hem to give up their old notions and customs, but it
meant a new order for all who were in the pathway of the war. While the
city of Paris has been always known as the Gay City, yet the people in
the country did not enjoy life in any such way. They had no amusements,
no daily papers, and in some places no songs. The famous Man with the
Hoe is a picture of the French farmer. In many of the rebuilt villages
now they have amusements and movies and in many cases public libraries
have been started.

It is said that in many of the farmhouses of the French peasantry may be
seen hanging little colored prints representing the main professions. At
the top of a stairway stands a king with the motto: "I rule you all," on
a step below is a priest who says: "I pray for you all;" still farther
down stands the soldier who says: "I defend you all;" but at the bottom
of the stairway is the peasant whose motto is: "I feed you all." The
French peasant seemed to take this for granted and never imagined that
while doing it he might have advantages and pleasures that would help to
make life worth living.

Of course, there are great industries and industrial centers in France.
The city of Lille was, before the war, the Pittsburg of France. This
city was not only the center of the textile industry, but had scores and
hundreds of factories and machine shops of all kinds. While the city
itself was not totally destroyed, the factories were almost completely
ruined. In some cases railroad tracks were laid into the buildings and
whole trainloads of costly machinery were shipped out of the country. I
saw the inside of many of these buildings where high explosives were
used and all that was left was the shell of the building, the inside
being one mass of twisted iron girders and broken concrete.

Of course, the idea of the enemy was to make it impossible for French
factories to ever again compete with their own so they attempted to
destroy all they left. They especially looked after all patterns and
plans and thought they were making a clean sweep. In one case a great
factory that covered sixty acres of ground was destroyed. But the owners
had a branch factory in southern France and immediately began
manufacturing duplicate machinery so that when the war closed all that
was needed was the transportation facilities to get the machinery to
Lille.

In the great coal fields about Lens the works and machinery were so
completely destroyed that one could