_VIVE LA FRANCE!_
It was the tenth of May, 1917, in New York. The great city was
alive--riotously, gloriously alive. Save for the narrow lane kept
for the progress of the hero of the day her main artery flowed from
building-line to building-line with a vibrant throng. It was a supreme
demonstration of Democracy's melting-pot, a confusion of tongues, a
medley of peoples, a human flood fed by every racial fountain of the
earth.
I stood that day where the multitude was densest, and at the very
edge of the throng, directly in front of the reviewing-platform at
Forty-second Street. We had waited, it seemed, for hours when suddenly,
as such a silence always comes, a pregnant quiet fell over all the
people.
Obedient to the universal spiritual impulse, my eyes turned from the
gray walls of the majestic library building, and followed where ten
thousand billowing flags rolled back from Fifth Avenue like the parting
of another Red Sea. Old Glory was everywhere, and everywhere flanking
her were the Tricolor and the Union Jack.
I had scarcely recorded the shock of that emotion when sharp and
high-keyed sounded the hoofbeats of horses, and drawing rapidly near
were the outriders of a distinguished company.
The eager throng surged against the officers who guarded the open way;
the voices of those about me joined the cyclonic thunder of cheers
that rolled upon us; there was a bedlam of horns and bugles, and
then--Joffre swept by!
Ah, I shall never cease to see him, a heroic portrait in red and white,
painted against a great confusion and hung beneath a sun-goldened
sky. I was very close to him, and his military cap was lifted; he was
slightly smiling, and his eyes were shining islands in seas of tears.
His white hair crowned his massive head rather than belied his full and
ruddy cheeks; his shoulders were herculean and shaped for the load of a
nation; his chest was broad and deep, to hold the heart of France.
In an instant he was gone, but in that instant the Gibraltar of the
Marne, the rock against which the flood of absolutism rolled and broke,
fixed his eyes upon the place where I stood. While the question, "Is
he looking at me?" was shaping in my mind, clear and strong above the
shout of the multitude rang the cry, "Vive la France! Vive la France!
Vive la France!"
Three times it came, and from a position so close to mine that, when I
swung about, I found myself breath to breath with the voice that had
lifted it. The man was young and tall; his right arm was bound against
his chest; his face was deeply scarred; and he was in the uniform of
the French Flying Corps. As he flung up his unmaimed hand and cried,
"Vive la France! Vive la France!" he was the incarnation of the
chivalry of war.
The mighty Joffre leaned forward, gazed intently, replaced his cap, and
then, as warrior to warrior, saluted.
It was a flash, an eternal moment that remains with you and in you and
of you. From the souls of the two, the tender, iron hero of the Marne
and the young American who had crossed the sea to help pay the debt a
young Frenchman left us nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, I caught
the gleam of brotherhood that will not die while a grateful Democracy
remembers Lafayette and free men bear wreaths to the tomb of Washington.
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
p. 40, 180: The text of these letters in the illustrations are
transcribed. The images of the messages are also provided in HTML and
other non-text formats.
Caption of the illustration following p. 62: COFEE -> COFFEE.
p. 180: United States of Ameria -> United States of America.