"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded in the burning church--fired by German shells!
The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen.
Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, so shiningly as in the New France.
Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed. When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head, the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is, prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field of death between the lines.