If Germany is the best hated nation in the world, so France is the
most dearly loved country. From France we have our painting at the
hands of her artists, from France we have our sculpture at the hands
of Rodin. From France we have fine literature and music; from France
we have the beautiful, organized into the clothes the people wear.
But above all, France has given us the enduring things of the spirit.
The whole history of heroism holds nothing finer than the tales of
French soldiers struggling unto blood and death to secure happiness
and liberty for others. Where will you find a more glorious sentiment
than this, that fell from the lips of the poilu in the trenches,--"We
sleep in mud, we bathe in blood, but our souls, they dwell among the
stars." Here is that young French girl, going to the station, the Garde
du Nord, to meet her wounded husband, who had never seen his new-born
babe. But the young fellow died while they lifted him out of the car.
Putting the little babe down to the cheek that was becoming cold, the
girl lifted her eyes unto God, and with streaming eyes exclaimed, "I
am only his wife! France is his mother!" And here is that poilu home
for his eight days' rest, who saw the broken-down hearse, with a poor
little woman hidden under crêpe, marching as the sole mourner; the
soldier sprang up, rushed to the hearse, saw a crippled comrade who had
been killed at the battle of the Somme, and turned to bid all the men
and women on the sidewalk fall into line, because a soldier of France
was sleeping, and all Frenchmen were his lovers, and who carried the
poor man in triumphal procession in the midst of sorrowing hundreds to
his final resting place. The French have added a new chapter to the
history of heroism. The Hun will never conquer France. Should a time
ever come when the butchers have killed all save one French boy and
girl, when the weapon is lifted against them, they will stand against
the wall of the Pyrenees, and the last Frenchman might die, but he will
never be conquered by the Huns.