housand priests in the French army, and although many of them
were acting according to their religious vocations as chaplains, or
stretcher-bearers, the great majority were serving as simple soldiers
in the ranks or as officers who had gained promotion by merit.

Although nothing may explain away the paradox that those whose
duty it seems to preach the gospel of peace and charity should be
helping to heap up the fields of Christendom with the corruption of
dead bodies, there is at least this to be said: the priest-soldier in
France has been a spiritual influence among his comrades, so that
some of them fought with nobler motives than that of blood-lust, and
went to death or victory, influenced not with hatred of fellow men, but
with a conviction that out of all that death there would come a new life
to nations, and that in killing their enemy they were killing a brutal
tyranny with its grip upon the world, and a barbarism which would
make human life a slavery. A young priest who said his prayers
before lying down on his straw mattress or in the mud of his trench,
put a check upon blasphemy, and his fellows--anti-clericals perhaps
in the old days or frank materialists--watched him curiously and were
thoughtful after their watchfulness. It was easy to see that he was
eager to give up his life as a sacrifice to the God of his faith. His
courage had something supernatural in it, and he was careless of
death. Then, again, he was the best comrade in the company. Never
a grumble came from his lips, though he was as cold and wet and
hungry as the others. He did a thousand little acts of service to his
fellow soldiers, and especially to those who were most sullen, most
brutal or most miserable. He spoke sometimes of the next life with a
cheerful certainty which made death seem less than an end of things,
and he was upborne with a strange fervour which gave a kind of glory
to the most wretched toil.

Not a week passed without some priest being cited in the Order of the
Day.

"Corporal Delabre Alphonse (priest of the diocese of Puy) and Private
Miolane Antoine (priest of the diocese of Clermont) belonging to the
292nd Regiment of Infantry, distinguished themselves throughout the
battle by an untiring gallantry and devotion, going to collect the
wounded in the line and afterwards spending their nights in assisting
the wounded and dying."

That is one notice out of hundreds which I had in official documents.

"M. l'Abbe Martin