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and reports no casualties, but says that the German shell exploded on the edge of the trench, and brings a fragment of it, and one of the missiles with which it was filled, which the major courteously gives you as souvenirs.

And so you learn that what you had supposed to be the sound of the near-by French guns, was in reality the explosion of German shells aimed at this particular party of officers, and following them from trench to trench. One officer has counted them-there were twenty-nine in all. It is explained that this seemingly impossible phenomenon probably occurred in the following way:

When the six automobiles were seen from the German position descending the hill, where the French batteries had been working so swiftly, a German aeroplane, equipped with wireless apparatus, had been sent up to note and report the party's progress and destination. This aerial observer, it was surmised, had sent a wireless message that a party of officers and three civilians had left these automobiles at a certain point, disappeared in the long approaching trench, reappeared in the village street, and entered the fighting trenches.

To the Germans, this probably had meant that the officers were a French general and his staff, and the civilians important French functionaries, perhaps the Minister of War, who frequently makes such excursions, or the President of the Republic. Had the Germans known that it was only an innocuous neutral observer, his secretary and an agent from the Foreign Office, they would not of course have wasted a grain of powder on us. But it would never do to permit so

distinguished a party, as it might well have been, to depart without paying their military compliments. No indeed! So "Bang!" "Smash!" and scurrying into bomb proof and running in open trench.

And thus chanced the good luck of being the object of twenty-nine well directed German shells!

"It would be amusing," remarks a genial French officer, "if those directing that fire were some of the friends you made at the German front! What a joke if that were so, and you ever get to tell them about it!" And he laughed pleasantly. You laugh also, but say that you do not think it likely, for it was another part of the western German front you visited.

"I am sorry to trouble you, but we shall have to run through these uncovered trenches. And bend over, please. It won't do to stand still for a minute, nor show your head for an instant."

Thus advises the commanding officer. And run you do, and hard running it is, the major leading the way; not in the speed you make, though you achieve good progress, but in the difficulty of going rapidly while bending forward through narrow winding trenches with uneven floors.

No incident is without humor, and here fun runs before you. The officer immediately preceding you is a very large man and much heavier even than his great height requires. Also, he still wears his thick winter military overcoat. He is quite winded when half of a mile has been traveled, and at the end of a long run, is perspiring like a longshoreman at heavy labor in August.

"Phew!" he says, "I had rather fight!" The scion,

this, of an ancient house, whose good humor, stolid courage and lack of pretense have made him beloved in spite of his rank.

"Oh, yes! is no good for a charge! But put him in command of a position, and he will take a comfortable chair and cheerfully get himself shot to death. His courage is of the staying kind, rather than of the dashing kind. I am quite sure that it never would to retreat. He is bravery itself but

occur to

he is not built for charging."

Thus your attention is brought to another fact worth noting. This sturdy soldier was spoken of as his patronymic. He was spoken of, too, as captain. His title was utterly ignored. A duke, count, prince, baron, marquis, or any other like title, does not exist for the French soldier or officer. There are plenty of these in France, and of the most ancient blood. But the French soldier declines to recognize the fact, and to their infinite credit, it must be said that these highborn ones with inherited titles, decidedly respect them that they do not.

X

FRANCE IN ARMS*

HE most notable result of the war in France is

THE

one of the finest human circumstances which the war has developed in any country. The revealing light of this world-changing conflict has discovered a strong, quiet, serious France, earnest and elevated in character. There has been a new birth of idealism; certainly this is true among the intellectual classes, and in the higher social circles.

The French man and woman, from these sections of the French people, declare that this moral and spiritual phenomenon so conspicuous and undeniable even to the casual observer is nothing new or strange; they assert, on the contrary, that this French attitude of mind and soul, its eyes fixed upon the stars instead of upon the gutter, is the old, the real and the true French spirit which has been there all the time though unnoted by an idle world bent on gaiety.

"Paris and all France," said one of the old Faubourg nobility, a traveled gentleman of serious purpose, totally unlike a peculiar type which has been held up to us Americans as representative of this ancient class; "Paris and all France," said he, "is like a noble

* Written aboard ship, March 21, 1915.

old house of granite, with simple beautiful lines, its foundations fixed in rock. Here and there it had been defaced by stucco. The idle passer-by saw only this grotesque exterior, and judged the house accordingly. At the shock of war, this has fallen away, and there stands the real Paris and the real France, solid, simple, beautiful and enduring."

Said another of the same station in life: "We are like Kipling's ship that found itself; there have been many complaining and contending voices among the timbers of our new France; but now that the storm is on us, we find that the period of friction is over, harmony prevails and the nation rides the waves with an unity of purpose which has surprised even ourselves. In short, France has found herself."

Such are typical French interpretations of presentday France and its capital. Whether accurate or not, the future alone will disclose. But it is the calm estimate of the best thought, and the firm conviction of the highest character among the French people. It is felt even by the cautious observer trying to hold a steady balance of just proportion, that one statement at least may be ventured with confidence: The American visitor to or resident of the French capital never again will see the Paris to which some were accustomed. Vanity and show, surface and neurotic delights, ennui and overfashion, have passed away. The intellectual pessimist, the blasé in life and character, that tinsled gaiety in conduct which the sated mistook for pleasure all these have gone.

None of these things is in vogue any more in Paris. The serious, the thoughtful, the idealistic,

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