The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Book Of Martyrs, by Georges Duhamel

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Title: The New Book Of Martyrs

Author: Georges Duhamel

Translator: Florence Simmonds

Release Date: August, 2003 [Etext# 4325]
Posting Date: January 12, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE NEW BOOK OF MARTYRS

By Georges Duhamel

Translated by Florence Simmonds

CONTENTS

THROUGHOUT OUR LAND
THE STORY OF CARRE AND LERONDEAU
MEMORIES OF THE MARTYRS
THE DEATH OF MERCIER
VERDUN
THE SACRIFICE
THE THIRD SYMPHONY
GRACE
NIGHTS IN ARTOIS

THE NEW BOOK OF MARTYRS

THROUGHOUT OUR LAND

From the disfigured regions where the cannon reigns supreme, to the
mountains of the South, to the ocean, to the glittering shores of the
inland sea, the cry of wounded men echoes throughout the land, and a
vast kindred cry seems to rise responsive from the whole world.

There is no French town in which the wounds inflicted on the
battle-field are not bleeding. Not one which has not accepted the duty
of assuaging something of the sum of suffering, just as it bears its
part in the sum of mourning; not one which may not hear within its own
walls an echo of the greater lamentation swelling and muttering where
the conflict seems to rage unceasingly. The waves of war break upon the
whole surface of the country, and like the incoming tide, strew it with
wreckage.

In the beds which the piety of the public has prepared on every side,
stricken men await the verdict of fate. The beds are white, the bandages
are spotless; many faces smile until the hour when they are flushed with
fever, and until that same fever makes a whole nation of wounded tremble
on the Continent.

Some one who had been visiting the wounded said to me: "The beds are
really very white, the dressings are clean, all the patients seem to
be playing cards, reading the papers, eating dainties; they are simple,
often very gentle, they don't look very unhappy. They all tell t