A Pilgrimage Into France’s Holy Land
It was natural that David Hale, one of the young American secretaries of
the Peace Conference, should come frequently to the charming house filled
with American girls at Versailles.
Having won both Mrs. Burton’s and Miss Patricia Lord’s favor, he had been
cordially invited. He had also plenty of time as his duties by no means
kept him constantly engaged.
It was during the first week of March and President Wilson having
returned to the United States for a brief period, there was a temporary
lull in the activities of the Peace Conference.
One morning, opening a note at the breakfast table, Miss Patricia Lord
frowned and glanced over toward Mrs. Burton. At the same instant the Camp
Fire guardian was reading a letter of her own, and although aware of Miss
Patricia’s gaze, made no effort to return it, or reply in any fashion.
Under the present circumstances, which she chanced to understand, the
first remark must emanate from Miss Patricia.
“Young David Hale has written me to say that if we like he has been able
to obtain permission for us to make a day’s journey along the edge of one
of the French battlefields. I presume this may be partly due to the fact
that I told him the other evening it was my intention to devote the rest
of my life and fortune toward helping with the restoration work in
France. I also told him that it was probably my wish to erect a monument
to the heroes who died for France near one of the battlefields, although
I did not say what the character of the monument would be,” Miss Patricia
declared, finally breaking the silence.
“Do you mean that it may be possible for any of the Camp Fire girls to
make the journey with you?” Bettina Graham demanded impetuously and then
subsided, observing that Miss Patricia was not in a mood at present to
open a discussion with her.
“Yes,” Mrs. Burton returned quietly, “it sounds like a remarkable
opportunity, Aunt Patricia. I have a letter from Senator Duval saying he
has been pleased to use his influence to accomplish what Mr. Hale
requested. And, although the French Government is not for the present
permitting tourists to journey over her battlefields, a special
concession has been made in view of your services and your desire to aid
France. Senator Duval would like to travel with us, as it is necessary we
should have a Frenchman of authority and influence as our companion. I
suppose you do not mind, Aunt Patricia, as there is no danger from a
German shell these days and I shall try to keep out of trouble?”
Refusing to reply to Mrs. Burton’s final remark, Miss Patricia arose.
“We are to leave Paris at five o’clock next Thursday morning and travel a
number of hours by train. When we arrive at our first destination an
automobile belonging to the French government will meet us. We will then
motor to whatever portion of the battleground we are to be permitted to
see. Our party can be made up of six persons. This will mean, besides
Mrs. Burton and myself, four Camp Fire girls.
“Polly, kindly decide who the four girls are to be.”
And Miss Patricia Lord departed, leaving Mrs. Burton to a by no means
simple task.
Notwithstanding, it was finally arranged that Bettina Graham, Peggy
Webster, Yvonne Fleury and Marguerite Arnot should compose the number,
two of them Americans and two French girls.
Six days later, in the darkness and cold of an early spring morning, the
party of six women, accompanied by the French Senator and David Hale left
Paris, arriving a little before noon at a French wayside station where
the line of railroad communication direct from Paris had never been
destroyed throughout the war. Awaiting them was not one but two motors,
each containing a French officer as well as the chauffeur. Into one Miss
Patricia Lord, Bettina Graham, Marguerite Arnot and David Hale entered
and the other was filled by Mrs. Burton, Senator Duval, Yvonne Fleury and
Peggy Webster.
By noon a little pale March sunshine had come filtering through the
clouds, faintly warming the earth.
A curious scene surrounded the wayside station. Stacked in long lines
down the road leading from it were broken and disused cannons and machine
guns, German and French. There were also giant piles of steel helmets,
pieces of shell, twisted and rusted bayonets, all the tragic refuse of a
cleared battleground after the fury of war has passed.
The spectacle was too grim to inspire much conversation.
Further along there were open spaces which showed where the French and
American camps had stood behind the fighting lines. But the tents
themselves had been folded and the paraphernalia of life moved on with
the Army of Occupation to the left bank of the Rhine.
In the present vicinity there were no birds to be seen, no trees, no
signs of vegetation, only the desolation which follows on the heels of
war.
Bettina Graham, who was sitting next David Hale in the rapidly moving
French car, shivered and clasped her hands tightly together inside her
fur muff.
“Is this your first visit to the devastated French country, Miss Graham?
I wonder if you won’t regret the trip? It does not seem to me that girls
and women should look upon such things as we may see today, except of
course Miss Lord, who appears to have a special reason. Yet she insists
as many Americans as possible should visit the French battleground later
when peace is declared. Not until then can they realize what France has
endured. I don’t know whether I agree with her.”
Bettina smiled, but not very gaily.
“After all you realize, Mr. Hale, that your opinion will not affect Aunt
Patricia. And we of course have seen portions of the devastated French
country in our work on the Aisne, but nothing like this.”
In the few weeks of their acquaintance David Hale and Bettina had become
fairly intimate friends. Indeed the young man had confided to Bettina his
ambition for the future. It seemed that he had not a large fortune of his
own, yet nevertheless wished to devote his time and energy not to the
mere making of money, but to becoming as he expressed it, “a soldier of
peace” serving his country in times of peace as a soldier serves her in
war, for the honor rather than the material gain. He had been working in
a diplomatic position in Washington before the entry of the United States
into the war and because his work was considered of too great importance
to resign, he had not been allowed to enter the army. Sent afterwards to
France on a special mission he had been retained to serve as an
under-secretary of the Peace Congress. At present David Hale believed
that his future might depend upon the reputation he acquired among the
older and more celebrated men with whom he was associated.
And for the first time in her life Bettina was enjoying an intimacy with
a young fellow near her own age who was interested in the things in which
she was interested.
Without being handsome David Hale had a fine strong face with interesting
dark gray eyes and a smile which illuminated his entire expression.
During the next quarter of an hour he and Bettina talked but little, the
greater part of the time listening to the French officer who was
describing to Miss Patricia the fighting which had taken place in the
neighborhood.
“It was here that the German troops broke through three times and three
times the French with one half their number repelled them. It is
possible, Madame, that the French government might be willing to allow a
portion of this ground to be used for a monument should you or your
countrymen and women desire so to honor France.”
But Miss Patricia answered nothing.
They were approaching a piece of ground which had once been a field, but
now instead of the bare and upturned soil one saw little mounds and
wooden and iron crosses set in long uneven rows. Springing up amid the
crosses were crocuses, the first shoots of hyacinths, of narcissus and
daffodils.
The Frenchmen and the young American removed their hats.
“A bit of France’s holy ground,” the French officer again explained to
Miss Patricia. “Over in that field are buried the Allies, whom no
difference of opinion, no unfaith can ever estrange, Americans, British
and French are sleeping side by side.”
It must have been through Mrs. Burton’s request that at this moment her
motor which was in advance halted and its occupants climbed down.
“Senator Duval wishes to see if a friend of his lies here, Aunt
Patricia,” Mrs. Burton explained.
She then turned to Senator Duval:
“No, I would rather not look with you if you don’t mind. Some of the
others in the party will wish to. I find it too saddening to see more
than one must.”
Just beyond the hallowed ground there was a little hill, which by some
strange freak of circumstance was covered with a group of young fruit
trees which had escaped the surrounding devastation.
Mrs. Burton, Miss Lord, Yvonne Fleury and the two French officers moved
over toward this hill and climbed to its summit.
The others followed Senator Duval upon his quest. Purposely Bettina
Graham had separated herself from David Hale, allowing him to take charge
of the young French girl, Marguerite Arnot. Several times Bettina had
believed they seemed unusually interested in each other and it was not
her idea in any way to demand too much of the young man’s attention.
“From here one has a surprising view of the French country,” Captain
Lamont, who had been Miss Patricia’s guide, explained.
“Over there toward the southeast is Château-Thierry and not far off the
Forest of Argonne. I wonder if you know that until the American soldiers
fought so gallantly and so victoriously in this same forest of Argonne it
had been thought throughout all French history an impossible place of
battle. So you see you came, saw and conquered,” the French officer
finished gallantly.
“Nonsense!” Miss Patricia returned in her fiercest manner. “The one thing
I am most weary of hearing discussed is which of the allied nations won
the war, as if one had a greater claim than the rest, save the claim that
France has of having lost more of her men.”
“Polly Burton,” suddenly Miss Patricia seemed to have forgotten the rest
of her audience, “I have been thinking not only today but for many days
what character of monument I should like to be allowed to build in
France. Probably the government may not permit me to do what I wish, but
the idea I have been looking for has come to me, come from that resting
place of the allied soldiers over there.”
And Miss Patricia waved her hand toward the burying ground.
“Here I should like on this very hill top to build a home for the
children of the soldiers who have died in France, a home where they may
live, play and work together, speaking the same languages, thinking the
same thoughts. We are struggling for a better understanding, a deeper
unity between the allied nations. It can come best through the children
whose fathers have died for the same cause. After we grow old I fear many
of us learn nothing and forget nothing. And I should like to inscribe
above the door of the home I shall build ‘Glorious France, the
Battleground of Liberty.’”
Then a little abashed of her outburst and scarcely conscious of the
importance of her suggestion, Miss Lord turned and went her way apart
from the others. She was not to know at that time how her idea spoken
with such impulsiveness and with her usual generosity was later to bear
richer fruit than she then dreamed.
However, neither Mrs. Burton, the two French officers, nor Bettina and
Yvonne failed to realize the significance of her utterance.