y years of age in France, if they asked
them to perform this act of devotion, and to be the
companions of the mutilated, maimed men of France?...

Then, too, the women who had only their dignity and their high spirit
to defend themselves against the grossness and the insults of the
Prussians, have been the incarnation of the spirit of France.

An old woman who dwelt in a village on the Aisne was spattered with
mud by the Kaiser as he passed by on horseback. He made a gesture
excusing himself. She fixed her eyes on him and said simply:

"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be washed off."

A great lady in one of the chateaux in the invaded regions, had to
receive one of the Kaiser's sons. The day of his departure he sent for
her to thank her for the hospitality she had shown him. The old lady,
looking at him, contented herself with replying:

"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you here."

And she reentered her house with all dignity.

* * * * *

Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this,
France has been able to fight on, and will be able to fight to the
end. Because the women of France have been all this and have done all
this, the soldiers, in the mud of the trenches, revere them as
Madonnas.

The historian Tacitus tells somewhere how, on a hot spring day, a
slave, panting and worn out, entered one of the gates of the Eternal
City. He crossed the Forum without stopping and, in his course,
mounted the Hill of Mars. Finally he came to one of the greatest
houses of the patrician section of the city. His cries and shouts
filled the house:

"Alas, alas!" he cried.

A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress of the house, the famous
Cornelia Graccha.

"What news do you bring?" she asked.

"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle down there in Umbria,
two of your sons have been killed."

"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have the Barbarians been
conquered?"

"They have, Cornelia."

"Then what matters the death of my sons if my country is victorious!"

Those wonderful words have been handed down from generation to
generation as a symbol of what ancient Rome was. Those words thousands
of French women have uttered for the last four years, and they still
utter them today. Other voices answer them. They rise from the
trenches, and they say:

"Be without fear, women of France. For you we will fight to
our