is scattering the
children, and an _ordonnance_ descends. A note, written by the
General's own left hand--he lost his right arm in consequence of a
wound at the Dardanelles--invites us to dinner with him and his staff
forthwith--the motor will return for us. So, joyously, we made what
simple change we could, and in another hour or so we were waiting in
the General's study for the great man to appear. He came at once, and
I look back upon the evening that followed as one of the most
interesting that Fate has yet sent my way.

As he entered I saw a man of slight, erect figure, lame, indeed, and
with that sad, empty sleeve, but conveying an immediate and startling
impression as of some fiery, embodied force, dominating the slender
frame. He had a short beard, brown and silky, dark hair, and a pair of
clear blue eyes, shrewd, indeed, and penetrating, but singularly
winning. A soldier, a most modern soldier, yet with an infusion of
something romantic, a touch of thoughtful or melancholy charm that
recalled old France. He was dressed in a dark blue mess coat, red
breeches, and top boots, with three or four orders sparkling on his
breast. His manners were those of an old-fashioned and charming
courtesy.

As is well known, like Marshal Foch and General Castelnau, General
Gouraud is a Catholic. And like General Mangin, the great Joffre
himself, Gallieni, Franchet d'Esperey, d'Humbert, and other
distinguished leaders of the French Army, he made his reputation in
the French Colonial service. In Morocco, and the neighbouring lands,
where he spent some twenty-two years, from 1892 to 1914, he was the
right-hand of General Lyautey, and conspicuous no less for his
humanity, his peace-making, and administrative genius than for his
brilliant services in the field. When the war broke out General
Lyautey indeed tried for a time to keep him at his side. But the
impulse of the younger soldier was too strong; and his chief at last
let him go. Gouraud arrived in France just after the Marne victory,
and was at once given the command of a division in the Argonne. He
spent the first winter of the war in that minute study of the ground,
and that friendly and inspiring intercourse with his soldiers, which
have been two of the marked traits of his career, and when early in
1915 he was transferred to Champagne, as Commander of a Corps d'Armee,
he had time, before he was called away, to make a survey of the
battle-field east of Rheims, which was of