A good woman in whose house a lieutenant was quartered told him the
following story of the occupation:
"The worthy old lady with a black cap on her white locks, her face
lighted by the flame of the wood fire burning on the hearth, keeps up
a tireless flow of anecdote, while the little granddaughter at her
side listens with wide open mouth. This woman seems to me to personify
the entire French race, gifted with a good share of common sense and
with intelligence not entirely devoid of malicious roguishness. In
language filled with an imaginative quality she describes the departure
of her three sons and her two sons-in-law--all reservists. From two
of these men she has received no word since the war began, and when
one speaks of them a shadow steals over her face giving it that stamp
of grandeur which grief heroically borne impresses. She told me about
the conversations she had with the Germans many of whom could speak
French; how insufferable and naïve they were in their arrogance. Then
she told of their retreat and the sudden arrival at a gallop of two
little Chasseurs, blue as the summer sky, plain brave little Chasseurs!
'What a pity you are on horseback,' she said. 'Why, mother?' 'Because
I should like to kiss you.' 'Don't let a little thing like that stop
you,' they cried, and were on the ground in a minute. 'What a good
kiss I gave them, monsieur; it was as if one of my own boys had come
back. Then amid cheers and flowers they rode off toward the forest with
a squadron of ten, on the track of the last Uhlans who had left the
village two hours before. We never saw them again.' Isn't that the very
soul of France?"
On the twenty-eighth of September, 1914, J. T., a very quiet man
in ordinary life, writes the following excited letter, without
superscription of date or place:
"Courage good--always on my feet--bullets through my coat
twice--covered with the dirt plowed up by shells--but as yet uninjured.
Will tell you perhaps some day the tragic details. They are glorious
and sublime. We are bearing everything with absolute confidence in
our victory. Victory! That was the word on our lips when we parted at
Paris. Let us repeat it, never forgetting the men who have fallen. If
I don't come back you know that I shall have done my duty."
* * * * *
J. D., who has not had a chance to wash for two weeks, who sleeps on
the ground, and has his ears continually filled with the roars of
cannon and musketry, declares with simplicity in a letter of September
26, 1914:
"I love this life of bivouac though the stormy nights are hard. What
I like most about it is being in the free air and having a feeling of
unforeseen danger, the sense of uncertainty and suspense. When the
cannon is still at night, I hear the groans and the death rattle of the
wounded who have not been picked up in front of the trenches facing the
enemy. Our recent victories have strengthened our soldiers' confidence
until now they are regular war dogs who don't interrupt their cooking
when the shells rain around them--not until the pieces fall into the
kettle. Still the war is hard and they are waging it against us without
mercy or humanity. Quite often the Prussians dispatch our wounded
soldiers with a lance thrust or a blow with the butt of a musket. I
know what I'm talking about for I have seen it."
On the fifth of October, 1914, F. writes from Fouconcourt in the
department of the Somme:
"The horrible rain of iron and steel that hundreds of infernal
machines are pouring on us every day cannot dampen our courage. It is
a grand thing to fight for a holy cause like this of France. In spite
of forty continuous days of battle in the Vosges and in Picardie, in
spite of forty nights passed mostly in icy weather under the naked
stars, in spite of hunger, rain and forced marches, and in the midst of
horrors, I find myself admiring the sublime forests of the Vosges, the
picturesque villages, and the gay little houses of red brick."