dious and toilsome marching, just as the men
were about to fall in, the General {454} overhead the remark--"Ah! when
will we get home?" "Ah, mes garcons," laughed the General--

"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre
Mais quand reviendra-t-il?"

"Malbrouck has gone a-fighting,
But when will he return?"

and with their characteristic light-heartedness the men caught up the
famous old air and the march was resumed without a murmur.

These _chansons populaires_ of French Canada afford some evidence of
the tenacity with which the people cling to the customs, traditions,
and associations of the land of their origin. Indeed, a love for Old
France lies still deep in the hearts of the people, and both young and
old study her best literature, and find their greatest pride in her
recognition of their poets and writers. But while there exists among
the more influential and cultured class a sentimental attachment to Old
France, there is a still deeper feeling, strengthened by the political
freedom and material progress of the past forty years, that the
connection with the British Empire gives the best guaranty for the
preservation of their liberties and rights. This feeling has found
frequent expression in the forcible utterances of Sir Wilfrid, the late
Premier of the Dominion. No doubt the influence of the Roman Catholic
priesthood has had much to do with perpetuating the connexion with
England. They feel that it is {455} not by a connexion with France or
the United States that their religious and civil institutions can be
best conserved.

All classes now agree as to the necessity of preserving the federal
system in its entirety, since it ensures better than any other system
of government the rights and interests of the French Canadian
population in all those matters most deeply affecting a people speaking
a language, professing a religion, and retaining certain institutions
different from those of the majority of the people of the Dominion.

[Illustration: A characteristic snapshot of Sir Robert Borden at the
Peace Conference, 1919.]

No French Canadian writer or politician of weight in the country now
urges so impossible or suicidal a scheme as the foundation of an
independent French nationality on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The
history of the fifty years that have elapsed since the dark days of
Canada, when Papineau wished to establish a "Nation Canadienne," goes
to show that the governing classes of the En