fellows, these men, and they had the manners of fine gentlemen in
spite of their mud-stained uniforms and the poverty of the cottage in
which they lived. Hardly a day passed without one of their comrades
being killed or wounded, but some officer came to take his place and
his risk, and they made him welcome to the wooden chair and his
turn of the truckle-bed. I think in that peasant's hut I saw the whole
spirit of the French army in its surrender of self-interest and its good-
humoured gallantry.

The guns were still thundering as I drove back from the wood. The
driver of the car turned to me for a moment with a smile and pointed a
few yards away.

"Did you see that shell burst then? It was pretty close."

Death was always pretty close when one reached the fighting-lines of
France.

Soldiers of France, for nearly a year of war I have been walking
among you with watchful eyes, seeing you in all your moods, of gaiety
and depression, of youthful spirits and middle-aged fatigues, and
listening to your tales of war along the roads of France, where you
have gone marching to the zone of death valiantly. I know some of
your weaknesses and the strength of the spirit that is in you, and the
sentiment that lies deep and pure in your hearts in spite of the
common clay of your peasant life or the cynical wit you learnt in Paris.
Sons of a great race, you have not forgotten the traditions of a
thousand years, which makes your history glorious with the spirit of a
keen and flashing people, which century after century has renewed
its youth out of the weariness of old vices and reached forward to
new beauties of science and art with quick intelligence.

This monstrous war has been your greatest test, straining your moral
fibre beyond even the ordeal of those days when your Republican
armies fought in rags and tatters on the frontiers and swept across
Europe to victories which drained your manhood. The debacle of
1870 was not your fault, for not all your courage could save you from
corruption and treachery, and in this new war you have risen above
your frailties with a strength and faith that have wiped out all those
memories of failure. It is good to have made friends among you, to
have clasped some of your brown hands, to have walked a little along
the roads with you. Always now the name of France will be like a
song in my heart, stirring a thousand memories of valour and fine
endurance, and of patience in this senseless business