The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people so close together that social and party differences have disappeared. The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity, such universal and concentrated will.
This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they have! That is faith made evident, and love.
In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has had a bountiful satisfaction in this war.