ice in
Paris was raised to protest against this last and dreadful sacrifice.
Paris cursed the stupidity of the war, cried "How long, O Lord, how
long?" as it dragged on in its misery, with accumulating sums of
death, was faint at the thought of another winter campaign, and
groaned in spirit when its streets were filled with wounded men and
black-garbed women. But though Paris suffered with the finer agonies
of the sensitive intelligence, it did not lose faith or courage, and found
the heart to laugh sometimes, in spite of all its tears.

City of beauty, built out of the dreams of great artists and great poets,
I have watched you through this time of war, walking through your
silent streets in the ordeal of most dreadful days, mingling with your
crowds when a multitude of cripples dragged their lopped limbs
thiough the sunlight, studying your moods of depression, and
hopefulness, and passionate fervour, wandering in your churches,
your theatres and your hospitals, and lingering on mild nights under
the star-strewn sky which made a vague glamour above your
darkness; and always my heart has paid a homage to the spirit which
after a thousand years of history and a thousand million crimes, still
holds the fresh virtue of ardent youth, the courage of a gallant race,
and a deathless faith in the fine, sweet, gentle things of art and life.
The Germans, however great their army, could never have captured
the soul of Paris.

Chapter IX
The Soldiers Of France

1

When in the first days of the war I saw the soldiers of France on their
way to the front, I had even then a conviction that the fighting qualities
of the nation had not degenerated in forty-four years of peace, after
the downfall in which the courage of the men had been betrayed by
the corruption of a Government. Afterwards, during many months as
a wanderer in this war, I came to know the French soldier with the
intimacy of long conversations to the sound of guns, in the first line of
trenches facing the enemy, in hospitals, where he spoke quietly while
comrades snored themselves to death, in villages smashed to pieces
by shell-fire, in troop trains overcrowded with wounded, in woods and
fields pockmarked by the holes of marmites, and in the restaurants of
Paris and provincial towns where, with an empty sleeve or one
trouser-leg dangling beneath the tablecloth, he told me his
experiences of war with a candour in which there was no
concealment of truth;