There was a
sort of poetical revenge, therefore, in the attitude of those who
answered the challenge of Germany in the true spirit of Roland and
Oliver.

We have seen that Vauvenargues--to whose memory the mind incessantly
reverts in contemplation of the heroes of this war--says in one of his
"Maximes"--written nearly two centuries ago--"The earliest days of
spring have less charm than the budding virtue of a young man." No
figure of 1914 exemplifies this quality of grace more surprisingly
than Jean Allard (who called himself in literature Meeus). He was only
twenty-one and a half when he was killed at Pierrepont, at the very
beginning of the war, but he was already one of the promising figures
of his gener